Creative Interventions: Re-imagining the archive Jo Elsworth University of Bristol Theatre Collection 24 May

Background Accredited museum 60+ years of collecting Primarily archival 3 staff, many volunteers Open to all (c.3k p.a.) Research driven M&M ‘step-change’ 2

Research Museum Archive 3 Archival material Photographs, letters, scripts, papers, playbills, prompt copies, music etc. Artwork Paintings, designs, working sketches, engravings etc. 3D material Costumes, objects, set models, props, ceramics, ephemera A/V and digital Film, sound, born-digital and digitised material Books and journals

Range… Map of London from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, published by G Braun and F Hogenberg, National Review of Live Art, (All performances recorded on miniDV)

Theatre Collection: Vision Curate - a world class collection Encourage - and enable it to be used for research, education, enjoyment and inspiration by all those who wish to do so Catalyst - for new scholarly and creative work and new partnerships Hence… Artists in the Archive 5 24 May 2015

Case Study Projects Emergent artists - Tim Bishop and Eleanor Fogg Working with groups - Bristol Printmakers Artists and Researchers – Franko B and Cara Davies Artist in Residence - Clare Thornton and Unfurl 6 24 May 2015

Emergent Artists – Inspired by the archive Tim Bishop: Water Action 7 24 May 2015 Undergraduate work Performance Documentation Exploring issues of fake/real/history/now Water Action now in TC archive

Installation contents 6 photographs; 2 DVDs; 1 VHS tape; 5 audio cassette tapes; 3 handwritten A4 pages; 3 found objects Numerous assorted photograph fragments; Theatre Collection Accession form; 2 documentation photographs May 2015 Performance Documentation as Installation Art

9 24 May 2015 The Artist’s View….. My artistic practice has become much more considered...This awareness has also evolved into active engagements with the duration of works and provided stimuli for new works. For example, my recent moving image work “echoes of a dying medium” (2012) uses VHS tape to foresee its own eventual demise and technological obsolescence. I now have much more of an idea of how archives can provide creative inspiration for new work, not just through the absent events that documents in the archive represent but also through the practices, systems, history and material objects of and in the archives themselves. This is the thing that surprised me the most. I thought I would get the most inspiration to make new work from the excellent examples of work represented in the archives. But, instead, the biggest inspiration to my own work came from questioning the methods that had been employed, and are being employed, to represent these events. Images and quotes from Tim Bishop (September 2013 )

Emergent Artists – Inspired by the archive Eleanor Fogg: The 13 Books Written on the Skin May 2015 Please follow the instructions below in preparation. Your title is No. 10, 'The Book of Silence'. 1. Please write down a memory that is in some way connected to a part of your body. Your memory may be read out, but you will not be identified. 2. Select a section of the text, no more than 10 words long, to represent your memory on my body. 3. Do not send me this information, but bring it with you to the event. 4. Reply to this telling me where on my body you think it would be most appropriate to document this memory. 5. Come to the internal entrance to the Theatre Collection at 10:30am on Monday 26th April. Bring the required information.