Is a place only our memory of it?

As one of its focal points it takes the current situation in the Middle East is reflected in the mixed media pieces by UK and international artists and includes the bullet collection of BBC Foreign Correspondent Martin Bell. 

The exhibition is part of the Beyond Text scheme funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) involving academics from across a range of disciplines such as politics, history and geography alongside visual artists, musicians and architects. Its aim is to bring together and explore ideas about identity, presence, homeland and mobility. 

According to Dr Elena Isayev, a historian at the University of Exeter’s Classics and Ancient History department who is leading the AHRC project, these ideas depend on our understanding of the nature of the bond between memory and place. She said, ‘We want to address questions of how our connections to a particular place whether a city, village or border area are shaped by our experience of it. The way memories develop and how they can be strengthened or broken through by changing the landscape from what it once stood for or became.

She add, ‘For example, a disused military outpost called Oush Grab in Palestine, was a place of considerable tension. Migrating birds were encouraged to nest in the old army buildings, holes conducive to birds habitats were made thereby taking the focus of any military history away. It also encouraged an idea of the future and positive possibilities for the area.’

One of the works commissioned for the project and on display in the exhibition is a Book of Returns by Italian artist Alessandro Petti and Palestinian Sandi Hillal who founded an architectural collective in Bethlehem. The book is one of three copies, the rest of which are part of the Istanbul Biennale. UK artist Catrin Webster has created a series of postcards and uses this to illustrate a visual idea of a particular place which is unique to the sender once text has been added. Also on display are works by Hanaa MaAllah, Rashad Salim, and Shauna McMullan whose work can also be seen at the Met Office in Exeter. The exhibition is supported by Exeter Migrations Network and Exeter Arts and Culture.

The opening of De-placing Future Memory is on Monday 5 October from 6pm – 7pm and will include a performance of a new music composition Remember Me by Jonathan Lee.  It is a free event and open to members of the public and is followed by a presentation about the project and exhibition at the Phoenix Arts Centre at 8.30pm as part of the Café Scientifique series.