In 2019, the British Library launched a new marketing campaign that listed Shops, Cafés, The whole wealth of human knowledge, endeavour and experience to date, Events and Exhibitions among their attractions. While tongue-in-cheek, the claim to contain “the whole wealth of human knowledge, endeavour and experience to date” invoked the commonly held idea of an authoritative comprehensiveness among western institutions. In the age of (mis)information, AI, and expanding plurality of sources, audiences are increasingly dedicating attention to considerations of authorship, data/visual literacy, and the parameters of the digital-human experience.
Building upon ideas tested with ARM at Bankley and Holden galleries, this installation will use sound, film, and collage to evoke the exhilaration—and discomfort—of engaging with historical archives in the information age. Moving through a sequence of intimately lit areas demarcated by floor-to-ceiling collaged stage flats, visitors will encounter irregularly shaped film screens/projections embedded among the alcoves and recesses. The films will incorporate cut-up clips of public domain footage, looped, layered, and soundtracked with ambient music and reassembled spoken-word fragments from 100-year-old literary texts, creating enigmatic juxtapositions with the imagery at each point in the space. Images will be selected from local libraries, family archives and open-source collections, to illuminate revisions, erasures, and other thought-provoking aspects of the historical record.
Experience and expertise
To make the collages for this exhibition, I intend to work with Apapat Jai-in Glynn, Rowland Hill, and Xhi Ndubisi, who I have collaborated with previously to interpret The Portico Library’s colonial era book collection with diverse local communities. My ARM colleagues Navid Asghari and David Rogerson, both of whom also grew up in Essex, would contribute to the installation’s soundtrack.
As The Lowry’s Curator of Contemporary Art (2023), I worked closely with the North West’s most-visited arts destination’s gallery, theatre and AV technicians, furthering my experience designing ambitious installations for Jo Lathwood’s Making Up and Nikta Mohammadi’s Memory Stone. I would employ these skills to ensure economical and practical design, safety, sensitivity, and positive visitor experiences. As with my recent collaborations with Jo, and with Maria Nepomuceno, sustainability would be central to the project. Collages can be created using recycled and recyclable paper and vegetable inks, timber can be pre- and re-used, supplementary lighting can use 80% carbon-saving LEDs, and public transport can be used where possible, among other measures. In my position at The Lowry, I obtained grant funding from Arts Council England and the Henry Moore Foundation by drawing upon insights gained coordinating The Portico Library’s successful £5m NLHF development project application. I would bring these skills, plus community learning and engagement experience from my role with The World Reimagined and other partnerships to this project.
