Tales from the Archive
March 31, 20236:00 – 8:00pm — Exhibition Research Lab in collaboration with the British Art and Design Association is pleased to announce an evening presenting Tales from the Archive as part of the event programme for Fanchon Fröhlich: The Wrong Sex. — Fanchon Fröhlich (1927-2016) was a prolific abstract expressionist painter, printmaker and draughtsperson; largely overlooked by the canon of art history because she was the ‘wrong sex’ for an abstract expressionist painter of the time. Throughout her life she travelled the world extensively, met luminaries in a number of creative and scientific fields, and continually pushed her own understanding of art, science, and life. But what of Fröhlich the person? Students from the MA Exhibition Studies, MA Fine Art and BA History of Art and Museum Studies programmes have been given unique access to the archive of the artist to explore her letters, diaries and notebooks for the first time. Tales from the Archive provides previously unseen and unheard insights into Fröhlich, her life, practice, relationships and understandings of the physical and metaphysical worlds. The event works to further contextualise her for new generations of practitioners and researchers, and raises broader questions over who controls the narrative of an archive, how it can be communicated, and if the person behind the archive can ever truly be understood? — Tales from the Archive is organised by PhD researcher Geneva Lavern Beckford, with contributions from Terry Duffy, Sophie Hatchwell, James Hurdwell & Lucy McKinney, George Jessup, Dr Hana Leaper, Sandra Momo and Dr Emma Roberts.
—Our events are always free and open to all; there is no need to book for this evening of performance and discussion.
—