STUART WHIPPS:
AN EVENT
30 November 2012 6.30 - 8.30 pm
An evening event celebrating FTHo's Artist in Residence - Stuart Whipps - joined by guests Joy Sleeman and Kate Simpson for a performance, archive screenings and discussion
Stuart Whipps, 2012
To mark the end of his residency, Stuart Whipps will perform a reading alongside a photographic slideshow. This will be followed by screenings selected from the BP and Scottish Screen Archives and presentations from researcher and writer of Land Art, Dr Joy Sleeman (Slade)and Kate Simpson, a member of the David Livingstone archiving project team, Livingstone Online. Unfortunately due to a family bereavement, archivist Sue Breakell (University of Brighton, former Head of TATE Archives) will not longer be attending.
Stuart Whipps, 2012
As artist in residence, Stuart Whipps researched and visited the shale bings of West Lothian - the object of study during John Latham's APG placement with the Scottish Office Development Agency from 1975-76. Stuart is mapping the connections between Latham and other historical protagonists including James "Paraffin" Young, who was the first to refine mineral oil on a commercial scale. This process left behind the shale heap bings of West Lothian and financed David Livingstone's "explorations" of Zambia - Latham's birthplace. Stuart's work aligns multiple temporalities and geological monuments with the contemporary moment through his photographs and text.
About the Speakers
Dr Joy Sleeman is Head of Taught Courses in History and Theory of Art at the Slade School of Fine Art and her research embraces aspects of the histories of sculpture and landscape. These two areas of interest coalesce in her work on the new forms of landscape art that emerged in the 1960s, often referred to as 'Land Art'. She will talk about John Latham's work made while on an APG placement with the Scottish Office in relation to the contribution of British artists' contribution to Land Art.
Sue Breakell is Archivist at the University of Brighton Design Archives, Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and formerly Head of TATE Archive. Her research engages with critical thinking about the nature, meaning and practice of archives, as well as the historical questions raised by their contents. She is interested in the ways in which users of all kinds approach the notional and physical archive, and in the process of research itself and the new iterations of the archive that it produces.
Kate Simpson worked as a research assistant on The David Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project, a collaborative, international effort to use spectral imaging technology and digital publishing to make available a series of faded, illegible texts produced by the famous Victorian explorer when stranded without ink or writing paper in Central Africa. The diary depicts, in Livingstone's words, "the unspeakable horror" of the slave trade in what is now the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Kate is completing her PHD in the Centre for Literature and Writing at Edinburgh Napier University. Her PhD is on Imperial Adventure Romance Fiction and Exploration in Africa. Kate's research draws meaning from the Livingstone digital archive, the historiography of the archive, its format and the literary geopolitics of Livingstone's words.
