We went to an ArtHouse Jersey exhibition titled ‘No Place Like Home’ – “An ambitious multi-disciplinary exhibition featuring the work of acclaimed UK, international and Jersey-based artists that explores the concept of ‘home’ in the 21st century.” It was advertised with the placement of a Dissent Module at the Radome site in Les Platons, a piece created by Rachel Ara that was soon moved to the St Helier Town Churchyard just outside where the exhibition was held.

Upon entering the exhibition, we were greeted by a large sign of a house among various objects and Jersey landmarks, reading “HOME IS NOT A PLACE” – immediately launching us into thinking about concepts of home and community. Behind this was some more cardboard cutouts and a large mural of various pieces of furniture mixed with the previously mentioned Jersey landmarks, such as the towers that are scattered about the south coast of the island. This piece appears AI generated, given the way that things blend and merge together like in Will Lakeman’s exhibition surrounding his memories of Fort Regent recreated by AI.

Various art pieces and trinkets that wouldn’t look out of place in a household were spread out and organised around the first part of the room, some hanging from the ceiling, sat on bedside tables, and some hanging on the walls. Each set of objects had their own sense of belonging and personal attachment to them, whether it was something I’d recognised from my parents house, someone else’s house, or just something I’d noticed at some point in my life – nevertheless, there was still some almost nostalgic feeling I took from this part of the room.

The next thing we saw in the exhibition was this small, old-fashioned TV, playing a strange video of a woman in a kitchen, naming every object she picked up before hitting it against something, or using it to make a noise. It was an oddly nostalgic video that reminded me of commercials that I saw on the TV as a child, which I think was only enhanced by the medium of such an old TV, as my family still had something similar in the late 2000’s that I remember sitting in front of most nights.

The next section of the room reminded me of a modern house, with shelving shaped in strong, cubic forms, covered in various abstract artworks. Among them were prints of plants, old portrait photographs, and drawings of various shapes and objects, most notably the large piece that almost looks like a window with a flower-like design on each pane in the corner of the room. With the fake plants and couches placed around this area, it felt quite homely, in particular the chair displayed in the image reminded me of a chair that I used to sit on at my parents’ house when I was young.

On the other side of the room, I noticed a small scrapbook filled with small sketches and art pieces sat on a shelf, with a QR code nearby that lead to an interview of British artist Peter Liversidge. I felt quite an attachment to the book, which I think links back to the sketchbooks I had throughout primary secondary school studying art.

On the other side of the room, there was two tables, both being art pieces featuring images of buildings. On the first table, there were chunks of stone with a flat side, covered in images of various generic buildings. It almost acted as if these were chunks taken from the buildings and the images on them were just vague enough to create a link with a viewer’s own memories of similar buildings. Personally, this reminds me of the large granite Gaspe House buildings near the coast in St Helier, toward the beginning of Victoria Avenue. Although I have no personal link or association to this place, it triggered a memory of them that brings me back to this familiar place. On the second table, these images of buildings were plastered onto these 3D shapes that seem assembled like some sort of puzzle. I think they have quite a crystalline shape, which made me think more about the material these actual buildings were made of, and the crystals inside of stones that I saw when playing with and breaking apart rocks when I was younger.

At the back of the exhibition, a large tapestry of a small canyon in what I presume to be a desert was hung from the wall. I felt extremely connected to this piece, as it brought back memories of my summers in Spain with my Grandfather, where I’d explore the mountains in the surrounding area, and I remember going down to a large creek with one of my friends that I’d met down there, jumping off of large rocks into the water and camping in a place similar to this.

This final part of the exhibit was much like the first, featuring cardboard cutouts of various objects and some old-fashion furniture, but this one felt different; it reminded me of memories I had at some of my older family members houses in the UK, and partly my Grandmother’s house before it was redecorated.

Overall, I found this exhibit very interesting, and even now, taking the time to reflect and write about it I find myself thinking about my childhood and what I would consider my home and what’s important to me.

On the day (28/09/2023), we had visited the Art house to see the new exhibition, No Place Like Home. This exhibition is an ambitious showcase curated by Laura Hudson and Rosalind Davis and it considers how we all think of home and our place in the universe.

