Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Central Lancashire
Jelly Pavilions for Liverpool 2010
Jelly Pavilions Leeds Art Gallery Northern Art Prize 2011
National Museums Liverpool commissioned Himid to work in collaboration with a small cluster of their public venues including Lady Lever Art Gallery, Merseyside Maritime Museum and Sudley House. The project Jelly Mould Pavilions for Liverpool (2010) developed ideas around memorialisation, commemoration and the city by using museum collections as forums through which to weave difficult questions about ownership, hidden histories and the future of the strategy to make visible cultural contribution.
Himid used the device of a fictional architectural competition, showing across the three NML museums sites and several independent venues including shops, cafes and educational institutions across the Liverpool.
She displayed a series of 50 Victorian Jelly Moulds she had painted with African patterns gleaned from collections and archives across the world, and ‘heroic’ portraits developed from local and regional research. They were then presented as ‘maquettes’ for potential erection as public monuments across the city; those engaging with the project were invited to ‘choose’ both design and site, while entering into discussions about black history and the history of Liverpool’s role in the growth and importance of the slave trade in Britain.
The installations were accompanied by a related interactive web-site, several public lectures across the region and a three week Design a Monument youth work-shop with Plaza Community Cinema in Waterloo, Merseyside.
The complete display of artworks was then chosen to be part of the Northern Art Prize (2011) shortlist exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery (Himid then won the People’s Choice Prize) during which the issues around how to evidence the past history of a city and the cultural contribution of its people were debated via gallery talks, on-line discussions, a specially commissioned film and related community group projects. In all visitor/engagement numbers exceeded 250,000.
