PAGES Research Proposal Gin Dunscombe


Outline Proposal

I am researching the letters (correspondence) of women which have been created in conditions of duress or difficulty, in particular those letters written while women were incarcerated (prisons, Gulags, exile) or ‘disappeared’. Letters written on surfaces not used for letterwriting and illustration under ‘normal’ conditions will be of particular interest e.g. those written on treebark, Rizla cigarette papers etc.


Outcomes

Artefacts: illustrated correspondence from women
Prints made by me inspired by this work
Research folder: this will track the process and content of the research and will be in the form of sketchbooks – illustrated correspondence to myself
Dissertation? Authored by me on this work and the makers of it
Short film incorporating material from the Imperial War Museum archives and original footage
Exhibition catalogue entry


Methodology

Environment scanning: libraries, museums and galleries, the net, my own networks and those of other artists to formulate an answer to the question: what’s out there?
Collection and continuous curation of the work that I find with commentary on the process of curation in this context.
Permissions/copyright seeking for artworks and material to be displayed
PR and Press coverage








Outline Timetable

October 2005 Scope the project
November • Establish methodology, budget
• Plan research.
• Investigate Imperial War Museum film archive
December • Imperial War Museum: film and artefacts archive. Develop key relationships and research material.
• Net scanning.
• Establish contact with key sources e.g Museum of Occupation In Latvia, Dr.Bickford in Sydney, British Museum Letters Department, Frances Welch, Gillian Slovo, Robert Service (Lenin and Stalin’s biographer)
• Activate my Irish and Latin-American networks.
• Contact everyone I know who lives in countries either currently or previously occupied and ask everyone I know to do the same.

January 2006 • Map out film with Reen Pilkington: storyboard, timetable, resources (end date for this project = August 2006?)
• Utilise planned visit to Amsterdam to research and to find David X? old friend who published Anne Frank’s diaries for contacts and sources
• Develop contacts and build research sketchbooks
• Start making prints – screenprints/collographs
February • Interview on camera with Miss Worthington (aged 90) whose parents ran a Post Office during WW2
• Research trip to Latvia/ Moscow/Petersburg
March • Ongoing collection of material
• Interview with Keith Broughton about Italian POWs working on Somerset farm
April • Ongoing collection of material, cataloguing and selection
May 2006 Final edit and selection of material for use in PAGES Exhibition