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.

Sunday 21 August 2011

The Dance and The Outing

The Dance and The Outing are included in the group exhibition The Trace, at HKD Marine Studios, as part of MargatePhotoFest. The Dance is presented in a display case which had been left in the gallery by the previous exhibitors, and The Outing is projected onto the gallery wall from an old slide projector. 

 The Outing in Margate


The Dance in Margate


The Siblings and The Outing in Margate

Saturday 13 August 2011

The Siblings

On the afternoon of 12th August the two narratives of The Girl and The Boy come together in the seaside town of Margate, to form The Siblings. Displayed as three diptychs the relationship between the girl and the boy changes, familial connections forming, and the act of child play overlapping. This piece is part of a group exhibition The Trace, at HKD Marine Studios, as part of MargatePhotoFest, alongside documentation of their parallel lives in Hackney.

 
The Siblings in Margate
 

Friday 12 August 2011

The Girl and The Boy

At 6am on 12th August two series of images, The Girl and The Boy, were posted onto two disused Hackney notice boards half a mile apart from one another. They show two narratives, separate from one another yet intertwined. Children at play, absorbed in their own world of dreams and fantasy.

The Girl at Hackney Downs Junction

 The Boy on Cecilia Road