The Part Versus the Whole by Ben Judd
Saturday 9 June – Saturday 19 August 2018
“…sometimes different cities follow one another on the same site and under the same name, born and dying without knowing one another, without communication among themselves. At times even the names of the inhabitants remain the same, and their voices’ accent, and also the features of the faces; but the gods who live beneath names and above places have gone off without a word and out-siders have settled in their place.” (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities)
Combining an eclectic mix of materials from the existing Victoria Gallery and Museum’s collections and archives, including historic magic lantern slides and the archeological photography of John Garstang, with new objects, performance and film, The Part Versus the Whole by Ben Judd is a commission for the VG&M as part of their New Perspectives 10th anniversary celebrations curat-ed by Rose Lejeune.
Through The Part Versus the Whole Judd invokes a lost community with its own internal systems, beliefs and taxonomies of knowledge. The installation weaves together threads of mythology with imagined and real histories of characters and architecture from the local environment to create an immersive installation. A performance on 9th June, and an accompanying film, imagine this community existing within the VG&M.
The Part Versus the Whole is an invitation to viewers to experience a series of alternative readings of the VG&M, and the city of Liverpool itself’s, history, to reimagine what might have been and to bring its possible futures to life.