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Testimonial from Professor Andrew Hunt curator:
Andrew Hunt
I am working with Laura Khan Mitchison on the project with Tris Vonna-Michell (an artist that I have worked with on numerous occasions on exhibitions, commissioned public artworks and publications between 2008 and the present) for a number of reasons. First of all Laura’s expertise as an oral historian chimes with Vonna-Michell’s practice, especially his new project, which dwells on his late father’s Ed’s recently uncovered archive. The first part of this project is taking place in Karlsruhe, Germany, at Badischer Kunstverein, between September and December 2024 to introduce Vonna-Michell’s father’s work to a European public audience. I am inviting Khan Mitchison to work closely with Vonna-Michell on the second instantiation of the project, which will take place between February and April 2025 at Moon Grove in Manchester. Laura & Tris will work closely on a spoken word interpretation of Ed’s photographs of London in the 1970s and 1980s, which were recently unearthed. Examples of material found in Ed Vonna-Michell’s boxes were numerous abstract large-format photographs, which had been deliberately crumpled, left unprotected, scratched, or soiled, as if to be found later and decoded.
Laura is working closely with Tris to create a political and phenomenological reading of Ed’s previously hidden images to unite Tris and Ed’s creative identity. They will weave together historical and contemporary narratives that will accompany a new audio-visual installation by Tris, rendered in the artist’s trademark presentation style using analogue non-digital technology, such as Dataton, Telex, reel-to-reel and Hantarex machines. Importantly, Ed had been closely involved with counter-cultural artistic movements including expanded cinema, auto-destructive art, sound poetry, and the British poetry revival movements from the 1960s through to the 1990s.
Laura’s own talents – which I have witnessed in seeing her previous projects for her company On the Record – lie in similar lateral psychological and literary thought processes inherent to the aforementioned artists and movements, and her natural sense of collaboration – that connects personal and world histories (a natural and ongoing concern in Vonna-Michell’s work since the late 2000s) – will serve to act as a natural conduit for this trans-generational, trans-authorial project.Together, Laura, Tris and myself (I am the curator of the project and the director of Moon Grove, Manchester) will uncover the meaning and hidden intention behind Ed Vonna-Michell’s rare format slides that depict scenes of London in the 1970s and 1980s. This is an important project for art historical reasons and also for developments in the nature of contemporary art and Tris and I would not wish to work with anyone except Laura on this project because her talents fit so perfectly. I hope that you will consider supporting Laura with this practice development grant to increase her confidence & skill-set.