Thanks to the 20/20 project, led by the Decolonising Arts Institute at the University of the Arts London, Kettle’s Yard has acquired a new portfolio of prints by 20 contemporary artists, including Adham Faramawy, Aqsa Arif, Billy Dosanjh, Bindi Vora, Christopher Samuel, Cora Sehgal Cuthbert, Curtis Holder, Gayle Chong Kwan, Habib Hajallie, Hannah Sabapathy, Holly Graham, Jamila Prowse, Jessica Ashman, Karen McLean, Madi Acharya-Baskerville, Sarah Maple, Shenece Oretha, Sonya Dyer, Yuen Fong Ling and Zoë Tumika.
The 20/20 project paired 20 artists with 20 public art institutions across the UK for a series of year-long residencies with the aim of addressing colonial legacies in museum collections.
Artist Adham Faramawy undertook a residency at Kettle’s Yard in 2023-24, during which they created a video work titled The Cyclamen and the Cedar, which developed from research into the Papers of Jim Ede in the Kettle’s Yard archive, especially those documenting Jim and Helen Ede’s time living in Tangier, Morocco for periods between 1936 and 1952.
The print portfolio, acquired by each of the 20 participating institutions, is a collective representation of the working processes of the artists during their residencies. Faramawy’s print in the portfolio, None lives for ever, brother, and nothing lasts for long (2024), is a still from The Cyclamen and the Cedar, showing two dancers against a background of cedar trees – a reference to the wood used to make the low tables on display in the Kettle’s Yard house that the Edes purchased in Morocco.
Although made by artists in dialogue with different UK collections, some other prints in the portfolio nevertheless resonate with objects, materials and themes present in the Kettle’s Yard house. Madi Acharya-Baskerville’s The Chertsey Oyster (2023), depicting a decorated ceramic sculpture in the shape of an oyster shell, recalls the found shells placed on glass dishes, tabletops and windowsills at Kettle’s Yard. Jamila Prowse’s Crip Quilt (2023), showing a pink fabric swatch embroidered with the words ‘the weight of the blanket calms me down’, resonates with the many hand-crafted bedspreads, curtains and rugs around the house, as well as with Helen Ede’s periods of illness and convalescence during her time living in Cambridge.
The 20/20 print portfolio works are now viewable on our online collections database – linked to by artist name above. The acquisition complements other recent additions to our collection of works by contemporary artists who have participated in the programme of exhibitions and displays at Kettle’s Yard, including Linder and Oscar Murillo.
Acquisitions made possible by 20/20, a 3-year funded programme led by the UAL Decolonising Arts Institute, supported by funding from Freelands Foundation, Arts Council England and UAL.
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