Hear more about Simon's work in his own words, below.
This is a zine, very loosely modelled on pamphlets authored by Sir John Soane. It collects the research and collaborations that Simon Faride, who added an ‘e’ to his surname just as Soane did, undertook while a Jerwood Artist in Residence at the Soane Museum in 2025.
The topic of Faride’s pamphlet is ‘ruin value’ (Ruinenwert). This is a concept which was coined after Soane’s time, but it is clearly visible in some of his ideas. In basic terms, is it the desire to design a building to function successfully both in its original form and later as a successful ruin. This ambition can be seen most clearly in Joseph Michael Gandy’s ‘Architectural ruins, a vision’ (1798). Faride playfully expands on this idea in the pamphlet, looking to apply this notion of design for post-function to other areas, in particular as a way of imagining potential museum futures.
What results is a zine comprising a scrapbook of playful experimentation with the Soane Museum’s collection. It is a collaborative document, with numerous formal and informal contributions from staff across the Museum. The zine represents the Soane Museum as a living place and explores institutional and anecdotal knowledge production, retention, expertise and transfer. We are left with a collection of playful speculations and interventions which appear alongside serious consideration of conservation and the long-term future of museums.
Day Book
While Jerwood Artist in Residence at the Soane in 2025, artist Simon Faride was introduced to the Soane Museum’s collection of ‘Day Books’. These books record the details of the workings of Soane's architectural office on a daily basis between 1 January 1791 and 20 January 1837, save for a couple of gaps along the way. They were maintained by Soane’s pupils at the time.
Inspired by Soane’s approach to record keeping, and in an effort to imagine himself as a successor to Soane’s pupils, Faride maintained his own ‘Day Book’ while at Sir John Soane’s Museum. In it he detailed his day-to-day activities working in the Drawing Office. The result is a project diary that doubles as a portrait of a living museum, describing interactions and assistance from departments across the whole institution.
Simon Farid(e) Bio
Simon Farid is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice centres on drawing as an investigative and performative act. Whether tracing bureaucratic systems, re-mapping urban infrastructure, or visually interpreting data flows, Farid uses drawing to render visible the invisible frameworks that govern identity and public life. His work frequently combines traditional draughtsmanship with digital processes and speculative cartographies.
