The People’s Museum of 1962 is the centrepiece of my practice. Envisaged as a fictional creation, it was originally established by James Wyndham. The museum has four directors, each living simultaneously in a different time and each one named James Wyndham. The museum exists between the years 1962 and 2069. Its main purpose is to archive and preserve the forgotten histories of the ordinary people of Great Britain and its colonies.
The museum’s exhibits are an attempt to raise questions of how we would perceive a Britain of the future and the role of the inconsequential individual within this wider society. It attempts to explore the themes of class conflict, nationalism, colonisation, eccentricity and scientific achievement.
The work is born from extensive periods of research. There are individual elements comprised of fact but, as you may probably be able to guess, the work also draws heavily from fiction. I use distorted presentations of the truth to distance the viewer and, in turn, raise questions about the subtext of the work and its origins in truth. The work also explores human nature and how we ascertain truth from situations from the way in which they are presented to us.
I aim for the work to give the viewer an insight into a modern idea of utopia. I want to offer the viewer impossible scenarios in order to ask them to revisit past ideals – especially the rebuilding of British society – and use these as metaphors for how our new global society functions. I want to pose the question: what would be possible if these things had really happened?
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