Cathy's Art Diary

Insightful online talk from the Fitzwilliam Museum by contemporary artist, Hilary Powell, whose work features in their current exhibition on defaced currency. Powell outlined a number of her projects working with communities on social issues. It sounds dry but she has done some amazing work starting with a simple idea and letting it build as she works with different groups of people. A good example was from when she was an unofficial artist in residence on a demolition site in East London. From the experience she created a pop-up book of a history for the area. Using a collective of people from the area she created 50 books in three days. This then led her to the idea of creating printing ink pigments from old building materials such as bricks and zinc from roofs. The work highlighted in the show was part of a project called “Bank Job” based in Walthamstow where she got access to an old bank and printed money there with a team of paid trainees which featured images of local peop...

Interesting online lecture from the Fitzwilliam Museum describing and explaining their current exhibition. Richard Kelleher, the curator of the show, lead us through the main themes and objects in this show about how defacing money, which is often a symbol of authority, has been a symbol of protest over the years. It also looks at emergency money such as notes issued in the Siege of Mafeking and money defaced as a commemoration such as a penny from 1918 with the date of the Armistice etched onto it. Kelleher was particularly interesting on the design of the show which splits a large space into three using design to define the different themes. He also talked about how he included contemporary art which uses defaced money or newly printed money. The talk gave a good overview of the show which I would like to go and see but probably won’t get time to go to Cambridge.