Black & Fagg Interrupted

Item

Title
Black & Fagg Interrupted
artMedium
Mixed-media interactive installation
measuredProperty
N/A
artist
Ciara Dunsby, Paige Eitner-Vosloo, Zanaeca Singh, Chloe Spreckley, Electra Wilson
Description
The Black and Fagg collection acted as a prompt for us, sparking conversations around access, the insertion of a colonial landscape, anatopism and the politics of working with these drawings. These drawings have sustained damage which does not allow us to interpret them in their entirety, leaving us unable to discern the context of these buildings. Using these drawings as representational of collections lost in the fire without being informed of their context poses an uncomfortable problem, both for us, the viewer, and the message that this exhibition is putting forward.
Alternatively we use the drawings intentionally as a means of discussing these exact issues. Rather than displaying the drawings as representatives of damaged and lost collections, we use the print drawer in which they were stored, and create an interactive installation which results in the development of a small participatory archive. The archive will be built up by the responses given by viewers, which shall expand throughout the duration of exhibition. By providing small prompts to viewers, both visually as well as through accompanying written work, the viewers own responses to specific questions can be placed inside the drawers, in exchange taking out an image. The image/print is of these original Black and Fagg architectural drawings which have been disrupted in various ways.
Offering aspects of the original material which sparked these conversations acts as a means of broadening the scope of thought and opinion, as does the interactive element rooted in these contributions from the public. The idea of contributing to an archive relies on a level of validity around the contents or subject, and therefore an authority. In removing an authority on contribution, how do we engage with the politics of access, and hopefully challenge them? In creating and distributing stories and information through the development of this small archive, we allow for growth and creation amongst the exploration of destruction, whilst still engaging with the complexities of archives and collections such as these.
Creator
Ciara Dunsby
Paige Eitner-Vosloo
Zanaeca Singh
Chloe Spreckley
Electra Wilson
Rights
Artwork copyright of Ciara Dunsby, Paige Eitner-Vosloo, Zanaeca Singh, Chloe Spreckley, Electra Wilson and the Centre for Curating the Archive
Date
April 2022
Item sets
Of Smoke and Ash Artworks
Media
outline-info-cards.pdf
question-prompts.pdf
Site pages
Exhibition