In-Heritage Group

About the Project
During Lockdown in 2021, members of the In-heritage Group worked remotely with the 'Camberwell Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) Collection' housed at Camberwell College of Arts with support from UAL Archivist Jacqueline Winston-Silk. Each member of the group carried out creative research and practice in response to individually selected items from the archive.

‘Do Not Touch’ Peter Maloney 2021
I chose a “set of wooden building blocks, a 'Balance Building Set' with original box. Manufactured by Tofa toys in Czechoslovakia”. The theme of Remote Sensing seems pertinent to this project. Our current condition (in Lockdown) is ‘disconnected’, ‘remote’ or ‘distant’. We struggle to ‘get a grip’, we feel 'out of touch’. So how do we make sense of the Museum, Gallery or Archive when it cannot be accessed or touched? This question drove my practice. As a member of ICOMOS I was fascinated by the idea of ‘intangible heritage’ and in the brief we work with a ‘handling collection’ that cannot be touched.

A pre-cognition is required to understand the online image. We see the building blocks and understand the feel and even the taste of the wood and the paint. We know the sound when our construction collapses. We know the weight of the blocks in our hands. The blocks contain a latency that relates to theories of the virtual, they have a potential for becoming new through their re-configuration. We see the blocks but we can also see potential for a house, a tower or a city. We recall memories and we can project futures. We can make and re-make memories.

I re-constructed the blocks digitally. I measured and drew the blocks then began to build with them in the software. I configured the blocks like the photograph online. Then I tried to re-create the configuration from the illustration on the box. The curator, Jacqueline Winston-Silk told us the collection was kept in ‘a shed on the roof’ at the Wilson Road site of Camberwell College of Arts and this fascinated me. I used Google Earth to access the site remotely. I could look down on Wilson Road in Google maps in the same way as looking down on the building blocks on a table. I found the archive. I created a kit of the Camberwell Wilson Road site as the narratives of the artefact and its location merged in my imagination. I wanted to bring the digital model back into the actual through projection or material construction.

Through this project I explored remote engagement with archives and artefacts in a playful open way. Heritage is a current and critical practice with difficult histories and questions. It is important that archives are open and accessible in diverse forms to encourage the broadest critical engagement. I want to thank members of the group for facilitating the project, and thanks to Leah and Rachel for today’s conference.

About the Symposium
In April 2021, the Illustration Programme at Camberwell College of Arts hosted a one-day online symposium; Remote Sensing. Speakers were members of the UAL academic community (staff and students) and invited guests from national and international institutions. On the day of the Symposium the In-Heritage Group presented their outcomes from the ILEA archive project. Presenters: Dr Jason Cleverly, Dr Leah Fusco, Peter Maloney, Colin Priest, Dr Rachel Emily Taylor

About the In-Heritage Group
The In-Heritage Group is a community of practice established during the coronavirus pandemic by academics from across illustration, 3d product and furniture and interior and spatial design, seeking to expand disciplinary research and knowledge exchange activity between heritage objects, sites, and settings to stir narratives in places.

• http://remote--sensing.co.uk/category/pu...