‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’, 2010

'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' (detail), 2010

Awarded a Creative Technician placement, at Battersea Arts Centre, in 2009, it was during this period that Forrest began to produce site-reflective installations beyond the gallery environment. Drawing upon her mothers cleaning rituals, ‘Still Life’, 2010, and ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’, 2010, responded to, two semi-derelict spaces in the heart of London, using soap as a means to explore the notion of what it meant to cleanse an environment literally, socially, ethically and spiritually.

'Home(less)' (detail), 2006

At ‘The Market Estate Project’, based in Islington, 30+ artists were invited to respond to a large community being rehomed from their much loved but dilapidated apartment block. Forrest’s site-reflective installation ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’, 2010, left a similarly sensitive trace, using soap and furniture protection as a means to refigure the familiar. Accommodating fragments of soap cast, teacups and saucers, on the verge of being washed down the drain, light, when entering the undressed window of the former living room, flickered impressions of netted curtains, caught dancing across the walls, while the warmth of the sun left a sterile scent in the air. A transparent, hand-stitched silhouette of an armchair, hung in the corner, not protecting the furnishing that was no longer there, but counterbalanced its distorted doppelganger, who’s shadow loomed large, obscuring the unlit doorway that led out to the hall.