Lines of Dissent, Orleans House Gallery, 2022
I was curator in residence for the ‘living’ exhibition Lines of Dissent which was initially motivated by the lack of work made by women in Richmond Borough’s Art Collection. Using this as a starting point, I wanted to reveal untold stories and overlooked people hidden in the archive.
Collaborating with Beatrice McDermott who leads the Programming Team at Orleans House Gallery, I selected artworks from the collection and presented them as a strand of Richmond’s DNA. I invited contemporary artists from poetry, theatre, photography, dance and music to investigate the selection in order to expose invisible inheritances and legacies.
Nodding towards the number of chromosomes inherited by each of our parents, I chose 23 items from the Collection for the artists to respond to. The show began its journey with work presented setting the stage for even more contemporary responses throughout the duration of the show. Rather than using the typical of labels that describe and detail the provenance of an artwork, my labels consisted of sometimes quirky, sometimes humorous and sometimes poetic provocations and prompts. I also contributed to the exhibition myself by composing site-specific poems, making film installations, devising and running workshops for young people and families, and hosting a live, celebratory event.
As my interrogation of the collection unfolded, the exhibition also
uncovered encounters of all kinds including colonisation, love, resilience, migration, trade and architecture. Responses from the artists took the form of poems, video installations, plays, radio plays as sound installations, songs, hip hop tracks and participatory games.
The Counterplayer Gazes in and Lives to Play the Tale by Dzifa Benson after Lady Mary Coke by Allan Ramsay (1762-1765)
Filmed in Ghana in December 2022, the poem itself evolved slowly in the 10 years since I wrote the first draft. I’m a big jazz fan and the poem started life as part of a jam session in which I was improvising with words and a jazz musician was doing the same on an electronic upright bass. This print of the notorious Lady Mary Coke holding a long handled lute inspired me to complete the poem which has many references to music.
Extract from Tasseography by Denise Saul after Elizabeth Twining by Henry Martin
I
Mother asks for a small pot of English breakfast in Arding & Hobb’s.
Not a single tea plantation exists within the United Kingdom.
As we talk about being ignored in the tearoom, she mentions powerlessness.
On the way back home, I correct her. “Do you mean being overlooked?”
This is symbolism of English identity – I mean, what does anybody in the world
know about an English person except that they can’t see through the day without a cup of tea.
Much as I dislike English tea, especially with milk, I could well understand that feeling.
The shop assistant ignores her request and instead serves the woman behind her in the queue.
That is the outside history that is inside the history of the English.
I imagine not being served a cup of tea in the 1960s.
There is no English history without the other history.
4 Radio Plays by the National Youth Theatre Members after Garrick and his Wife by H. Bourne after William Hogarth (undated) and Peg Woffington by Unknown Artist (undated)
In a workshop I hosted, four groups of National Youth Theatre members created these historically inspired, fantastical audio plays. They responded to the famous and colourful individuals in Garrick and His Wife and Peg Woffington , who all worked in the theatre. These plays explore themes of relationships, conventions of marriage, theatre-making, class and power dynamics and legacy. Listen to the four audio plays - A Poor Audition, Peg and Eva, Redemption and The Artist and the Muse - here.
NOW THESE PRESENTS WITNESS by Amelia Zhou / Declaration of Trust, Unknown, 1910
Composed of remixed text from the Declaration of Trust and footage of the present day Orleans House Gallery site, this video responses asks what lies beneath the ornamental veneer of the gallery. In disassembling the official grammar of the title deed and then recasting it through voice and caption, the work invites the audience to undo ideas of ownership from its conventional legal conceptions. Likewise, images of the gallery's historic allure contrasted and overlaid with close details of its surrounding woodlands questions the precedence of the gallery setting in disseminating certain knowledges and languages over the obscurity of others.
Goldsmiths Alchemy Members after VE day Celebrations Waterloo Place Richmond, 1945 by Hilary Dulcie Cobbett (1945), Dutch Interior with Figures by Ludolf de Jongh (1616 - 1679), Richmond VJ night Waterloo Place, 1945 by Hilary Dulcie Cobbett (1945)
Alchemy was founded in 2017 by Mikey Kirkpatrick and consists of music workshops for 13-18 years olds who are in danger of being excluded. Goldsmiths University student ambassadors support the young people to overcome obstacles and build strong foundations for positive futures within informal sessions. I led a workshop with the Alchemy members, supporting them to develop spoken word and music responses to some of the historic works in Lines of Dissent. The resulting responses from these very talented young people can be heard here.
X Beyond Imagination by Annalisa Banello / Eleanor, Duchess of Northumberland by Henry Weigall (undated)
In this fictional character portrayal, a time traveller named Truth is looking straight at the camera and holding what appears to be an X made of the portrait of Eleanor Percy, Duchess of Northumberland. The idea behind the X is borrowed from Malcolm X and is the Banello’s desire to pay respect to nameless ancestors of the fictional woman and as a symbol of cross-cultural renewal, empowerment and healing.
9 Poems as a Sound Installation by St, Mary’s University Students after Queen Mary’s State Bedchamber at Hampton Court, Unknown Artist, 1816
During Black History Month, I led St. Mary’s University students from the UK:ME Society in a poetry writing workshop that responded to a print of Queen Mary’s State Bedchamber at Hampton Court Palace by Cattermole and Havell, 1816. Nine students wrote poems recorded as a sound installation accompanying the displayed print in the gallery during the exhibition and which can be listened to on the Orleans House Gallery website.
