Sawdust and Threads
A residency, exhibition and public programme that took de-accessioned museum objects as its material. Conceived in collaboration with curator Harriet Loffler in partnership with the Scott Polar Museum in Cambridge and UCL Museums & Collections in London. A short residency at each partner venue enabled drawings to be made of deaccessioned objects, after which each object was carefully and painstakingly deconstructed. The undoing was displayed in the gallery space of the gallery to allow the public to watch the artistic process unfold and to see the objects returned to their component parts. The drawings were exhibited alongside the performative acts of deconstruction before being accessioned into the partner museum collections as a lasting record of their objects.
Every object that has been selected for this project has been de-accessioned by the partner museums. This means that they have been through a rigorous process of responsible disposal in line with the Museums Association's Code of Ethics, and every effort has been made to find new homes for them before they were approved for this project.
