Anne-Marie Watson and Agata Reed
Anne-Marie Watson, Artist in Residency
Seen and Heard
For a few hours a day over the course of a month I sat in different rooms in the museum looking and listening. Some days I heard little other than the hum of the heating, creaking floors, muffled conversations in other rooms and the internal monologue occurring right inside my head. On others there were visitors, groups of children, students, people with complex needs and their carers, couples, families, mums and their babies, grandmas, fathers, friends. As well as listening to their conversations I also spoke to all the lovely people who work there, asking them about the history, the collections, what they do, what they’re working on and interested in, and for their help with finding a table, or moving it so I could sit in a different place.
When I wasn’t writing or listening, I looked. I looked and I looked. At the rooms, the decoration, the ceilings, the pipes, the lights, the walls, the cases and for long periods of time and repeatedly what they contained and held. Museums are full. Unlike galleries where work comes and goes every few months, museums are bursting with objects, images, maps, the stuff and things of everyday life, what people deem important, what they’re interested in, what they decide to collect, keep, categorise, catalogue, organise, store and display.
This was the recuring theme of my daily writings, remembering to keep looking and listening, to write what is seen and heard and while doing so think about who gets to decide, how we choose, whose story is being told and what’s been left out, behind, forgotten or lost. Since I started my drawings, there’s been four different temporary exhibitions in the main galleries and a redisplay of one of the First Nations rooms. This is an excellent example of how museums change and even though this work is slow it makes a huge difference to the context in which these objects are seen, allowing the voices behind them be heard for the first time.
Agata Reed, Artist in Residency
In February 2023 I was fortunate enough to undertake a weeklong arts residency at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery.
As an artist working with photography, I was very keen to investigate the museum’s photo archive. I wanted to view the photographs as objects. I would treat the photographs, negatives, and glass plates from the museum archive not only as the valuable historical archive that they hold in their content but as objects that are witnesses to towns rich history.
While I was exploring the vast and fascinating photo archive, what interested me most was exploring the marks and traces that emerged because of the passing time and manual handling of those objects.
I found the inspiration in Jerzy Lewczyński work. A Polish artist who established the term: ‘archaeology of photography’. The idea is that the unintentional damage that is sustained by the object, without the participation and knowledge of the author of a photograph – such as: tears; scratches; spots; or losses of emulsion can tell very personal and dramatic stories.
Part of this concept is that the glass plate, negative…object which carries distant ‘light of the past time’.
With that approach I explored the visible ‘imperfections’, documenting the marks, imprints of pins and tears, wondering where and why the photos have been before they found their place in the museum.
Inspired by old Japanese techniques, Kintsugi and Sashiko, I proposed the metaphorical process of mending.
Kintsugi is a way of using lacquer and gold pigment to put shattered vessels back together, Sashiko is a textile mending technique.
Both of those methods embrace and celebrate the ‘imperfections’ in a belief that embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.
As a result, I created 3 pieces of work, using 24 carat gold leaf and a gold thread.
They are shown here next to the photos from the museum’s collection, which fragments I photographed and reprinted to focus purely on the flaws.
From my point of view, the concepts and processes I have resulted using are a reminder that by accepting our own imperfections, as well as the imperfections of the objects we surround ourselves with, we depart from striving for unrealistic perfection created by media and culture.
Mending is not just about fixing something in need of repair, it is also an act of care. Care is applicable to everyone and of value to all of us.
Thank you to Anne-Marie and Agata for their time and for sharing their art with Hastings Museum & Art Gallery