End of the Line 2
- Artist: Penny Slinger
- Date: 1977
- Medium: Black and white gelatin silver prints on paper, ink and graphite on black and white gelatin silver print on paper
- Dimensions: support: 373 x 460 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the "End of the Line 2" by Penny Slinger, a striking black and white gelatin silver print collage that measures 373 × 460 mm. It belongs to a series of self‑portraits she assembled over seven years in the near‑derelict Lilford Hall near Peterborough in Northamptonshire. Slinger described the estate’s abandoned rooms as having an “evocative power” that drove her to layer images and sketch in ink and graphite over the silver print, creating a performative montage that feels both theatrical and introspective.
The work was published in 1977 as part of the book *An Exorcism*, a collection that echoes early surrealists like Claude Cahun, Hannah Höch and Dorothea Behrens. Slinger’s collages use the tools of that movement to probe the feminist psyche, to dig into unconscious desire and the memory of space. The staged scenes, filmed and photographed in the ruins, reveal her own “mises‑en‑scène”—a way of confronting and emerging from a nightmare of others’ projections.
*End of the Line 2* sits alongside five other collages in the Tate Britain collection, offering a vivid window into a moment when photography, collage and performance converged to interrogate identity and liberation.
See it in person
End of the Line 2 is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
