Output details

Capturing the Ephemeral: Sian Bowen and Nova Zembla

Bowen’s solo exhibition at Rijksmuseum Amsterdam evolved from its first artist’s residency and supported by Materiality and Transience Through Drawing Practice (AHRC £39,500).

The Nova Zembla prints, having lain frozen in the Arctic for three centuries, provided Bowen with opportunities to explore the materiality of drawing and the ephemeral nature of museum objects on paper. The project is contextualised by drawing practices that explore themes of ephemerality through the employment of fugitive materials (e.g. Beuys, Cage and Long) and Pott’s discussion of the dilemma of conserving works “whose ephemerality is integral” (Tate Papers, 2007). Bowen's interest in drawing as an explanatory-explorative tool and the communicative textures of the Nova Zembla artefacts opened a clear position for research that investigates relationships between the above strands. Building on ideas from her residency at the V&A, London (2008-9), Bowen tested methods of investigation and experimentation in the Rijksmuseum’s Paper Conservation Studio, whilst the interdisciplinary nature of the research involved working with historians, archaeologists, Polar experts and paper-makers in Russia, Berlin and the Arctic.

The exhibition formed part of a programme of contemporary artists’ responses to museum objects including Hirst's For the Love of God. The project distinguished itself by investigating ephemerality through a drawing practice in which innovative approaches to traditional methods and materials, including the historical practice of watermarks, were dedicated to new ends. Further international dissemination of the research was via exhibition tour to Berlin and London; conference papers in Russia and London; project publication (first in English on Nova Zembla prints); Rijksmuseum website; acquisition and selection for “British Drawing”, V&A, London, 2013.