{"id":2498,"date":"2021-05-13T10:32:51","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T09:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningspaces.dundee.ac.uk\/dundeeuniculture\/?p=2498"},"modified":"2025-09-15T10:47:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T09:47:02","slug":"collaboration-the-artist-and-the-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/collaboration-the-artist-and-the-archive\/","title":{"rendered":"Collaboration: the Artist and the Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Student Lucy Southwell was part of the MSc Medical Art class that was led this semester by Museum Curator Matthew Jarron and Senior Archivist Jan Merchant. Having worked on promotional material for museums in London and <\/span>a<\/span>\u00a0zine based on her own family history, Lucy was keen to\u00a0<\/span>collaborate<\/span> on further projects using the collections. For Museum Services she contributed to illustrations for the Decolonising the D’Arcy Thompson Museum project (watch out for a blog about this later) and she was also keen to promote the University\u2019s Archive collections by designing a series of posters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After some discussion<\/span>, she decided to <\/span>focus on three main areas: <\/span>the University\u2019s records, which include\u00a0<\/span>material created by staff and students going back to the 1880s; NHS Tayside’s<\/span> hospital and asylum collections;<\/span> and the local collections<\/span>\u00a0which were created by local people, business and organisations.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As features for each she chose the student publication <\/span>College<\/span><\/i>\u00a0magazine<\/span> which was published between 1888 and 1952<\/span>, the Sunnyside Asylum collection<\/span>\u00a0which\u00a0dates back to\u00a01797<\/span>, and the Sidlaw Industries collection of<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>over two centuries<\/span>\u00a0of<\/span>\u00a0jute manufacturers\u2019 business records<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u00a0Workers leaving Caldrum Works c 1900 from the Sidlaw collections<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lucy\u2019s ideas<\/span>\u00a0for the posters<\/span>\u00a0were\u00a0<\/span>different and\u00a0<\/span>exciting<\/span> and she quickly <\/span>produced some<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>visuals based on different types of literature. More discussion with the Archive staff then led to three brilliant faux book covers, complete with \u2018blurb\u2019 about the stories of each collection. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u00a0Lucy’s response to the Sidlaw textile collections channeling Tin Tin and the Famous Five<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Lucy was inspired by records detailing recreational activity in Sunnyside asylum and blended this with her interest in pulp fiction novels dealing with controversial topics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u00a0Patients’ recreation at Sunnyside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Lucy’s pulp fiction cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally she recreated the University’s student magazine ‘The College’ as a ‘ a pastiche of the modern photos taken of students to promote universities, cheesy smiles and typical campus photos.’
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

You can see more about Lucy\u2019s <\/span>development of the posters on her blog post at: https:\/\/southwell-blog.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/Dundee%20University%20Archives<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

For the Archive, working with Lucy has been a really enjoyable experience, one which they hope they can repeat again. <\/span>For now, they’d like to see the posters printed and displayed, so watch this space\u2026.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Y<\/span>ou can see more of Lucy\u2019s work at: https:\/\/southwell-illustrates.blogspot.com\/2021\/05\/blog-post_24.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student Lucy Southwell was part of the MSc Medical Art class that was led this semester by Museum Curator Matthew Jarron and Senior Archivist Jan Merchant. Having worked on promotional material for museums in London and a\u00a0zine based on her own family history, Lucy was keen to\u00a0collaborate on further projects using the collections. For Museum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":550,"featured_media":2521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,14,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-art","category-history","category-museums"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6307,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions\/6307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}