Unearthed are a collection of wool felt pockets, tailor made to hold ancient objects. The illustrations from the archaeological dig are used to label the artefact within; allowing the items themselves to stay safely protected in their archival container. The objects have been unearthed but are once again buried and unseen within the archive.
The titles of these works are taken from the unexpected annotations in the margins of the archaeological field notes; they suggest the stories of the artefacts’ unearthing rather than their original use or owner, which is more often the focus of historical records.
Unearthed continues Vanessa Rolf’s exploration of the values and hierarchies of objects, the stories we use them to tell and the narratives of the archives themselves. She uses the ordering principles and the visual language of collections to reflect on our relationships to objects in our current time. These new works have been developed through research into Hampshire Cultural Trust’s archaeological records from Winchester, where the artist lives and works.
