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Peter Finnemore - Statement of work

This new work grew out of the Lesson 56 project, which explored hegemonic imperial narratives of Welsh history and culture through the schoolbooks of my Grandmother. Through documentation, collage and juxtaposition it mirrors an engrained narrative about how a nation gets a sense of itself through story. Education and language becomes a tool of perceptual / intellectual control.

Like history itself, this project itself is not static or complete. In recognition of this, the Lesson 56 project continues to evolve into other artworks and new forms. This new artwork is worked from my archive of images and objects that refer to Welsh history and culture and the notion of the past overlaying a complex pattern of the past upon the present.

This raw laser print and wash image of the castle, is a still taken from the film the Silent Village (Humphrey Jennings 1944) and is a depiction of Castell Carreg Cennen / Carreg Cennen Castle. Which in the film is fictionalized as a site of national resistance during WW2. This draws upon the rich history of the castle as a contested stronghold of overlapping resistance and occupation. Interestingly in the film the schoolteacher Miss Daniels, recites from the Lesson 56 chapter to her classroom as a means of instilling historical memory and patriotism against oncoming fascism.

The physical ruler with its historical information of dates and the ongoing of history, becomes entangled in a double meaning word-play of ruler, meaning monarch / Head of State. The physical object of the ruler, is a tool for drawing straight lines. In relation to this, the texts on the ruler implies a logical and systematic rational. However, history itself, is not consistent and does not travel in a straight lines. This artwork is not only about the visualization of generational memory, deep history and its possible reinvention, it is equally a discussion with the language and materiality of art.