On the last day of February and the first day of March, an art festival called FLAMM will take place in Bodmin for the first time. Several projects have been commissioned across different sites, including my commission at Bodmin Keep.
As an artist-filmmaker working in communities and with an interest in social histories, I was delighted to receive the commission and opportunity to explore the Museum’s collection and archives. With the Museum being closed, however, I realised this could be tricky. In any case, the timeline for the project was not long enough to do a deep dive into researching the archives and the 20,000 items in the Museum collection. Thankfully, in an early meeting with volunteer Andrew Sims about the archive and collection items, Andrew had brought several examples of keepsakes and personal records, including letters, a diary and a photobook.
I had specifically asked for examples of such items as I wanted to zoom into the personal stories as a way of connecting to big events of the past. Andrew then made a comment that told me the direction the project needed to go; he said that his favourite item in the whole collection and archives was actually something that he knew had been in a WWI trench. It was a field message book. A simple A5 notebook used by an officer in the front line to send messages up the line while keeping a copy of every message sent using carbon paper. He showed me the book with its almost 50 pages of faded messages from 1915, containing requests for mundane everyday objects through to reports of firing and soldiers killed. I instantly understood his connection to the object and realised this was the value of the project.
To understand the life of past objects through the people who care for them now, namely, the Keep’s staff and volunteers.
In the film I am making for the festival, eight members of the Keep’s staff have been interviewed, each bringing a different object or item to talk about. You can hear the pride and passion in their voices as they talk about the object they have chosen, each holds an intriguing quality resonating past events. They are like portals to the past and there is an aura around these objects that I hope to capture in the film.
Apart from a film, there will also be audio interviews that can be listened to in the Keep’s regimental cells. Those are longer versions of interviews with Keep director, Helen Bishop-Stephens who talks about Sir James Outram’s lustrous medals, some of which will adorn the building (enlarged cut-out versions of them anyway). In addition, trustee Daniel Brinson will discuss the little-known badge worn by the auxiliaries. Clues to the objects in the installation will be dotted around the town, leading visitors to the Keep and allowing them to experience these wonderful artefacts in a new form while the originals rest safely inside the Museum.
Rachael Jones is an artist-filmmaker and researcher whose practice often extends to involve others in the filmmaking process. Sometimes participants are objects with their own agency, and as a result her films are made up of multiple interacting assemblages. Often working with archive images, she blends old photographs with newly created visuals, incorporating both analogue and digital formats that create playful tension in her films. Interested in what can come out of research, embodiment and participation, Rachael’s films retain traces of process-driven interactions, using experimental filmmaking, sound and animation techniques to creatively connect participants with place. She is involved in land-based, alternative and sustainable practices, using found materials and handmade processes where possible.