About The Project
Through the years the Bank Street Arts site in Sheffield has been home to many activities, starting out as an Orchard, then over time housing shoemakers, dress makers, surgical instruments makers, schools, razor makers and architects to name but a few businesses that have operated on the site. Today the site is used as a gallery space and hosts studio spaces for artists. The past and present site share largely a hands on, manual and craft labour history in common.
In an attempt to highlight these uses, each 'archaeologic discovery' is an object which links its past to historical uses of the site, as referenced in the book 'Tales from the Orchard - The History of Bank Street: Past and Present' by Karen Harvey & John Clark.
Objects have been photographed from various angles and combined, creating composite photographs. These images have then been digitally treated, and output as sets of four medium format slides; successive slides in each set have been cropped and magnified to reveal close detail. Data glitches simulate a notion of these slides themselves as a future discovery, their rescue from archaic storage devices resulting in image data loss over time. The slides were presented with small specimen cards, linking to the particular business that ran on the site, and the approximate date of their operation. The piece was placed in a position facing into an internal courtyard where the artists, members and public that share the space could be viewed through the artworks, combining the contemporary custodians of the site as a part of the work.
These were displayed as part of the annual Bank Street Arts Members' Exhibition in July to August 2015.
