An Archive of Presence 

An Archive of Presence is an artwork that creates visual recognition of the communities’ continuous daily actions. Communities work invisibly together, holding generations of knowledge and care, layering and weaving their embodied experiences and presence through daily small actions that amount to transformation. An Archive of Presence is a slow transformation like that of a landscape held within the seasons or the current climatic changes. The artwork reflects our human abilities to enact custodianship that cradles our worlds. An Archive of Presence is rudimentary in its material form but the implications are far reaching. It is comprised of a set of very long scrolls of dark grey paper that loop and curl across the exhibition space, the actions of drawing become witness to our presence and labour. The public are invited to contribute to the actions of transformation of the scrolls by marking the papers with the handmade porcelain chalks, this is an ongoing and continuous work as the scrolls unwind. The transformation becomes a shared work of the community, it recognises the role and power of collective work and the use of precious material in our everyday lives.

Clare Twomey was the V&A’s Ceramics Artist in Residence from April–November 2011. Clare is a British artist and a research fellow at the University of Westminster who works with clay in large-scale installations, sculpture and site-specific works. Over the past 10 years she has exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate, Crafts Council, Museum of Modern Art Kyoto Japan, the Eden Project and the Royal Academy of Arts. Within these works Twomey has maintained her concerns with materials, craft practice and historic and social context.

Website claretwomey.com/

Instagram @studioclaretwomey