The Inflatable Archive was an exhibition by Claire Orme and Drew York – two recent graduates of the School of Music and Fine Art. They were the recipients of the first Recreate Bursary in celebration of the University of Kent’s 50th Anniversary.
For The Inflatable Archive, Drew York aims to explore the relationship between Sound and Image in an immediate and visceral way. Centrally concerned with acoustic anthropology, York uses 3d printing technology as medium to the unseen dimension – bringing to light the forgotten sonic histories of our environment by realising sound as object.
Claire Orme is presenting a new collection of works for the exhibition that playfully explore the unexpected associations between the history of Kent, Ancient Egypt and British Music Hall. Weaving together Kentish folklore and Ancient rituals, ghost stories and archaeology, music hall and sonar, Orme constructs a rather unorthodox narrative; suspended between the real and the imagined. This narrative will be unveiled through research material, sculpture, drawings and sound. Collectively, the works on display reflect Orme’s wider concerns in her practice – the investigation into the histories and secrets etched within and upon spaces and objects and the attempt to unlock the landscape of mysteries hidden by the conventional methods of experiencing the world.
Taking over the gallery and transforming it into an archival grotto, the artists will fill the space with curious artefacts that they have excavated from the ether. Dismantling local chronologies and assembling new narratives, Orme & York will entwine past and present in an imagined reality.