started work yesterday on a really interesting project for firstsite in Colchester – Berryfield mosaic: relocation and renovation. a roman mosaic that was displayed in Colchester museum has been relocated into the floor of the new gallery – just feet from where it was originally dug up. my role is to pull together all the strands of the work so far and create a piece of interpretive print. spent yesterday working with artist Bethany Mitchell http://www.bethany-mitchell.co.uk and a group of pupils from St Helena school in Colchester who have been researching and developing work in response to the mosaic. aside from mind mapping and paper folding there were many strands of discussion around the known and unknown and that for many years the piece was not valued. ideas so far include an extreme time line – to include the material it was made from so that would include 35m of just rock! a piece of print that is an exact reproduction of the mosaic so that you can take it away and have one at home - much like on exactitude in science - the borges short story http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/bblonder/phys120/docs/borges.pdf. a design that has the material from lottery cards printed over the design so that you can have the opportunity to excavate the print. creating the missing bit of the mosaic and developing a whole philosophy and alternative reading of the mosaic much like the museum of Jurassic technology http://www.mjt.org so we shall see what happens.
