Future Reference/Reverance

This show brings together a variety of objects under the general theme of the future; imagined, hoped for/not hoped for and literally yet to come. 

The new shop sign  Mary Wollstonecraft  in disco lettering is an umbrella term for this exhibition shedding overlapping thoughts on this extraordinary writer and campaigner whose works, though rediscovered by second wave feminism, are yet to be fully published. As detailed above, the full works are due to be published over the next few decades. The general editor, E.J. Clery has been researching and organising events on Mary Wollstonecraft, bringing writers, historians and fans together for talks and walks in the places she lived and worked. (Website of events here) 

The quote she chose for this text work above is from Mary Wollstonecraft’s most famous work, Vindication of the Rights of Women. The quote ends ‘…and I, that all will be right’, which is confounding in our present moment and at the same time relieving both with hope and with a sense that things can be different, can change, can be the future and in the future.

The wooden box is one of many made by Marco Crivello for an archive show in 2023 (more info here).  Naomi Salaman and Paul Von Tisenhausen-Khera housed and framed an original print of Mary Wollstonecraft by graffitti artist Stewy, for that show. It appears here as a kind of shrine, while its title becomes the enlarged in the main text box.

        

The image in the Sweetshop door is taken at the Apple Store in Lower Regents Street, London. A scan of the store  is full of delights, distraction and sugary goods. It is also a portal to the world’s wealthiest tech giants that we  gladly conspire with in our daily lives under Technofeudalism (Varoufakis, 2023).

This futurist vision in the other window was made by Atomhawk Design in collaboration with Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art North East Young Dads and Lads Project (2022). More info here 

 

ends Naomi Salaman