Object Becomes Subject

The Museum of Loss and Renewal: Object Becomes Subject The first two manifestations of The Museum of Loss and Renewal, Loss Becomes Object and Object Becomes Subject focus on the interrelationships between death, memory, material culture and recycling. During a prolonged period of engagement with The Highland Hospice Shops and by working with artefacts donated to them, we are investigating issues recurrent in our work; the value and significance of objects, life and death, and artist-led curatorial practice. By looking at and re-presenting items such as clothes, music, videos, books and bric-a-brac as part of a process of re-cycling, we continue to question the value of ‘things’, and how these determine and reflect identities and histories. This inquiry follows on from work made in response to our own familial experiences of death, represented in work such as Life is Over! if you want it. The Museum of Loss and Renewal: Object becomes Subject at DJCAD’s Visual Research Centre in November featured another in our series of public studios, a key component of our exhibition projects. This enabled the making of a new artwork, a text blanket and the development of the slide show No Neutral Representations (updated regularly) in a live situation with direct participation by a range of publics, arising through conversation and participation in discursive events.

Two public seminars took place, the first with Dr Paul O’Neill (curator, artist and writer) and Prof Arnd Schneider (social anthropologist), exploring notions of duration and context specificity in The Museum of Loss and Renewal project. In the second, Dr David Reilly (doctor, educator and researcher) focused on the relationship between art practice, creative change and human healing.

See the publication Loss becomes Object becomes Subject (2013) that documents the first two parts of The Museum of Loss and Renewal, designed in collaboration with Stout/Kramer.

The Museum of Loss and Renewal: Loss Becomes Object
No Neutral Representations
Life is Over! if you want it

HICA’s publication Exhibitions 2011 contains an essay on Loss becomes Object by Duncan McLaren.

The Museum of Loss and Renewal is supported by Creative Scotland The Henry Moore Foundation The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
Dundee Alcohol and Drug Partnership The International Society of Addiction Medicine (isamDUNDEE 2015) Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design Research, University of Dundee

Centrespace, Visual Research Centre, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, 14 – 27 November 2011

A temporary public hybrid space for exhibition, production, education and research. A mobile, durational project exploring the role of art in issues around wellbeing, end of life, material culture and memory

The Museum of Loss and Renewal is a partnership with The Highland Hospice

THE MUSEUM OF LOSS AND RENEWAL:OBJECT BECOMES SUBJECT