As part of Where can we be heard?, Unearthed Collective created a short film collage made up of Polaroid, film and digital photographs taken by the collective members during shared walks, reflecting on their personal connections to Clapham.
Untitled, 2023 (9 mins) is overlaid with audio interviews, recorded with residents and local organisations reflecting on their memories of the area and changes in Clapham and its community.
Unearthed Collective is a group of artists, curators and neighbours who meet monthly at Studio Voltaire to investigate Clapham’s community and history through the lens of creative practice. This exhibition culminates their research and practice over the last ten months.
The collective creatively explored Clapham’s lesser-known twentieth-century histories through research, talks, walks and visits. In the exhibition, they brought together photography, printed matter, oral recordings and archival material to foreground both found and personal stories.
Unearthed Collective seeks to ask what constitutes collective memory, how particular histories are imprinted and why these histories are buried in the first place. Working in partnership with local organisations and community members, their work interrogates patterns of dispersion and places of gathering.
Where can we be heard? asks who gets to decide what stories and places are remembered.
Chika Afam, Ally Appau, Ariel Collier, Allysa Gatinao, Lottie Gomes, Mercedes Halliday, Paul Halliday, Kate McKenzie and Jodi Miller for Unearth Collective.
Where can we be heard? forms part of Unearthed: Collective Histories - a twelve-month pilot programme of commissions, workshops and events uncovering the overlooked 20th Century histories of Studio Voltaire’s locale supported by Historic England, Hartfield Foundation and This is Clapham.
Starting with a unique idea of unearthing histories left untold, informed by both the institution and the community as a generative rather than extractive practice, Unearthed Collective was born. Serving opportunities for budding artists, curators and neighbours interested in giving back to their community in a creative way are able to get paid for putting together an exhibition, tour and event focused on our findings.
Edited by Natalie Mitchell. Audio editing by William Glass.
