No two days are ever the same for a professional genealogist, as demonstrated by a research commission I undertook this summer for Leeds-based artist Ellie Harrison, and Polite Rebellion – the company with which she works.
Working to a tight deadline, my research drew together some threads of Ellie’s family history, and was a small part of the background detail to her much broader overall artistic display concept.
Ellie’s thought-provoking interactive exhibition, Loose Ends, is now currently showing in Leeds as part of November’s Compass Art Festival. This Festival brings a variety of interactive art projects into the city.
I dropped by for the opening day of Loose Ends (22 November 2024).
The Loose Ends component of the Festival is based in a pop-up shop in the Leeds Trinity Shopping Centre. Visually striking, this interactive and immersive experience invites you to think about your family tree in its broadest sense. It goes beyond the traditional historical concept of mother, father, siblings, grandparents, great grandparents, which in reality – as every family historian knows – is rarely so neatly packaged. It also highlights there are often unspoken topics and secrets within families.
It challenges you to consider what makes your family, inviting you to explore its complexities, the transient nature of some relationships weighed against more enduring ones, with this weighting not necessarily measured by blood links. You are asked to even consider the importance of wider friendship circles – a take on your FAN Club (Friends/Families, Associates and Neighbours).
More details about the Loose Ends exhibition, including where to find it, can be found here.
But you need to be quick as it only runs from 22 – 24 November, and 28 – 30 November 2024.
If you can’t make it, here’s the QR Code to scan and enter virtually.
A huge thank you to Ellie for commissioning me to undertake her research. I loved doing it, because no two family trees are ever the same – as is demonstrated by the exhibition.
For more details about commissioning me for your research, please click here.
Past To Present Genealogy 