It's Cold Outside
2018
Powder-coated steel, acrylic, coal and fluorescent tube lighting

The Highest Order
2019
Emulsion on MDF, acrylic, white stone, vinyl and fluorescent tube lighting

Site-specific installations commissioned by Selfridges & Co.

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Presented as part of State of the Arts at Selfridges Trafford Centre in 2019, It's Cold Outside (2018) and The Highest Order (2019) expanded Kay Shah's print-based practice into large-scale sculptural installation. The works explored imagined architectural spaces situated between utopian and dystopian states.

At the centre of the project was the notion of a world inhabited by abstract geometric beings, creating spaces that operate as windows between realities. Drawing inspiration from the surrounding cityscape, Shah transformed architectural forms, industrial materials and atmospheric conditions into immersive environments shaped by light, colour and perspective.

Influenced by reflections on rain-soaked streets and the interplay between illumination and shadow, the installations examined contrasts between harshness and refuge, rigidity and openness. Fluorescent lighting, painted surfaces, steel structures and raw materials were brought together to construct environments that invited viewers to momentarily step outside the familiar.

The works sought to cultivate moments of contemplation and immersion, encouraging a sense of dislocation from everyday experience and proposing alternative spaces for reflection. Through the tension between light and dark, order and ambiguity, the installations imagined environments poised between comfort and uncertainty, inviting viewers to inhabit a space beyond the routines of daily life.