No Contextual Information

Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvat are internationally acclaimed Sheffield-based artists whosecollaborative work often explores language and systems of organisation.

In 2016 Sheffield Museums invited the artists into its storage areas so that they might respond creatively to its collections and systems of categorisation. The result of this invitation was the 2017 exhibition ‘What Can Be Seen’, a show that explored the ways in which humans attempt to grasp the world around them through history, science, art, stories and collecting.

As part of the exhibition Etchells and Horvat created two series of photographs, one of these is called No Contextual Information. This series comprises 35 photographs shot in the backstage area of the museums and focuses on the storage and labelling methods used for the collection. The title No Contextual Information comes from a label on the side of a box in the archaeology store.

The intention of the work is to draw attention to the language and systems used for collecting, and to raise questions about why we collect, and what we collect, in public museums.

This is the first work in photography for the artists, who are both best known for their practice in performance and text-based mediums.

No Contextual Information now joins the visual art collection at Sheffield Museums, alongside almost 6,000 existing items dating from the 16th century to the present day.