The dispossessed was a mini exhibition that involved myself and two other students. We had been given the word Dispossessed and we had to make work based on the word.
dispossess/dɪspəˈzɛs/Learn to pronounceverbpast tense: dispossessed; past participle: dispossessed
deprive (someone) of land, property, or other possessions.”they were dispossessed of lands and properties during the Reformation”
I had several ideas on where I could go with the work. My main thought process was to go down a religious route with an exorcism, I would’ve written a passage based on the verse that is typically read but I wasn’t sure if that was the right way. While looking for more ideas I came across a Youtube video that was talking about the British Museum. It spoke about how the museum has around 8 million artifacts which has been taken from other countries during the British empire.
The Elgin Marbles also known as the Parthenon Marbles, crafted by Phidias were displayed in Athens. A big war had happened which unfortunately meant that a lot of history had been destroyed and many looters had taken things. In 1798 a man named Thomas Bruce, he was the seventh earl of Elgin, was appointed as ambassador extraordinary to the Ottoman empire. Bruce had a huge interest in the Parthenon and asked the British Government if they would be interested in funding a project to take castings and drawings of the wonders of Greece. The Government denied his funding most likely due to them facing the French revolution. Bruce found a way and hired artists to cast and draw the sculptures. However in 1801 the marbles were removed and taken to Malta, which was a part of the British empire.
All of the acropolis, the site of the Parthenon, artifacts had been extracted and removed. Over 11 years, around half of the surviving sculptures were taken and shipped to Malta before being sent to London. Bruce originally wanted to decorate his home with the sculptures but due to an insanely messy divorce to his wife, which let to a lot of debt, he ended up having to sell the marbles to the Government, he ended up getting half of what he originally spent of excavating them. They ended up in The British Museum and in 1980’s Greece asked for the marbles to be sent back to them, as they rightfully should, Britain didn’t want to due it being an unsafe time for them to be back there. In 2009 Greece had built the Acropolis museum and curated a space just for the marbles. Unfortunately, that space is still empty due the British museum still keeping them.
The work I created was on how much pride the British government seem to take with how they own these marbles, and its very clear that they have no intention of giving Greece back what’s rightfully theirs. I had taken an image from google of the marbles and then the union jack flag and edited them together. I printed it out on paper, the reason I had done this was just to simply show how flimsy the excuses were that the British Government were giving.
The Feedback I had gotten,
How to raise the issue as a question?
Bill board setting in a big city, anarchy, protest.
How does the law impact the audience(Other cultures)?
How to explain the history without actually having to speak about it
look into, Susan Willard Freud Museum Wayne Modest Caroline Rito
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