- Venue
- Online
- Date
- Tuesday, October 27, 2020
07:00 PM - Address
- Cheltenham, UK
- Location
- South West England
- Organiser
- Hardwick Gallery
Louise K Wilson is Hardwick Gallery’s first artist-at-distance, working with the Special Collections and Archives at the University of Gloucestershire to present work on the gallery’s website from September to December 2020. Louise’s proposal encompasses drawing, animation, text, audio, collaborative and participatory projects and activities, talks, and exercises – and considers the engagement with artefacts as a ‘portal for [armchair] travel’ and an archaeological investigation:
“I have spent much creatively productive time in archives. Aside from the allure of the substantive material itself, I am fascinated by: taxonomic processes for retrieval, the poetry of written descriptions of moving/still imagery, the encyclopaedic memory and enthusiastic nature of archivists and the archive’s rejection of finitude and embrace of speculation (on what will be of interest in many years, decades, centuries hence). The archivists are, in brief, collecting for the future.
“The pleasures of being immersed in the physical space of an archive is replaced by its digital possibilities – what can be accessed currently, may be made available during the course of the residency and what may only be imagined and surmised. These limitations can constitute creative challenges for the ‘archival impulse’. There are relational possibilities in searching. The residency becomes a focus for differing types of dialogues: exploring how the objects and images ‘speak’ in their digitised versions – offering opportunities for conjecture, imagination and research – as well as more straightforward discussions with archivists and the creation of (wider) participatory activities.”
View the residency blog at http://hardwickgallery.org/residencies/time-travels-in-the-archive/
Louise K Wilson is a visual artist who makes installations, drawings, live works, sound and video works. She frequently involves the participation of individuals from industry, museums, medicine and the scientific community in the making of work and previous associations have included Newcastle International Airport (air traffic control), Montreal Neurological Institute, the Science Museum, London and the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training facility, Moscow.
Recent exhibitions include Meetings Festival (ET4U, Denmark, 2019); Thackray Uncovered (Thackray Medical Museum, 2017); Submerged: Silent Service (Ohrenoch, Berlin, 2015); and Topophobia (Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London; Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool and Spacex Gallery, Exeter, 2012). Her programme Cold Art – exploring artists’ fascination with Cold War sites – was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.
