Time stands still when I think of you: September 2010

A public art project by artist Kate Elliott

This project derives from an archive of over 100 family photos, the earliest of which dates from the turn of the nineteenth century. They had been discarded in a skip in Belsize Park, North London, where they were discovered by Shar Camilleri in early 2010.

It is a project about time. I am less concerned with the individual story behind each of the images, but more with a generic identity, that can be explored and extended according to the different experiences of everyone who sees them.

Drawing on universal feelings of loss, nostalgia, melancholy and hope, I take these photographs from their original and unknown context in the hope of creating new personal and intertwining narratives, individual to each image.

While we are all connected by our personal memories, as well as by our ability to dream, we also crave a sense of belonging, and are pre-occupied with a continual and possibly never-ending search for identity in and through the lives of others.

Saturday, 11 September 2010

The Dance - Crystal Palace

In September 2010, at Gingerline, I also showed The Dance. Scanned, then printed and framed (24”x30”), the image was propped up in an alcove of a converted Victorian shop, accompanied by a selected 1950s soundtrack. Guests were invited to sit down on a small stool to view the image, whilst listening to the music through headphones. I was interested in creating an intimate space between the viewer and the people in the image, and I wanted to bring to life the sense of celebration captured in the original photograph. In the viewer's presence and mind the people in the image were able to dance again, for the first time since the photograph was taken, approximately 60 years earlier.

The Dance at Crystal Palace

The Outing - Crystal Palace

I first showed The Outing at Gingerline, a pop-up restaurant and art space, in September 2010. It was displayed as a 3m x 2m digital projection. Visible through the windows of a Victorian shop front in Crystal Palace, the shadows and movement of the people and traffic outside produced a rippling effect on the glassy surface of the water in the photograph.

The Outing at Crystal Palace