I Dream of Home - Royal Anthropological Institute’s Anthropology and Photography Conference (29-31 May 2014) at the British Museum’s Clore Centre; Ashoka Exchange, Brown University, Rhode Island, USA in February 2014; and the physical exhibition at Avenue Gallery, University of Northampton in April – May 2014
- Submitting institution
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Buckinghamshire New University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 17909
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- British Museum’s Clore Centre; Brown University, Rhode Island, USA; University of Northampton
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first exhibition
- February
- Year of first exhibition
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The concept of ‘home’ has always occupied an indeterminate space. This participatory project asked contributors to reflect, and to find in their own personal archives or to make a new image, a photograph which conveys the essence of their relationship to a place of belonging. 90 participant/contributors were photographed in the studio; their portraits (in reverie) juxtaposed with the image they contributed. Because the concept of home is entirely subjective and refers to both the
real and imaginary, in addition to the locating of ‘home’ in specific places, the archive of images produced reflects an attempt to visualize states of mind that are informed by lived experience, memory and fantasy. While particular locations are dentifiable for some; for others, the ambiguities inherent in meanings of ‘home’ resisted a definitive representation through the two-dimensionality of the photographic image. Indeed, the complexities of this process highlight the dualism of photography (as a scientific, objective record, and also the subjective art of experience and expression), and the negotiating of its myriad applications in cultural practices. Verbal/textual narratives were provided by contributors, explaining the significance of their choices, which offered a context for their images to be read.
My paper for the RAI conference explored the use of the archival format and approach in contemporary art-making, in comparison to historical uses of the ethnographic archive and its reference to a scientific, objective study. With an increasing significance given to the archive as the means by which historical knowledge and forms of remembrance are accumulated, stored and retrieved, my paper explored the power relations inherent in traditions of archival practice. The importance of oral culture will be observed, where personal narratives address the presumptions of the objectivity of historical processes and offer an alternative approach to the ‘writing of history’.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
