Visual biographies: object, art and archaeological practice.

‘Objects, places and people have typically ‘messy’ biographies that offer points of attachment for a wide range of sensory engagements’ (Ouzman 2006: 269).

As archaeology documents artefacts and sites, it produces a form of biography, representing the life histories of individual objects and even places as the archaeologist interprets them, sometimes in just a few illustrations and documents. At the same time, it is increasingly interested in the cultural biographies of particular artefacts, the web of interactions they amass through time, movement and change; as well as the connections between individuals and biographical objects, in people’s relationships with possessions and the stories that accrue around them.

This exhibition is interested in biography and representation through object, illustration and documentation, in the relationship between the individual and material culture and individual objects and the people they encounter, in the engagement between art, object and archaeological practice.

Work by artists and archaeologists that explores the idea of visual biographies in art and archaeology will be displayed throughout TAG 2008, 15-17th December.

Participating artists and archaeologists include -
Jon Adams : Gary Breeze : Judith Dobie : Rose Ferraby : Ian Kirkpatrick : Andrew Hall : Claude Heath : Helen Higgins : Carl Laubin : Jill Phillips : Peter Randall-Page : Olivia-jane Ransley : Elaine Wakefield : Aaron Watson