Tate Encounters

Image/Sound/Text:

This issue of Image/Sound/Text contains contributions from Sarah Thomas, visual anthropologist and Tate Encounters Research Assistant and three of the project’s LSBU student co-researchers, Dana Mendonca, Patrick Tubridy and Robbie Sweeny. The material is of different orders, but shares the common concern to use visual material as research data.

Through the work of Thomas the project has built up a considerable collection of video interviews and recordings of gallery related events. In this edition she has edited four short ‘films’, which are strong illustrations of the project explorations of the relationships between cultural identities, art museum encounters and visual cultures. They consist of; a video recording of Thomas visiting the place of work and home of May Ling, the mother of Jacqueline Ryan a co-researcher; a recording made of a visit of Deep Rajput to the ‘Forbidden Planet’ shop in London’s Covent Garden; a video recording of Deep Rajput and Nicola Oyejobi in discussion with Sarah Thomas at the Tate Britain and a more complex edited film of participants’ responses to an ‘entry’ video recording at the start of their Tate Encounter, entitled “I am”.

The contributions of the co-researchers reflects the working out and development of specific points of encounter with Tate Britain. Sweeny reflects upon the process of making a photograph in the Duveen Galleries which attempts to bring a domestic world into the space of the art museum. Mendonca provides an outline of a proposed project to explore identity in relation to migration, settlement and time. Tubridy’s photo-text focuses upon his continued challenge to the Britishness of Tate’s historical collection in relationship to his Irish cultural identity.