- Artists
Image: Ting-Ting Cheng, On the Desert Island, 2017. Audio guide and site-specific installation in the Stuart Hall Library, London. Image courtesy the artist, Iniva and the Stuart Hall Foundation. Photo: George Torode
Iniva and the Stuart Hall Foundation are pleased to announce that artist Ting-Ting Cheng has been awarded the Stuart Hall Library Artist’s Residency. Selected via a hugely popular open call submission process, Cheng will be in residence at Iniva’s Stuart Hall Library over a three-month period from January to March 2017. During this time, Cheng will be revisiting an audio recording of Stuart Hall speaking on the popular BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs in 2000. When researching the archive, Cheng was particularly struck by the following quote from Hall:
“I think the British have a future only if they can come to terms with the fact that Britishness is not one thing and has never been one thing…If you think of last year…first of all the celebration of the Windrush Arrival, which is 50 years since the first post-war migrants. On the other hand, there is the MacPherson inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. And it seems to me that Britain is facing these two possibilities as an alternative future…”
Cheng felt this quote was particularly relevant to today’s post-Brexit standpoint, despite its original utterance being 16 years ago. Using the Desert Island Discs audio archive as an index for her research in the library, Cheng will explore the concept of Britishness and the possibility of a utopian vision for our future. She plans to create an audio map which will guide audiences through the library and its unique categorising system. In the words of the artist: “The audio map is designed to convert the library into a desert island where audiences follow the journey of the conversation 16 years ago in the current context.”
For more updates on Cheng’s residency, and the progress of her audio map, please continue to check Iniva’s website and sign up to our events newsletter.
The Stuart Hall Library Artist’s Residency is a new funded opportunity organised by Iniva in partnership with the Stuart Hall Foundation.