FOUND!
The British Library
FOUND! is an ongoing community project made in collaboration with the British Library and the Hillview Estate in Kings Cross. It is a mixed media narrative environment combining intimate film interviews and exhibition display, bringing a community and its stories into the world of a National Institution.
Hillview Estate is a highly diverse community that sits across the Euston Road from the British Library. FOUND! was created with the Hillview community and the staff of the British Library. Personal objects (collected from Hillview Estate) are at the heart of this exchange as they forge connections with the Library’s treasures.
Team:
Mark G Lonsdale – Producer, Creative Lead
Jessica Sammut – Assistant Producer
Emma Brohan – Exhibition Design
Gracia Mutombo – Graphic Design
Jenna Ye – Graphics, Storyboarding and Project Assistant
Joan Yang – Assistant Video Editor
Yichi Duan – Film Production Assistant
This short clip takes you through the process of this pilot version of Found!: from community workshops; to intimate interviews and a final narrative environment/exhibition at the Lumen Gallery in Kings Cross.
MEMORIES OF THE BLITZ
Bentley Priory Museum
Memories of the Blitz is a multi-sensory exhibition and narrative enviroment that allows visitors to hear and interact with original oral history accounts by those who were children during World War II. The exhibition is aimed at an intergenerational audience promoting conversation and reflection on the trauma of war and conflict. The project both preserves the memories of those who are slowly fading away from us and acts as a topical reflection on conflict today.
Memoirs of the Blitz was exhibited at Bentley Priory Museum in 2022.
Team:
Alexander Collinson – Project Lead & Director
Emma Brohan – Exhibition Design
Mark G Lonsdale – Film & Photography
LONDON 2030
London Transport Museum
Drawing on a set of ARUP’s Drivers of Change, this short animated narrative traced Anne’s journey to work through the transformed garden suburb of Acton of 2030. Exploring ideas of shared school transport, garden streets and the 15 minute city, Anne is organising her life when she encounters an angry local pro car protest.
Made as a partnership project between the London Transport Museum the Narrative Enironments MA at UAL/CSM. The challenge was to create a coherent and engaging future narrative within the 90 second time frame.
Exhibited at the London Transport Museum 2022
Alexander Collinson – Audio Design
Angie Corona – Storyboard & Script
Lucy McCullough – Graphic Design
Vivian Eiroa – Graphics & Script
Alexandra Babeau – Project Co–Ordinator
Mark G Lonsdale – Scriptwriter, Film Sequence Director
Jiaqi Xu – Project Researcher
Current Projects
GRACE
Grace is a film based installation that takes the visitor on a physical and emotional journey into a hidden life.
It explores a woman’s life via a virtual and magical visit to the home she had to leave – due to her dementia and physical frailty. Poetic and dreamlike, this is a journey through the intimate spaces and possessions that are left behind.
Grave Evans lived on the same street in New Cross, South London, all of her life. She was a kind neighbour to me and my family. She worked at a departmental store in the West End, travelled the world and attended church on Sundays. She lived alone for 30 years, following the death of her beloved sister and holiday companion, Sybil. Grace was known and much loved in her neighbourhood. A natural storyteller, she never married and had no immediate family when she died in a local nursing home in 2022.
How does it feel to cross the threshold and visit a home that is vacant and about to disappear? What is found, heard and evoked? What images appear and what stories emerge?
Through projections, sounds, film and photography, a colourful but private life is revealed in a flow of multiple visual and aural layers.
This narrative environment evokes the world that Grace created for herself, revealing her passions, journeys and collections. It speaks of a life lived and reflects a sense of loss through her absence.
The space draws on the designs, colours and fabrics of many decades. Ornamental owls, ever present, gaze out at the visitor as fragments of Grace’s life are revealed through film projections and the soundscape.