Creative Crush #1.5
MAT COLLISHAW
Mat Collishaw
This week our studio creative crush is artist Mat Collishaw.
Recognised as central to the Young British Artists movement with peers such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, Collishaw belongs to that generation which is not loyal to any one medium and refuses to be pigeon-holed beyond his reputation of a dealer of darkness, an explorer of the grotesque and the morbid. A modern day Gothic artist.

He can be described as a true mixed media artist. From his photographic works featured in The Last Meal on Deathrow, to the opulent, hyper-realistic oil paintings that made up This Is Not an Exit.

Now, we are particularly excited about his most recent work: Thresholds. Inspired by Henry Fox Talbot’s pioneering photography exhibition in Birmingham, 1839, the exhibition offers a 3-D, time-hopping experience.
Thresholds is not a mere recreation of a significant historical exhibition. It’s an artistic statement within its own right. Fittingly, in the age of the selfie and saturated visuals, the show is a commentary on the evolution of photography throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
It’s also offers the opportunity to see images otherwise confined to history. Many of the original photographs are in such poor condition they are stored in lightproof vaults. Collishaw is providing a tangible environment that encourages visitors to physically interact with these lost relics of yesteryear.

Once wearing a headset, visitors experience a CGI reproduction of a Victorian era room. This was modelled closely on a classroom at King Edward’s School of New Street in which the 1839 exhibition took place. Attendees are then encouraged to interact with photographs and equipment housed in cabinets and display cases by outstretching their hand and inspecting the image projected onto it. Other experiential elements have been considered to ensure the experience is as immersive as possible, from chanting crowds, which can be viewed through the iron windows, to the warm glow of the fireplace as you pass it and the fireflies which orbit the vaulted lights. The King Edward’s Foundation Archive was thoroughly studied to shape the space itself. The respect to the past is paid through the level of detail recreated, an example of which can be found in the original exhibition catalogue being sourced for the experience.

Whether Collishaw and James have deliberately paralleled the technologies of photography and Virtual Reality as a statement or simply a fresh way of engaging a visiting public is unknown, however, James has certainly considered the chance of history repeating itself:
“I like to think that perhaps one day someone will ‘recreate’ our show using a yet unknown technology, and look back at it as part of another narrative around the history of art, technology and photo history.”
This project has been born of the collaborative effort between artist Mat Collishaw, VMI (a London firm specialising in photorealistic VR), Mixed Reality Lab and curator Pete James.
