Curating Ken.To be destroyed

A conference paper co authored by Val Williams and Sara Davidmann and presented at the conference: Researching, Writing and Exhibiting Photography Symposium organized by the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture at the University of Westminster.

In 2013, curator Val Williams read a press story about the archive which artists Sara Davidmann had inherited (with her two siblings) from her mother, Audrey. The archive contained papers, letters and photographs which related to a period of years in the 1950s and 60s, when Audrey’s younger sister Hazel discovered that her husband Ken, was transgender.

Frim this archive Sara had begun to make work and the early makings of the series ‘The Dress’ and ‘For Ken’ had begun to evolve.
Sara was also doing very detailed research into the archive itself, transcribing letters, tracing references, attempting to decipher the relationship between family members, from shreds of evidence, mainly letters.

The relationship between Val Williams as editor and curator, Sara Davidmann as family archivist and artist began revolves around three curatorial outcomes:1. a small exhibition Ken. To be destroyed at the UAL Photography and the Archive Research Centre in 2013, 2. An exhibition at the Schwules Museum in Berlin which was an enlarged version of the 2013 show, with new work by Sara and the latest iteration Ken. To be Destroyed in the Upper Gallery at the London College of Communication, staged as the central show of the Moose on the Loose Biennale,2017.

This paper will look at the ways in which three very different outcomes, in different locations and with different audiences in two different countries have come from the ‘Ken’ project and archive resources and the way in which the curatorial/artist collaboration has worked over the three projects.
Particular research questions of interest could be:
1. How does curatorship and collaboration ensure that a project such as Ken. To be destroyed will appeal to the broadest possible audience?
2. How is the balance between the archive’s narrative and art practice emerging from the archive, created and maintained?
3. To what extent does audience matter when making a new exhibition- e.g. Schwules, which has a loyal core audience interested in ‘queer’ issues (as well as a wider public) and LCC where the audience is predominantly students and staff.
4. How do the characteristics of exhibition space determine what is produced and selected and how it is shown?

NB: The paper was read by Sara Davidmann as Val Williams was speaking at another conference.