milestone exhibition
An exhibition commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the publication of the Stephen Lawrence report.
Exhibition Dates: 17 Sept - 15 Oct 09
The Stephen Lawrence Gallery
Queen Anne Court, room 077
University of Greenwich
Park Row
Greenwich
London SE10 9LS
Private View: 3 October, 5 - 7 pm
Gallery Opening Times
Monday to Friday 10 am - 5 pm
Saturday 11 am – 4 pm
Disabled Access
St Andrew Holborn
The Crypt
5 St. Andrew Street
London
EC4A 3AB
Private View: 17 September, 6 - 8 pm
Crypt Opening Times
Monday to Friday 10 am - 5.30 pm
2009 marked the 10th anniversary of publication of the influential report of the Macpherson Inquiry into the police handling of the Stephen Lawrence case. This exhibition, which spanned two locations, used journeying as a metaphor to examine the relevance of the issues raised by Macpherson today.
What state are we in 10 years on from the report? Looking back, what have we learnt? Looking forward, what are we to expect? These questions are not intended to elicit policy answers. Instead, the exhibition examines artists’ responses to these questions in their practice.
The exhibition considered two locations: Greenwich, the London borough where Stephen Lawrence lived and was murdered, and Holborn, the legal heart of London. These two locations not only represented the sites of incident and inquiry, but they also opened up an interstice between ideas of act and response, local and national, intimate and universal, presentation and representation.
The artists’ works considered the journey between these sites in relation to loss, identity, perseverance, danger, exchange and remembrance. Viewers were invited to undertake the journeys physically or conceptually, becoming journeying subjects in the exhibition.
While the Milestone exhibition presented an artistic narrative about the journey of the Macpherson Report 10 years on, it also attempted to make available the journey itself.
Exhibiting Artists: Brigit Connolly, Ana-Laura Lopez de la Torre, Ekua McMorris, Graeme Miller, Eduardo Padilha, Claire Palfreyman
Curated by Jack Tan
The exhibition included an artist-led workshop by Ekua McMorris on Saturday 3rd October as part of ‘Your Greenwich’, an all day programme of events for teenagers on the World Heritage Site. The workshop employed ideas of walking and narrative to explore themes of personal identity.
Holborn site:
Greenwich site:
Exhibiting Artists:
Brigit Connolly
Brigit has made 200 Bone China cups moulded from people’s hands. 100 of each are installed in each location of the exhibition. You are invited to take one of these cups from one location, and to deposit it in the other location. Brigit would like you to send her pictures of yourself and the cup along your journey.
Email your pictures to brigit.connolly@btinternet.com
Pictures will be displayed at www.giveandtakecups.wordpress.com
Give and Take, 2009
100 Bone China hand cups.
Ana-Laura Lopez de la Torre
Ana Laura will be walking between Holborn and Greenwich with the flag she has made. The words sewn on the flag are: “Everything is not alright”. On 3 Oct 09, Ana Laura will take the flag which is installed at St Andrew Holborn and make the 3 hour walk to the Stephen Lawrence Gallery and install it in Greenwich. Concurrently, there is a slideshow of Ana Laura’s photographs at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery. These are of various public handmade signs or messages.
Everything is not alright, 2009
Flag: cloth, thread
Untitled, 2009
digital photographs and projector
Ekua McMorris
Ekua’s video in The Crypt in Holborn is of a seated naked woman and molasses is oozing out from the chair on which she sits. Correspondingly in Greenwich, Ekua’s has a pillar sculpture made from Mastic Asphalt that is exactly her own height. Ekua will also be giving out 100 letterpressed text at the private views in a work called “Souvenirs”.
Aporia, 2009
DVD, 51 mins
“I feel most black when thrown up against a stark white background”, 2009
Sculpture, mastic asphalt, 170 cm
Graeme Miller
Graeme’s two works Beheld and Unbeheld form a continuum of practice from past into future. Beheld sited in Greenwich comprises 10 bowls with images of the sky projected onto them. These are locations where migrant stowaways have fallen out of aeroplanes. When picked up, the bowls set off the sounds of these locations. 10 other bowls piled up on a plinth make up Unbeheld in Holborn. Each represents another stowaway story, migrant individual that has yet to be visited.
Beheld, 2006
Sculptural and sonic installation, glass bowls, slide projection, sound recordings.
Unbeheld, 2009
Sculptural installation, glass bowls.
Eduardo Padilha
Since being invited to participate in the exhibition, Eduardo has been collecting news headlines every day. He has two large paintings/drawings of these at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery. In Holborn, Eduardo’s portraits of faces and heads hang in the Crypt.
Untitled (portraits), 1995-2002
ink gel, charcoal, pencil and pastel oil bar.
Untitled (headlines for Milestone), 2009
headlines of July, August and September 2009
colour pencil on paper, 150 cm x 100
Claire Palfreyman
With a nod to the tradition of porcelain figurines, Claire’s group of teenage ‘hoodies’ glower together at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery. While at Holborn, two child-sized figures pose uncomfortable questions about what is happening.
Headlines, 2008
Ceramic figurines
London on the ground: Stoppages and disruptions, 2009
Digital print on paper.
Short Story: Volume 2, 2009
Two ceramic figures, found wooden chair.
