Gabriella Falk talks about her commission working with a museum.
It is increasingly common for artists to be asked to work with museums. Museum exhibits can over time become tired and over familiar and we can miss their point. The intervention of an artist can reawaken our interest in objects of the past and help us see and understand them afresh. As well as producing new interesting objects.
In late 2008 artist Gabriella Falk was commissioned by the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter (RAMM) to work with their Ethnography department to develop a textile based artwork. This was made possible through the Museums and Libraries Association funded New Expressions project.
At the time of the project much of the museum collection was packed away, as the museum was closed for rebuilding. So Gabriella’s attention focused on behind the scenes at the museum. Gabriella wondered how museum curators make the choices they do when considering what part of their collections to display. She also wanted give have a modern context to the project: tying in the past and present. Gabriella says-
“I also wanted to tie this somehow to contemporary society, to think about what we reveal through our choices in clothing and personal decoration and how this relates to the sort of “ethnic” object commonly found in museum collections.”
Gabriella decided to focus on two collections: a collection of African beadwork- a subject of which she knew nothing. And a collection of Guatemalan woven textiles. As a weaver she could appreciate the skills involved in this craft. She says of these crafts:
“Both these highly personalised craft disciplines turned out to be mediums through which individuals could convey their personal stories. Each had its own specific language of symbols which I as an outsider could not fully read. This led me to think about if and how we do the same today and how we convey or misread messages.”
She found that through their craft individuals could convey their personal stories. Specific language of symbols could not be fully read by an outsider. This led her to think about how we do the same today and how we convey or misread messages. Working with a young assistant called Beatrice Hammond she set to look at the symbols in present day youth culture.
“Working with my assistant Beatrice Hammond, chosen partly because she offered me a way into the youth culture of today, we interviewed people on the fringes of society who choose to identify themselves through what they wear. We looked at groups like Punks and Goths, Bikers, Surfers and other non mainstream individuals. We asked them why they wore what they wore and got some fascinating responses. Interestingly the men were on the whole more articulate and reasoned about their choices than the women who tended to be much more fashion led, even it was unconventional fashion. We could have gone on for ever delving into the psychology and rationale of these choices but we were supposed to be researching the creation of an art object”
As a basis for her art work Gabriella decided to work with the actual clothes worn by the interviewees rather than making the textiles herself. All this coalesced into the final artwork:
“Finding a way to work with clothing, relate to the museum collection and the way it is stored and at the same time to say something about the people we had been working with was not easy but eventually coalesced into the idea of an archaeological layering of items, each one revealing only a small portion of its story but with somewhat more information accessible through the coded references of the labelling and the accompanying documentation.”
Stack 1: The Glass of Fashion, displayed packed tightly inside a conventional glass museum case, is the result. It is Stack 1 because I hope that it is only the first and that there will be a Stack 2 and more to follow.
In late 2008 artist Gabriella Falk was commissioned by the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter (RAMM) to work with their Ethnography department to develop a textile based artwork. This was made possible through the Museums and Libraries Association funded New Expressions project.
At the time of the project much of the museum collection was packed away, as the museum was closed for rebuilding. So Gabriella’s attention focused on behind the scenes at the museum. Gabriella wondered how museum curators make the choices they do when considering what part of their collections to display. She also wanted give have a modern context to the project: tying in the past and present. Gabriella says-
“I also wanted to tie this somehow to contemporary society, to think about what we reveal through our choices in clothing and personal decoration and how this relates to the sort of “ethnic” object commonly found in museum collections.”
Gabriella decided to focus on two collections: a collection of African beadwork- a subject of which she knew nothing. And a collection of Guatemalan woven textiles. As a weaver she could appreciate the skills involved in this craft. She says of these crafts:
“Both these highly personalised craft disciplines turned out to be mediums through which individuals could convey their personal stories. Each had its own specific language of symbols which I as an outsider could not fully read. This led me to think about if and how we do the same today and how we convey or misread messages.”
She found that through their craft individuals could convey their personal stories. Specific language of symbols could not be fully read by an outsider. This led her to think about how we do the same today and how we convey or misread messages. Working with a young assistant called Beatrice Hammond she set to look at the symbols in present day youth culture.
“Working with my assistant Beatrice Hammond, chosen partly because she offered me a way into the youth culture of today, we interviewed people on the fringes of society who choose to identify themselves through what they wear. We looked at groups like Punks and Goths, Bikers, Surfers and other non mainstream individuals. We asked them why they wore what they wore and got some fascinating responses. Interestingly the men were on the whole more articulate and reasoned about their choices than the women who tended to be much more fashion led, even it was unconventional fashion. We could have gone on for ever delving into the psychology and rationale of these choices but we were supposed to be researching the creation of an art object”
As a basis for her art work Gabriella decided to work with the actual clothes worn by the interviewees rather than making the textiles herself. All this coalesced into the final artwork:
“Finding a way to work with clothing, relate to the museum collection and the way it is stored and at the same time to say something about the people we had been working with was not easy but eventually coalesced into the idea of an archaeological layering of items, each one revealing only a small portion of its story but with somewhat more information accessible through the coded references of the labelling and the accompanying documentation.”
Stack 1: The Glass of Fashion, displayed packed tightly inside a conventional glass museum case, is the result. It is Stack 1 because I hope that it is only the first and that there will be a Stack 2 and more to follow.