Output details

The Museum of Loss and Renewal. (Exhibition series: 'Loss becomes Object', The Highland Institute for Contemporary Art (HICA), Loch Ruthven, Scotland, 24 Sept-30 October 2011; 'Object becomes Subject', Centrespace, Visual Research Centre, DCA, Dundee, 14-27 November 2011; Cupar Arts Festival and National Trust for Scotland, 05-17 October 2013)

Durational multifaceted project, leading to two distinct exhibition projects with embedded live public studio, three public interdisciplinary seminar events and a publication. It builds on our collaborative practice as instigator and harnesser of the communicative power of art to engage communities around important public issues, and investigates areas of significance to contemporary art; material culture, collecting and artist-led curatorial practice, while emphasising a participatory approach.

A partnership with The Highland Hospice, objects selected from its charity shops become vehicles that enable conversation, knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange. Through a model of artist-led curatorial practice new modes of presentation and display of these objects enable new understandings and meanings and activate embedded knowledge and subjectivities positioned alongside multidisciplinary expert views. As the artists, we take on the roles of collectors, keepers and curators.

The project manifested itself in venues that support the interrogation of issues such as presentation, display, curation (The Highland Institute of Contemporary Art); the establishment of ‘placemaking’ through durational approaches to curation and commissioning, the interface between art/anthropology fieldwork (VRC).

Project supported by The Henry Moore Foundation and the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and HICA.

Associated Publications

'Exhibitions 2011', Highland Institute for Contemporary Art, Publisher: Small Potatoes Publishing. ISBN 978 0 9532175 4 (inc. essay Tracy Mackenna and Edwin Janssen, 'Loss becomes Object', by Duncan McLaren). 44pp

'Loss becomes Object becomes Subject', Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen. Oct 2013. Publisher Ed & Ellis