Museum Box Project: brief

S P A C E, P L A C E, P R A C T I C E


THE MUSEUM BOX PROJECT


Provenance of boxes: The Natural History Museum

Dimensions: length - 44.5cms; width - 18.5cms; height - 12.5cms
(long boxes are the same width and height but double the length)


The thinking behind the museum box project builds on the theme of our meeting in June (at Little Solsbury Hill, Bath) where members of the group brought 'something of their place' with them to the picnic. Members now have a box in which/with which to re-present their ‘something of place’.

Here, place is understood as a personally specific and meaningful location but, of course, individual translations take a variety of forms - therefore the 'something of place' could be interpreted in the form of an object, a sound, an image or a text, alternatively it might be something more abstract (something related to a memory or perhaps something/somewhere imaginal) or a combination of some or all of these things.

The simple idea is that the boxes will then be used as containers for such 'somethings' where each member re-presents their own specific 'place' using one of the museum boxes in a way they think appropriate to the place concerned. As such, the resulting contents might result in any combination of the above listed 'somethings' (or indeed something else completely) but each will re-present a specific location in the UK (however loosely). Please document your boxes throughout their journey in image and/or text (transformations, observations, significant additions and/or alternations, different positions/situations, references, influences etc) so that the whole research process can be understood conceptually as well as visually through its accumulation of parts, media, manifestations.

When the museum boxes are finally brought together again, they will collectively represent the group but they will also tell something of the individual places, the specific locations that inspired the re-configuration of the boxes.


To summarise:

The boxes can be taken where or how each member wants – they might be taken on walks, taken apart, filmed, filled or whatever – and, in a similar vein, the 'place' that each member brings to the project via the boxes could be somewhere physical or psychological, material or imagined, real or fictional.

Each box will then, in effect, represent each of us/our individual 'places'.
When brought back together in another place (ie for a group show, a seminar, discussion etc), the boxes will represent (i) the group, (ii) each of us/our practices and (iii) a series of locations/places.
Space (the group) Place (each of our places) Practice (each of our practices) - well, loosely anyway!

Reminder:

Please remember to document significant material changes to the boxes as well as observations and shifts in thought as your engagement with the project progresses (the stages of the journey may of course be many but could equally be just a few fundamental steps).


Working toward:

Bath Spa University has offered us the gallery at Sion Hill for a group show next July. If we want, we have their support for a series of events/seminars/presentations at Bath Spa (for other post-grad students, staff and visiting artists/researchers from other institutions) during this period. How far, or how big, we want to take this is up to us and needs to be discussed at the next meeting.

There is also the possibility of taking the boxes to the Natural History Museum in London. Suze has already spoken to the museum about the possibility but needs to follow this up after group discussion.