Bridgette Ashton- MARGATE SUBTERRANEA

Bridgette Ashton- MARGATE SUBTERRANEA

Bridgette Ashton Poster
Open:  Friday 20 – Thursday 26 September, 2013
Opening hours: Friday- Sunday  12-6, or by appointment
Walk: Saturday 21 September, Midday, led by Bridgette Ashton

Part of 

Tonight CRATE welcomes a new exhibition, Margate Subterranea, to the Davis Lisboa Mini Museum of Contemporary Art, and invites you to a newly commissioned walk by Bridgette Ashton.

Margate Subterranea focuses on three underground ‘attractions’ in Margate: The Vortigern Caves, the Clifton Baths Estate and the Shell Grotto. Only one of the locations (the Shell Grotto) allow public access, whilst the others are in danger of dereliction.

The project will manifest in the CRATE galleries with a model of the underground Clifton Baths being exhibited in the Davis Lisboa Mini Museum of Contemporary Art (currently being hosted in Margate) and several zine projects and poster works of Ashton's research.

Ashton’s work looks at places and narratives, sometimes real and at other times invented. Her mostly small-scale objects, drawings and photographs are at times flagrantly wistful, celebrating pastiche and melancholy while simultaneously identifying ambiguous networks and relationships. The work retains indications of materiality and process, sometimes alluding to the obsessiveness of the hobbyist.

The works presented at CRATE survey ideas surrounding redundant or overlooked sites, objects and archives. They celebrate the paradox of the replica as visitor attraction and the nostalgia that surrounds it. The scale models and accompanying commemorative guidebooks serve as proposals for unachievable spectaculars.

Saturday 21 Septemberm 12.00: Above-ground walk of the Margate Subterranea sites led by Bridgette Ashton.
Starting from CRATE. FREE. No booking required. Bring a jumper. 

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