Jamie Shovlin at Tullie House

In 2009, Tullie House invited Jamie Shovlin to explore the museum’s extensive and diverse collections of fine and decorative arts, archaeology, social history and natural sciences, and to develop an exhibition from his findings.

The result of two years’ research is an exhibition in which the artist has sought to reveal the internal processes of the museum and to examine how these processes relate to his own artistic practice. On display are works by Shovlin as well objects from the museum collection, some of which are shown in the packaging in which they first entered the museum. These objects are not necessarily prize items in the Tullie House collections; many are rarely on display, their stories deemed peripheral or tangential to the museum’s identity.

By placing these objects next to his own work, Shovlin insinuates new stories – about the production of art, the passing of time, about the making and recording of history. In doing so, the artist reveals the subjectivity behind both curatorial and artistic practices, and challenges the notion of the museum as a fixed vantage point from which history is viewed.

For further information please visit the Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery website.