CELIA BURBUSH
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11/15/2020

A return to the ‘mining’ theme

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My work and research has wound its way back to mining. But it’s sort of connected into a broader theme of contemporary artists’ and wider culture’s current obsession with archeology.
I’m in a process of ‘digging’ up the relics and ‘structures’ from my 15 year socially-engaged arts practice and digital archive, of working with marginalised/‘hidden’ communities across Cumbria. I have recently discovered this is a trend amongst artists of the last 20 years, called ‘archeology of the contemporary past’. Basically you dig something up in order to right a wrong, celebrate, make something in society more visible (I feel guilty of all three), or you fetishize the crumbly aesthetic (guilty again). I realised I have the same motivations as every other archeology/geography enthusiast, the only difference being, I don’t do as much actual physical digging. Although saying that, in the manner in which I make the work, I think I will be mimicking those archeological practices.

So, then, I’ve read that, a criticism against this digging up, is maybe a failure to imagine a future (e-flux journal #4 — march 2009 Dieter Roelstraete The Way of the Shovel: On the Archeological Imaginary in Art). I thought, well maybe, out of this archive, I can imagine a future. Apparently, this comes under the umbrella of speculative archeology!

So what I've decided to do is to take some of the fantastical narrative material that myself and the groups conjured up, and I’m going to imagine and make the sequels. I’m going to take the somewhat grungy Labyrinth-esque aesthetic that we all used at the time, but mix it with the ‘archeology aesthetic’ ie gorgeous rusty stuff. Oh god, it’ll all look like steam punk if I’m not careful. But, I think this ‘looking forward to the future’
is maybe what’s needed in this subjectmatter. Make sense of the past, to answer the question of how to make a real difference in the future, with what I do?
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2 Comments
Chris Jansen Van Vuuren link
7/9/2021 01:36:24 pm

What a beautiful art. It captures the soul of what is left behind by a mining operation. I have seen it firsthand. Dankie.

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Hairy Escort San Jose link
12/24/2024 10:35:54 pm

Appreciate your blog postt

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    Celia Burbush

    Pursuing an understanding of what we need to exist in the world: how do we connect with others (and the wider world and its objects),  what is our language.

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Celia Burbush
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  • Home
  • Artworks
    • 'Into the interior' textiles
    • Cumbrian Mining paintings
    • People
    • Journey Portraits, 2022
  • Community Art
    • Memoirs of Doris Riley 2024
    • Maryport in Painting, 2023
    • Co-research with Kirkgate communities, 2022
    • story of we 2022
    • Journey Portraits, 2022
    • Light trails 2021
    • In Open Spaces 2021
    • Make it Now
    • Lockdown portraits 2020
    • How a Painting Speaks, 2018
    • These Four Walls 2017
    • Talking Tales 2017
    • Home is where the heart is 2017
    • Dreaming of home 2016
    • Life of a House, 2017
    • Dialogue with E numbers, 2014
    • Hour of the Star
    • Film Archive
  • News
  • ABOUT
    • Bio
    • Exhibitions
    • Experience
    • Reviews