collections and collecting

2013 – 2016

A series of prints begins to uncover the role of collecting, collections, drawing and engraving. Here lies the beginning of a practice-based research project concerned with place, narrative, collecting and collections as a way of denoting place. Objects have value, meaning and cultural significance and can be seen as communicators of status, ideas, history, narrative and trace.

“The whole factual world of human affairs depends for its reality and its continued existence, first, upon the presence of others who have seen and will remember, and second, on the transformation of the intangible into the tangibility of things” (The Meaning of Things Csikszentmihalyi, M and Rochberg-Halton, E)

Objects, artefacts and things hold memory, communicate narrative, and impact upon our perception of place. The engraving “Stuff from a Norfolk Beach” begins to unpack and examine the relationship between memory as narrative, the juxtaposition of objects, the engraved print as visual archive, and collections and collecting within the construct of place. How can material things be recorded, positioned and represented within an attempt to understand a place?