"Wandering Ruins" by Becky Manson from Tate (UK)

Wandering Ruins

Becky Manson

Assistant Curator, Digital Learning, Tate

We Are Museums 5th June 2014, State Ethnographic Museum, Warsaw

Joseph Mallord William Turner Norham Castle, Sunrise, c. 1845

Anish Kapoor As If To Celebrate, I Discovered A Mountain Blooming With Red Flowers, 1981 © Anish Kapoor

‘I think the red colour remind of red chill famous place named Patan, the city of Ahemdabad where Saris are made’

-‐ Art Maps participant

Banner credit: Louise and Jane Wilson Azeville, 2006 © Jane and Louise Wilson, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

Tacita Dean The Wreck of Worthing Pier, 2001 © Tacita Dean, courtesy Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris

Patrick Caulfield Ruins, 1964 © The Estate of Patrick Caulfield

Rachel Whiteread B: Clapton Park Estate, Madeville Street, London E5; Bakewell Court; Repton Court; March 1995, 1996 © Rachel Whiteread

How did mobile technologies facilitate connections to new or familiar locations?

“it’s amazing how much you don’t notice about your own environment”

“I was able to explore the history of a certain area… different historical facts… and issues around gentrification and regeneration”

“to explore what’s not necessarily visible”

“peeling away the layers of the different spaces and showing… things that had already happened”

“We ended up having a fantastic conversation with a person who had… grown up in, or been part of that community since 1976. [She] was able to tell us so much, being [part of the ] church, at the heart of the community… and what she had seen across the years”

What did mobile technologies add to participants’ understanding of the collection?

“the ideas around art and the concepts that artists create don’t come out of nowhere… They’re created in society and they’re influenced by things that happen in society”

“within the walls of the Tate, every artwork is compared to another artwork, whereas there is this other influence, which is the world outside of art”

“putting it in the environment and creating [an] opportunity where people can explore the artwork… in a different context that’s particular to them”

“You can actually get something which is part of an institution and… use your imagination, your creativity and your ideas to make something [else] out of that. It’s like taking an archive and using it to create something new. And I think that’s the future really. Get it out of the gallery, put it out there and make people interact with it”

-‐ Wandering Ruins participant

artmaps.tate.org.uk/artmaps/tate

wanderanywhere.com

tate.org.uk

becky.manson@tate.org.uk