It is a collaboration of different artists, some even from the UK, their artworks and responses to the subject drastically vary between the artists. Some that I have seen have been little sculptures, detailed drawings, even video responses, photographic responses, and even a self made space shuttle. One of the most popular artworks taking part in this exhibition was a floating earth shown in Queens Valley reservoir. No matter the size of the work, each piece is unique and allows us to question the definition of a home and what it means to us.

We were lucky to be talked to for a brief time by the workers at Jersey art house and we were able to ask any question regarding any form of artwork within the room. The one they had mainly discussed with us was the space shuttle.

The one that interested me the most was a piece done by Harriet Mena Hill which were clumps of concrete that had very detailed drawings on top of them of flats and apartments. As I got into reading about the artwork, these clumps of concrete were from a social housing demolition site in London. She refaced and painted the concrete with images of remnants of peoples lives who had been moved from their former homes. This piece felt special to me because I was raised in similar surroundings and it felt nostalgic knowing that the concrete used is not random and it has a profound meaning behind it.

However another artwork I enjoyed was one where paintings were punctured by plaster pieces which were made from casts of mechanical fixtures found on an industrial waste site in Bosnia. This piece was done by Ana Cvorovic. The series began during the first major lockdown in Covid-19, in which time she painted landscape themes and mountainous regions which appear to float like islands on brightly coloured tarpaulins (a material used for cover and protection). The material behind these images are mainly films that influenced her during this time and a series of images from google earth. The paintings are seductive and also objective as if we are looking for a new target. The meaning behind it is to create a contrast between peace and interruption of the natural world and human destruction.

Overall, this is my favourite exhibition that the art house has done so far because of the variety of responses from different artists and how each piece has its own originality and personality.

We all have gone to Jersey museum & art gallery. In there we have met with chief archivist and archivist assistant, where they have explained what Société Jersiaise is all about.

Jersey archive is like a library of photographs, but not only that but drawing, books, maps or postcards that they store. In the middle of our visit, as we are learning about Elizabeth Castle, they were generous enough to show us material they had stored in boxes regarding the castle.

There were items, mainly drawings, some dating from many centuries ago. As the archive got closer to the present day, there was much more material and records.

The topics they have covered are how the archive stores the material, how they get their material, how other people can access this material and many more interesting topics regarding what they specialise in. We were given a brief introduction on how to operate their website as well as how to access the photographs they have on the Jersey Heritage website. Many of the images can be found easily by searching a desired topic or a time frame or even a wanted photographer. I have learnt that anyone can donate photographic material and most / some will be stored in the Jersey archive for many generations of visitors. What I found interesting is that a couple of artists that I have previously researched have worked with the Jersey archive and donated some of their work to the foundation, this includes artists such as Will Lakeman and Michelle Sank. Jersey archive is good to work with and a good source of material, especially for our photography project which is nostalgia. In the future it is very likely that I will be using some of the images from Jersey archive as the themes of nostalgia and nostalgic photographs are what the Jersey archive is made of.

Photographs from the trip:

We visited the Société Jersiaise photo archives to learn more about the history of Elizabeth Castle, primarily the history with the Occupation and WWII. After this visit, I realised that I had no idea that the castle had so much history with so many different things – I’d always seen it more as just a monument for Queen Elizabeth I, not a place that housed exiled royalty or privateers.

We looked at several different physical copies of old photographs, letters, and drawings of or to do with the castle, and given a talk by photo-archivist Patrick Cahill on the importance of documentation and archiving – it gives people in the present mostly necessary information about the past that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. We also learned about the process of archiving, how they sort everything in their systems, and how they decide what they can and can’t display for public access within the archives.

We were also told about their online archive that is publicly available on the Société Jersiaise website, featuring 8 main sections of different media stored on their databases, including newspapers, annual bulletins, maps/plans, books, albums, photographs, talks and resources.

These resources will all be perfectly useful for the development and production of our short film on Elizabeth Castle, and will help me grasp a better idea of the history of the building and what it means to the island.

About

The exhibition ‘No Place Like Home’ showcases artists working in a variety of mediums from sculpture to tapestry to interactive installations where visitors can make themselves at home in a temporary living room. It challenges people’s perceptions of what an art exhibition can be and has been designed to appeal to a broad variety of ages, not just for those with a firmly established interest in art. 

