Archives – Chasing Shadows

Penn Club

Design & produce exhibition

The Penn Club was founded in 1920 to offer a place for people to meet, renew existing friendships and forge new ones. I was approached to design an exhibition to mark the centenary of this club, created by members of the Friends Ambulance Unit, conscientious objectors during the First World War.

Taking cues from the Club’s archive, I researched the broader social history of key moments from the last hundred years which resonated with the Club’s history, and events relevant to the Club’s location in Bloomsbury, London. I began to form a narrative for the exhibition, built around the Club’s founding elements, and continuing ethos – community, place, and people – which were enriched by anecdotes and descriptions from the archives of specific events and characters.

Front entrance to Penn Club, Bloomsbury

Penn Club Residents Log

Consulting with the steering committee established to oversee the celebrations to mark the Club’s anniversary, I advised them on appropriate style of design and production formats, taking into consideration the desire to tour the exhibition to relevant and sympathetic locations, and the display potential within the Club itself.

Panels of the Penn Club Centenary exhibition, on display in the Club’s library

Will Alsop Painting Archive

“SEEING THINGS DIFFERENTLY” – AD ARTICLE

The Marco Goldschmied Foundation was looking at ways to utilise their collection of paintings by architect Will Alsop (1947-2018). I was approached by the charity, which supports organisations providing opportunities for the study of architecture and the arts, particularly to students from underprivileged and disadvantaged circumstances, to help them create strategies for the archive of paintings, beginning with a full and detailed catalogue of the collection; considering ways to utilise the collection for specific fundraising possibilities for education and dissemination of the collection; and developing overall branding and outreach strategies for the Foundation.

In 2022, the journal Architectural Design published a special edition focused on Will Alsop to mark what would have been his 75th birthday. I was asked to write an article to contribute to the journal, reflecting on the painting collection held by the MGF.

The article looked at Alsop’s history with painting and representation, from his time at Northampton Art School, education at the Architectural Association in London, and most significantly his chance encounter with sculptor Bruce McLean at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, which turned into a lifelong friendship. Alongside this, by focusing on specific paintings from the MGF collection, the article considered Alsop’s greatest skill: his ability to understand how painting could capture an emotion, enabling an inclusivity of conversation between users, clients and the design team about a scheme which transcended the boundaries created by technical and architectural plans.

Archives // Publication // Strategy // Writing

“Seeing things Differently: Painting, the object and the art of conversation” – article written by Clare Hamman for Architectural Design, September 2022