Thursday 10 December 2015

Lost & Found Museum, exhibition overview

This project has been evolving since the second brief of 1st year, well actually it has been progressing steadily since my foundation year and has gone through some different incarnations and is, still evolving.

If ever there were an artist or philosophy that has influenced and liberated my approach to my work it is Duchamp, as he claimed he had "created a new thought for that object." He rejected the assumption that art must be linked to the craft of the hand and instead argued that a work of art should be primarily about the artist's idea.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917/1964 · SFMOMA . 2015. Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917/1964 · SFMOMA . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.291. [Accessed 10 December 2015]

This concept forms the basis of my current avenues of research and interest.








One of the presentations during the "As We Are Away" festival that was on for one night in my exhibition

Sue Bamford during the Bunny making workshop on the opening night





















It seeks to question what the nature of a museum must be, we all know what is is and was but as the world changes does it have to stay this way? Of course my friends at the "real" museum know what it is... but I ask, can a museum hold a specific collection purely online? Can it exist as a pop up for a few weeks a year, and what else? This project will continue and I will allow the people who participate to help set this direction as much as me, I would like to see something grow quite naturally here and not force something.

The focus of my particular museum is loss and discovery, found objects, their value and place in the world of art (for example what is this one little fragment in the street, is it worth anything, alone does it matter or does it only begin to accrue value once placed within the context of a collection?)
and the collecting impulse being a large part of it all the way to the profound effects of losing one's way in the world or a loved one, this is clearly something that has a huge variety of ways it can be experienced. My own interest in this came about due to experiencing something, the now near infamous bike story..



. it led me down a rabbit hole of curiosity and now this project is firmly rooted in my working practice for the foreseeable future. It will be a long term project and will fit around and within other work.

It took me two full days to set up with the help of Adrian and Hollie from uni and Laurence, a contributor and friend.

So, December 3rd saw not only near torrential downpours in Manchester but the opening of the Exhibition I have been working on. Considering the weather the turnout was impressive and the feedback equally so.
Here are some of my photos of the exhibition


Textile artist Sue Bamford came up from Cornwall with her 1000 bunnies project and held a bunny making workshop during the opening night, many people left with a bunny of their own and we have since installed them in the wonder Inn where they are for sale. All the proceeds of this go to funding a school for girls in Dahab, Egypt which is connected to a big project Sue works on there.
( the bunnies are in Manchester and for sale through me or the Wonder Inn, get in touch if you are interested)


 One of the main things I discovered during this initial run of the project was that there is clearly a desire for people to share their stories in this way, their experiences, their collections and their stories. People were connecting with each other over reading other people's stories and sharing their own. Almost every person I spoke to asked me if I would please do this again and how could they become involved. Even my lovely Manchester Museum colleagues helped out. Although I wanted to raid the stores of old cabinets... maybe next time!

I made new friends and colleagues during this as well, a man who submitted a piece of work to the project stayed with me during the set up, whole run and the breakdown, he did the lights and has become my number one glamorous assistant!

One of the highlights for me of this project was regarding a set of photographic negatives I had found two and a half years ago now, while researching and collecting found objects for another project I was in a brownfield site in Salford, close to my house... it has been empty for years and is often used as a fly tipping site, it is being developed now though. This is a bit long but stick with it, it's worth reading.


the black and white prints in the studio




The negatives had been lying there for I don't know how long and had sustained some damage that made them, to me, very beautiful and more mysterious.. there is a narrative in these images already but one I had no way of knowing, I had been wanting to find an appropriate way to use these ever since as they somewhat haunted me.
During my foundation year I developed some of them in black and white in the darkroom and deliberately did them in a rough overlapping style, I used them for a photography brief and packed them away with my sketchbooks hoping to have another chance to work with them.

For this exhibition I decided they needed to come out so I had them developed in colour and the result is magnificent, the aesthetic quality is not something you could create deliberately I don't think.

I have deliberated over how to display them and wanted this to reflect the manner of their discovery in some way so I went with this idea with them gong towards the floor and landing in the box I had them stored in, with the two disposable cameras they were found with.





It came to my attention a couple of weeks ago during a group crit that one of my classmates knew the main guy in these photos and I was quite blown away by this, what are the odds!!  This story also has been one of the catalytic ones in this project, I felt there was something to explore, there was something profound that could come of this, or not but let's have a look anyway!


Poster for the As We Are Away festival during Lost & Found


During the exhibition I was able to share the exhibition space and  collaborate with Lisa Lorenz who created NOUS magazine and As We Are Away festival, there were a series of people speaking about their work and I was speaking about my project when I came to the topic of these images and notices two girls in the audience clearly excited by this.. it came to light that one of them is a friend and knows the group and the other was his current girlfriend! The guy actually had planned on coming along to the event that night and did not know anything about these photos being there.
I got to meet him, talk to him a bit but.. It felt strange and intrusive, it was awkward so I did not really ask him many questions, after the initial shock on his part he studied them quite closely and took a few pictures himself.

I found the guy in the photos... or rather he found me, by chance.



When this type of thing happens it says to me that this project has got some merit and is worth continuing with, it is somewhat out of my control now.. it will be ongoing and goodness knows if anything like this would lever happen again.


      
  part two ( audio only)




Here is a really bad video of me ( thanks Adrian for recording it)  doing my little talk about the project and where the two girls I mentioned talk about the guy in the pictures. ( headphones advised due to sound quality, or lack thereof)

So, there is an overview of the beginning of an ongoing project, anyone is free and welcome to submit a story to the blog and all these will be included in the next exhibition, dates and venue to be confirmed but please check here for regular updates and to share anything with me.

https://lostandfoundexhibition.wordpress.com  you can submit your own stories directly here if you would like to.

https://www.facebook.com/lostandfoundmuseum/