2008-05-29T05:08:00.001-07:00

This year the Barbados Museum and Historical Society
(BMHS) celebrates its 75th anniversary having been
established in 1933 and opened to the public a year later
with a collection that had been amassed over several years
by the Rev. N. B. Watson, retired rector of St. Lucy Parish.
This collection has since grown enormously and the
BMHS now owns in excess of 250,000 items including
ceramics, decorative objects, paintings, prints and
photographs. Space does not permit all of these items to
be on display and it is the archives relating to the
collections that is the subject of scrutiny by our artist in
residence, Ingrid Persaud. She has made new artworks
based on her research in the archives. Some of these
artworks are juxtaposed with pieces from the museum’s
collections but she also brings into the museum space
some of the collections and archives of others who are
not normally considered producers of culture.

In Congo Index, she updates the portraits
housed in the Warmington Gallery. These portraits,
gifts to the BMHS, depict the owners of the Congo
Road plantation house, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Browne who
lived there in the 1890s. In 2008 it serves as the Hunte
family estate where several generations of the family live
together. The updating is done with an eye to the past
using similar lighting and setting, but rather than being
executed in oils, it is appropriately, for a century later, a
digital print.

Museums are only ever able to show approximately 5% of
their collections and the BMHS is no exception. What is
shown at any one time is the outcome of a complex
decision-making process of curatorial initiative,
conservation, space and funding. The Connell Gallery
decorative art exhibit of the BMHS no longer exists. It has
not disappeared but rather transformed and extended into
another kind of decorative arts exhibit – the African Gallery.
One type of decorative arts has been dismantled in favour
of another, which, while having a certain nostalgia, also
speaks to the preeminence of one culture over
another changing with time. In No Remaining Evidence the
artist uses these “lost” objects to articulate a deep sense of
memory, loss as well as chart these changing times. The echo
of her voice through the gallery naming unseen objects
becomes a sort of memento mori. If the objects cannot be seen
they live on by being heard instead.

But the themes of loss, memory and death that pervade
archives are not allowed to overwhelm the space with
sadness. Indeed much of the rest of the work use the
devices of humour and play to explore these difficult issues.
In Hunters and Gatherers she invites us into the obsession
of collecting through a peek at the unusual collections of
ordinary people. It would appear that someone has
collected over two hundred fancy dress noses!

Archives Alive is a suite of etchings, each subtly
different from the other, that she has made using as her
starting point images representing the bookworm-eaten gift
receipt books that are over half a century old. The books are
ancient, they archive the past, yet they are also quite literally
alive. Just as the bookworms have eaten through the pages and
made their marks so too has the artist eaten away the copper
plates with etching needles and acid for her mark making.

In Utopia and Make Today History the artist presents her
own archives but they are of dust and diaries. Utopia, a
collection and “analysis” of dust gathered from the museum
galleries, calls into question the very notion of what, and
how, and why we continually classify what is within the museum
and the knowledge that is generated through these exercises.

Make Today History pushes this theme further through
a practical, web-based exercise of taking the power of
who collects, and what is collected, away from the
traditional custodians of culture to the man and woman
on the street. This democratization of the archive hints at
other models where spaces such as museums act as
zones where art intersects with a wider audience in a
meaningful manner. She even appears to invite narratives
on the role of an artist in residence at a museum.
In Residence provocatively shows the artist sweeping the
Museum. Is the cleaning a preservation of the status quo
or the ushering in of the new?

NO REMAINING EVIDENCE

2008-05-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

The two green platters you see below are from the Cornell Gallery which no longer exists in its original state having made way for the African Gallery. The collection is now largely in storage and is the inspiration for the sound installation No Remaining Evidence that you will hear in the art space.

HUNTERS AND GATHERERS

2008-05-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

Below are images from the register of the BMHS collections which led me to make an installation about unusual collections and collectors.

CONGO INDEX

2008-05-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

One of the pieces in the show is inspired by these two portraits in the Warmington Gallery of the Barbados Museum. They are of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Browne who lived at Congo Road plantation in St. Phillip.

YOU GO DOWN THE LADDER, I’LL SHINE THE TORCH

NO REMAINING EVIDENCE

HUNTERS AND GATHERERS

CONGO INDEX