Thingness: The Collection
Exhibition
16 April 2013 – 25 May 2013*
Special Viewing 5.30-8pm (Talk 4.30-5.30pm)
Camberwell Space
Camberwell College of Arts
Peckham Road
London SE5 8UF
Events
23 April, 16.30-17.30
Talk: Thingness (Maiko Tsutsumi)
Ceramics Lecture Theatre, Pekham Road
25 April, 13.00-14.00
Talk: Artists working with archives (Chrystel Lebas)
Ceramics Lecture Theatre, Pekham Road
3 May, 10.30 12.30
Morning Residency at Camberwell Space (Committee: Harry Richardson & Clare Page)
Camberwell Space
8 May, 13.30-16.30
Workshop: Take Me Make Me (Bridget Harvey & Meghan Hutchins)
Camberwell Space (Drop-in)
16 May, 10.00-12.00
Workshop: Stuff to Savour (Tony Hayward)
Camberwell Space (Booking required)
20 May, 14.00-16.00
Workshop: Objects Stories (Karen Richmond & Michael Hurley)
Camberwell Space (Booking required)
22 May, 14.00-16.00
Talk: The History of ILEA Collection (Maria Georgaki)
Object handling session (David Garnett)
Camberwell Space (Booking required)
22 May, 17.30-18.30
Talk (Richard Wentworth)
Wilson Road Lecture Theatre, Camberwell College of Arts
(All venues except the Richard Wentworth talk are at the Peckham Road site, Camberwell College of Arts / Booking and enquiries: camberwellspace@camberwell.arts.ac.uk)
Thingness: The Collection
Introduction
What role does the ‘materiality of things’ play in our relationship to the objects we create and consume?
The above question was the starting point of the Thingness exhibition and symposium, held at Camberwell College of Arts in 2011. Second in series, Thingness: The Collection presents a group of objects selected from the Camberwell Collection. Along with an accompanying series of workshops and talks, the exhibition explores the ‘affective’ potential of objects, as well as a range of approaches by artists and designers working in response to archives and collections.
The Camberwell Collection originates from a circulating collection of the London County Council and later the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) that were brought together for educational purposes, and circulated in schools between 1951 and 1976. The collection was acquired by Camberwell College of Arts in 1990, following the disbandment of ILEA.1
Thingness: The Collection will begin with a selected group of objects. Invited artists and designers will respond to the characteristics of the objects; what they infer as their ‘presence’ in a materialist sense, or their ‘physiognomic appeal’.2 By shifting our attention from the intended function of the object to the ‘thing itself’, we hope to bring to light the space between the intended meaning of objects and where the projected meanings and narratives may begin to emerge.
Using the eclectic mix of design and craft objects, the exhibition explores the relationship between the agentic potential of the thing and it’s physical features, such as the materials and the trace of its construction process, as well as its symbolic and associated meanings.
Notes
1 For more information on the history of the ILEA Collection please see: Jane Pavitt, ed., The Camberwell Collection: Object Lesson (London: Camberwell College of Arts, 1996).; Jane Pavitt, “The Camberwell Collection of Applied Arts, Camberwell College of Arts, The London Institute,” Journal of Design History, 10(2) (1997): 225-229.
2 Alfred Gell. Art and Agency: an Anthropological Theory (London: Oxford University Press, 1998).
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