Happy Ending
FORMAT19
Quad Gallery Two, Market Place Cathedral Quarter, Market Place, Derby DE1 3AS
In this newly commissioned work for FORMAT19, curated by Peter Bonnell and Louise Fedotov-Clements, cut-paper master Kensuke Koike has turned to a much-heralded and immensely important archive that can be found right here in the city of Derby: the archive of W W Winter. Winter’s has been operating in Derby, in the same area on Midland Road, since 1852. They are one of the oldest studios in the world still operating today, and their inventory of images is a treasure trove that Koike has gleefully delved into to produce an installation of images from the past.
The people populating these images are all likely Derby natives, or from near to the city, all long since departed. Yet Koike – as with much of his work – has rejuvenated his source material, consequently giving both the people that appear in them and the actual source photographic image a new sense of purpose, a sense of rebirth. Indeed, the artist himself comments that he has taken these archives, these images, and, “given them a new life, a new story and now a new result.”
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