May 28, 2023
Imagined as a ‘Museum of the Future,’ Hidden Door 2023 brings together the work of its artists and performers in immersive environments that can be explored by the audience in a museum style walk-through experience like no other.
While each artist featured within these environments has brought their own practice, inspiration and ideas to their installations, we have been intrigued by a few works that have responded directly to the concept of fictionalised histories and how they could affect the future.
Jill’s thought-provoking and playful work imagines rave culture as it might be viewed in a museum, a contemporary movement as a relic of the past. Recreating visual elements of rave culture as physical items that might have been excavated in an archaeological dig, Jill creates a Rave-Henge of traffic signage and dancing figures.
As Jill says, “our present-day archives are destined to be viewed by a future society through the context in which they live; we cannot predict which elements may become incorporated into a narrative which misinterprets these artefacts.”
Alice’s work explores the relationship between the formation of memories, storytelling, and objective truth – particularly the way in which memories and narrative change through their retelling.
Alice takes elements of orally told family stories and turns them into a visual language. Although composed of images that will be familiar to the viewer – a chip pan, a chair, a fence post – each composition becomes strange and surreal through the natural evolution of the narrative as it is retold, re-remembered, and exaggerated.
“My work isn’t an accurate reconstruction of the past, but a subjective romanticised fantasy.”
Leah presents her work as a “what-if” scenario, imagining a historic ground-breaking moment: the discovery of a new species that offers a solution to the climate crisis, photographed and documented for the viewer.
Exploring the ideas of moving beyond the limitations of current technology, yet still firmly rooted in scientific observation, Leah’s work is almost utopian in its outlook, inviting the audience to celebrate the connection between science and art as a route to a hypothetical future.
Inspired by historic ruins around Scotland, Becky has created a hexagonal pavilion – based on the shape of Complex, the location of Hidden Door 2023 – which appears as though in a state of decay.
Inviting viewers to walk through the pavilion, Becky encourages us to join her in “considering the relationship between the built environment and the natural environment, and how they exist together.”
Ornate ceramic details throughout the main sculpture pavilion hint at its imagined history. Each element is a fictionalised artefact in the ‘ruins’ of the artwork, suggesting that the viewer is observing something that is in the process of being reclaimed by nature…
Each of these artworks allows the audience an opportunity to explore the idea of reality being subject to change – through its fragility, or perhaps its elasticity. Through creation, exaggeration, or a reimagining of the past, the artists challenge the assumed immovability of historical fact.
These are just some of the works that can be found in Hidden Door 2023’s ‘Museum of the Future,’ with hundreds of unique artworks and performances to be explored by our visitors.
From 31st May to 4th June only, don’t miss your chance to come and explore!
