Drawing Lab: Response, Gavin Edmonds, 17 March 2014
Brief : A response to your ‘visit’ to Wimbledon College of Art.
This response can be generated from:
An Emotion.
An Observation.
A Memory.
Respond however you wish, in whatever medium, on the postcard provided,
then attach a stamp and send back before 17. 3.14, to then be shown in the Library
Cabinet Display Case for one week.
All responses are anonymous.
Deadline : Please Respond on the postcard provided, before : 17. 3.14.
This is the planned opening of Cabinet Display Show.
Thank you.
Response: Found object (Postcard in ink).
A popular children’s program when I grew up in the 1970’s was ‘The Wombles’. The Wombles are an collective of utterly devious, pointy faced, furry, human sized creatures based in Wimbledon with a Found Object obsession. In my mind they epitomise the fusion of Wimbledon & Art, although sadly, I’ve yet to see one around The Collage. But then again “People don’t notice us, they never see. . .”
History of idea….(you do not need to read this).
Wimbledon Collegeof Art.
British Museum.
Sat eating lunch & reading one day, I noticed this in the entrance. It ‘rang a bell’ with
me; much later I found where I had seen it, or something that reminded me of it: Leo
Bersani’s The Freudian Body, Psychoanalysis and Art. ( 701.15 BER 1 Week Loan
two copies available).
After going to the British Museum to view a Rembrandt (that was not on show), I
ended up visiting theAssrian Collection, which confirmed my first idea & led me to
contact the Curator and to find out the correct identification: BM124547, Assyrian
relief : North Wes Palace of king Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud (now in Northern Iraq).
This led to the idea of the British Museum & Wimbledon College of Art and the
things they share : an Assyrian Collection, Gallery, Print room , Library, Canteen,
Shop, Art objects of every description, Archives, a multi cultural learning
establishment with many departments, department heads, specialized language,
security, information desk, Id cards (its even got building work going on..)
Anyway, the point is to notice what is around you and RESPOND to it.
This is what I would like to try and get others to do . Whether it is your rsponse to the
Assyrian cast, and , maybe how it got there, or the idea of the Wimbledon
“Museum”? or something around the college: the people, place or things that you
have noticed during your “visit”.
Every museum I have been to sells postcards, so in keeping with this, the idea is to
respond on a postcard and send it in. I will then arrange the cards in the Library in
the Display Case. Originally the idea was for my immediate peer group but as
there were fifty cards to a pack I decided to extend the invitation. Also some may
get lost, some may not respond.
The timing/deadline is determined by the only slot available for the Display Case in
the Library, a big THANK YOU again to the two people concerned.
