Ben Kinmont: Artist talk on the occasion of Rooms Of Neighbours
Rooms of Neighbours is an exhibition installed across 12 households on Clifton Crescent, Peckham. Taking inspiration from Jan Hoet’s landmark exhibition Chambres d’amis (Ghent, 1986), the project pairs each household with an artist, who collaborated with residents to install a work either in their home or in communal space. Artists were chosen according to an existing sensitivity to domestic and social relationships across their practice, and each responded to the distinct dynamics of the household in question — environments far removed from a conventional art-world exhibition context. It unfolds within the homes of residents who, by and large, do not regularly frequent arts spaces, and whose lives span multiple generations, diasporas and social classes.
Ben Kinmont worked with three households on Clifton Crescent to develop a new iteration of Shhhh (2002–ongoing). Kinmont invited each household to have a conversation at home amongst themselves, and to consider the possibility of that conversation as a work of art. Households notified him when the conversation had taken place; its content and nature remained a secret known only to them. In response, Kinmont produced an engraving for each – a blind impression recording only the family’s name and the date of their conversation. For those within the household, the engraving functions as an aide-mémoire for a moment once shared but also an art object: something to be exhibited and which can circulate within the art world.
Rooms of Neighbours is an exhibition installed across 12 households on Clifton Crescent, Peckham. Taking inspiration from Jan Hoet’s landmark exhibition Chambres d’amis (Ghent, 1986), the project pairs each household with an artist, who collaborated with residents to install a work either in their home or in communal space. Artists were chosen according to an existing sensitivity to domestic and social relationships across their practice, and each responded to the distinct dynamics of the household in question — environments far removed from a conventional art-world exhibition context. It unfolds within the homes of residents who, by and large, do not regularly frequent arts spaces, and whose lives span multiple generations, diasporas and social classes.
Ben Kinmont worked with three households on Clifton Crescent to develop a new iteration of Shhhh (2002–ongoing). Kinmont invited each household to have a conversation at home amongst themselves, and to consider the possibility of that conversation as a work of art. Households notified him when the conversation had taken place; its content and nature remained a secret known only to them. In response, Kinmont produced an engraving for each – a blind impression recording only the family’s name and the date of their conversation. For those within the household, the engraving functions as an aide-mémoire for a moment once shared but also an art object: something to be exhibited and which can circulate within the art world.
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