Jo Duncan-Smith

With these collages, I have sought to re-create the spirit of the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1962.  Using images taken from original programmes and booklets and vintage photographs of actors Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, I have created a narrative by deconstructing signs from the opening season in 1962, bringing the fragments together to form resolved compositions. Collage is characterised by the chance and spontaneity in the creation of works, which was embraced by the Surrealist movement for its irrationality and was a popular medium for Postmodernists such as Richard Hamilton and Robert Rauschenberg.  In addition to the images, I have used copies of wallpaper designed by Chichester artist Lucienne Day so that the collages represent the identity of the local area.  Encountering the collages in the Novium Museum means that visitors can explore their own identity in terms of how they relate to Chichester, and to the Festival Theatre.  In the framework of the museum, the collages become artefacts, presenting the Theatre in a historical light, and for a short period of time, they become part of the past and present history of Chichester.