Charlotte Rooney
The interweaving of the local, the national and the international. An exploration through poems, prose, photographs, performance, a walk, and a talk.
Presented by the Radical Stroud Collective.
An exhibition based around Stroud scarlet cloth: traditions, perceptions and meanings. An exhibition that will reveal local and global links: links with war, empire, the East India Company, the West Indies and enslavement.
An exploration through poems, prose and photographs; a booklet with a record of our walk with a fragment of Stroud scarlet cloth from Stroud along canals and the River Severn to Bristol Docks; artefacts fashioned from materials gathered whilst on the walk. We reveal hidden histories in the landscape in a collaborative and collective manner and in a variety of media.
Our exhibition will reflect this age of imperial expansion – not just by remembering Stroud scarlet cloth and redcoats, but also with poems from Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Sir Henry Newbolt.
This interweaving of the local, the national, and the global will also look at the nature of historiography and raises the question: Can such a thing as ‘local history’ ever really truly exist?
This interweaving will also advert to the age of the Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, and Ecocide. The dye for the Stroud scarlet cloth came from the cochineal beetle: with a resultant global trade with the Americas.
Our exhibition will reveal this broad canvas of history, with contributions from Charlotte Rooney, Jon Seagrave (aka Jonny Fluffypunk), Paul Southcott, Deb Roberts, and Stuart Butler.
Opening times:
Fri 11th - Sat 12th and Weds 16th to Sat 19th November 2022: 10am - 3pm
Private View in the SVA gallery at 6.30pm 11th Nov
Spoken Word Performance 7.30pm 11th Nov: free event in the SVA bar following the private view.
Performances by Stuart Butler, Jon Seagrave, Keith Butler, Paul Southcott, Dr Alice Butler and JLM Morton
Walk: 11am-2pm Sunday 13th Nov: Meet at SVA Gallery
Talk: 11am - 12pm Wednesday 16th Nov: SVA Gallery