The exhibition itself was created by artists Rosalind Davis and Laura Hudson. They stated that they wanted to create and exhibition where everyone could feel at home, which is a part of the reason they chose to showcase their work in art house Jersey as it is accessible to a wider community. They explain that home, while its meaning depends on you as a person, is usually used to describe a sanctuary/ a safe space, which is something the artists tried to recreate with some of their pieces. Along side the artwork presented at the exhibition, there will also be installations in supposedly ‘surprising’ settings around the island.

Photos from the exhibition

We visited the Société Jersiaise, located at the Jersey Museum, to get information on how to access archive material online and through the archives.

Hautlieu students have been visiting the archives for many years for project material, and the school has a firm relationship with the Société. We were able to view some of the material on the history of Elizabeth Castle, including the original plans to build it.

We also visited Capital House to see an exhibition called No Place Like Home, which was a collection of work from multiple artists from both Jersey and the rest of the world on what they viewed as ‘Home’.

A floating sculpture of the Earth was situated in the Queen’s Valley Reservoir by artist Luke Jerram between 14th and 24th of September and this was a part of the exhibition.

The piece was intended to make the viewer feel the same sense of awe that astronauts feel when they view the Earth from space. A soundscape is played at the same time, drawing us to confront the issue of climate change and its effect on our planet.

One artist’s work, Harriet Mena Hill’s Aylesbury Estate fragments, was rather interesting to me. It was made up of fragments of debris from the Aylesbury Estate in South East London, which is being demolished as part of a renovation program. She wanted to focus on the impact of gentrification on communities, and decided to do this with the act of preservation of rendering scenes of her local architecture onto the fragments of concrete.

I felt that this trip was helpful as it helped me to understand how the archives work and how they can be used to add further depth to my projects. I also felt that the exhibition was rather interesting, and as it focuses on the idea of home and its importance to each individual, I think it is pretty relevant to our module on nostalgia.

No place like home takes as its starting point a subject of increasing concern and tension in the 21st century, affecting all aspects of society and identity. 23 acclaimed artists cast multiple threads of inquiry to consider the idea of home for this exhibition.

Founded in 1873, by only a small group of Islanders, the Société Jersiaise holds around 35,000 historical images. Although it started with a small number of people interested in the study of history, language and antiques of Jersey, it soon grew a larger membership and the historical documents were published. In 1893 the museum became permanent and moved to 9 Pier Road. Now looked after and owned by Jersey Heritage, the collection is still growing. Their main mission is to make the Islands history available for people to see and admire, researching its history.

We visited the Société Jersiaise and got introduced to the people that look after all the archives. We got to see archival history of Elizabeth Castle, which was really interesting. It also inspired me to possibly use images from the archive, as well as letters, in our film. By learning about Jersey’s past, and seeing physical prints of the castle, we got to understand its history more in depth than just visiting a website. Over the years, images have become digitalised and we have become acclimated to online and digital presentations of photos. Learning about this emphasised how today’s society has no appreciation of the history of image making. This gave me the opportunity to understand the importance of archives, and how much care goes into keeping them safe. I wasn’t aware of this before, and it has made me want to create a more historic film, and edit my images and videos to replicate archives.

Archived Images:

Collection Search

Images from our visit:

Société Jersiaise is an archive of photos that contains the History, culture, environment and language of Jersey. There is about 35,000 historical images archived here, some of their photos and information goes back further than 1873, which was the year it was founded. There is an extensive library there where the archive publishes books about the photos for people to get, handy for any historians on the island who want to learn more about the history of Jersey.

Here are some photos of our recent visit:

History:

In 1992 the Photographic Archive (SJPA) was established to implement appropriate collections management policies for the photographic collections held by the Société Jersiaise Library. From its foundation, the Société actively encouraged the use of photography in achieving its aims, resulting in the natural accrual of photographic materials.

The collection acted as both a repository of research resources relating to Jersey, and as a record of the work carried out by the Société’s Sections and Departments. The SJPA is responsible for over 140,000 records and is Jersey’s primary repository for photographic materials; as described in the shared collections management policy between Jersey Heritage and the Société Jersiaise, which came into effect in 2019. 

This is my final piece for my zine. I tried to combine my favourite black and white images combined with my images in colour. For each page I decided to keep the colour combinations so when you turn the page its like you get a different story due to the different characters and personalities.