Accompanying the 2017 Portico Library Reminiscence Project for people with dementia and their carers, five contemporary artists consider different aspects of ‘memory’. Asia Triennial Manchester Director Alnoor Mitha, Neo Artists’ Maggie Hargreaves, Jameel Prize nominee Saima Rasheed, Bankley Studios’ Stacey Coughlin and Cult Party’s Leo Robinson offer a variety of starting points for thinking about what memory is and the role that it plays in our lives: where it comforts or troubles us; where it motivates us to preserve our world; where it helps to build culture and identity; where it brings us together; where it gives form to our personal stories.
From the ‘Waters of Lethe’ of Ancient Greek myth to Wordsworth’s ‘spots of time’; from intimate Mughal miniatures to the Preservation movement’s founding thinkers, art and literature continually return to themes of memory.
Saima Rasheed was born and grew up in Lahore, where she achieved her Bachelors Degree at the National College of Arts, Pakistan, specialising in Indo-Persian miniature painting in the traditional style. After further study and a solo residency at the L’École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence in France, she moved to the UK where she now lives with her family in the Derbyshire Peak District, working as an artist, illustrator and teacher. She has received an Arts Council England award, exhibited at Colombo Art Biennale and been nominated for the V&A’s prestigious Jameel Prize for international contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition. Rasheed’s paintings are rooted centuries-old techniques, but like many of her contemporaries, she has rejected conventional themes for modern, topical ones. Through her choice of imagery she invites us to think about human rights within society’s constraints – of gender, traditions, taboos, religion and culture. Her work in The Portico Library's current exhibition, 'Recollection: Memory & Time', is deeply personal, portraying her own remembered experiences, both good and bad. For example, being forbidden as a female child over a certain age to play in the streets, and how this solitude led to hours of drawing. Also depicted and celebrated here are women on the cusp of creative moments or absorbed in their favorite activities – singing, knitting, drawing and reading – when unconscious impulses replace cultural expectations. Saima’s paintings – based on her direct and intimate observation of her friends and family – become focal points for shared reminiscence, like photographs in an album.
In his work, Leo Robinson narrates the origin stories and founding myths of a fictional micro-civilisation, whose knowledge, beliefs, art, morals and customs echo real-world cultural constructs. This world-building exercise allows the artist to explore and critique fundamental ideas relating to the blocs of thinking that make up civilisation, such as progress, religion and aesthetics. Referencing Plato, and the birth of conceptual thought, Robinson is interested in studying how humans deal with the prospect of transformation through abstract belief formation, and observes the human tendency to cling to ideas with the expectation of transcendental or transformative outcomes.
Maggie Hargreaves is concerned with our interactions with and interventions in the living world. Our increasing reliance on indirect, mediated experience through TV, cinema and console games distances us from the ‘real’ world affecting the way it is perceived and treated. She is interested in creating work which can be approached from various entry points. Hints of narrative trigger associations which may lead in different directions. Often photographic representation and figuration are used to encourage connection with the illusory space in the work. In some instances the illusion is further developed as an immersive installation.
Stacey Coughlin is a Community Visual Artist, Counsellor and Emotional Support Worker. Working with a number of organisations, groups and participants her practice has developed through working with a variety of age ranges in different settings on projects and one off sessions for individuals to explore their wellbeing and creativity to various medias. These have included workshops with children and young people’s in youth group activities and public workshops, to adults with mental health issues and her main area of interest working with older people in the community and permanent residential care. As an emotional support worker, Stacey provides counselling skills one-to-one in an art group setting. She has also provided counselling for older people in their own homes through Age UK Stockport.
Alnoor is a Senior Research Fellow (Asian Cultures), Manchester School of Art, and the research Centre leader for Asian Cultures. He is the founding Artistic Director of the award winning, Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM) festival at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University. He is an adjunct Professor at Beaconhouse university, Lahore, Pakistan and Visiting Professor of Teesside University. He was a trustee for the Manchester Crafts & Design Centre. He is part of a team as steering committee member for the new Centre for the Race & Racism Studies at MMU. He has also been appointed to the prestigious, Peer Review College - UKRI AHRC.
Alnoor Mitha is specialist in South Asian contemporary visual art with over 20 years research, teaching and leadership experience, his research intersects critical exchange between Manchester, Asia and its international global Diaspora. His research investigates into the role of the 21st century curator to evidence unheard or marginalised Asian voices and experiences through visual arts and cultural programming. This is achieved through a prism of cultural and visual narratives by local and international artists and cultural thinkers. He has curated several award winning regional, national and international exhibitions, events, and conferences that have had a huge impact on equality diversity and inclusion agenda, that relates to the decolonising the curricula whilst discovering new knowledge and understanding for the wider communities. This creative impact has also led to the production of scholarly publications bringing new artistic disciplines on the field. Moreover, he has built a strong archive on Asian cultures, with around 20 publications with existing artistic networks both nationally and internationally. Mitha has also been featured in the Guardian and the BBC.