Thursday 8 November 2012

Kitty Lake private view at Darbyshire, Nov 8th




Darbyshire is pleased to present Kitty Lake, at our White Lion Street space in Islington.
Kitty Lake is a one night only event, presented as part of Darbyshire’s ongoing art projects program.

Kitty Lake anthropologist and explorer 1904 - 2001

Kitty Lake’s collection of photographs, journals and artefacts creates a visual narrative of her life; these are the clues, the evidence. A three-dimensional documentary, half revealed, giving a glimpse of her journeys, encounters, relationships; a life bought together in a few boxes.

Artist Sally Hampson has followed in Kitty Lake’s footsteps retracing her journeys, to the wilds of the West Coast of Ireland and across to the Outer Hebrides, to Dakhla Oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert and the mountains of Sinai, to Lalibella in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Kitty Lake disappeared in Egypt in the early spring of 2000. After receiving a post card of her designated route; Sally traced the same journey, which led her to a small hotel at the end of a track, at the edge of the escarpment. It was there sadly that she was given Kitty Lake tin trunk in amongst her belongings, her journal where she describes walking up into the escarpment. Using her descriptions Sally tried to follow but found nothing.
“Coming back through Cairo airport carrying my luggage as well as Kitty’s tin truck, I was asked at customs, “What’s this?” We both looked down at her belongings (where could I begin?). I just said, “Please don’t ask” and he gently closed the lid.

Sally Hampson locates, gathers, assembles and curates Kitty Lake collections.

Extracts of Kitty Lake’s journeys have been shown at the Horniman Museum in London, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, the Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, Netherlands, and the British Council Cairo.







No comments:

Post a Comment