Storybox: Tales of Absence, ‘What ifs' and Salvation

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Venue: Wilton's Music Hall, John Wilton Room, 1 Graces Alley, London E1 8JB
Price: free

Private View: 2 November 2017, 18:30-21:30

Open Monday - Friday
11:00-21:00
Saturdays
17:00-21:00

The Storybox Collective is pleased to announce Storybox:  Tales of Absence, 'What ifs' and Salvation, an exhibition of new work inspired by hidden gems discovered in the archives of Wilton's Music Hall - the oldest surviving Grand Music Hall in the world.

The exhibition will feature individual and collaborative artworks curated into themed story boxes.  Archives use story boxes to incite curiosity and create a sense of discovery.  The works in the show invite you to consider the journey from inspiration to creation, and to examine the role of the archive and artefact as sources of serendipitous creative opportunities.

The Storybox Collective is a group of KSA MA Communication Design: Illustration and Graduate Diploma Creative Practice graduates exploring the potential of archival research through collaborative making. Its founder Clare Conway, design practitioner and Senior Lecturer at Kingston School of Art, established the Collective as an approach to revivify archives as a source of creative potential: "Archives are frequently seen as fusty repositories where you have to know what you're looking for in order to find it. If you turn this on its head, and rummage through them with an open and inquisitive mind, who knows what you'll discover ..."

Wilton's archive collection contains hints and clues to not just the history of the building and its environment, but to the many different people who have walked its floors and treaded the boards. Themes uncovered and reinterpreted by the Collective include: the women of Wilton's; tea and Christianity; textiles and identity, and the handwritten sermon notes of the Reverend Tom Collins. Matt Hams, founding member of the Collective says: "The language in Tom's written documents reads like stream of consciousness poetry. He spawns strange, enigmatic images, referencing trapdoors, obscene shows, sailors, painted dolls. My work explores ways to transform these words into a form that questions and subverts their meaning."

Wilton's Music Hall
East London gem Wilton's Music Hall re-opened the doors to its Grade II listed building in 2015 after extensive refurbishment. The oldest Grand Music Hall in the world, they are fast becoming one of the country's most vibrant multi-arts venues, home to a year-round programme of live music and diverse theatre productions which have been seen by over 40,000 people in the past year alone. It also houses two main bars which are much-loved destinations in their own right, serving a carefully selected range of beers, wines and spirits. Their delicious menu of seasonal dishes and small plates is designed by in-house caterers Gatherers and inspired by Wiltons' distinctive heritage. Wilton's is not open on Bank Holidays.
https://www.wiltons.org.uk/

For further information about this event:

Contact: Poppy Parry
Tel: 07533 183079
Email: thestoryboxcollective@gmail.com