James Mansfield Portfolio

1. Museum of Imaginative Knowledge

2. Joseph Beuys in Connemara

Further online information:

Museum of Imaginative Knowledgewww.imaginativeknowledge.org

Joseph Beuys in Connemara www.beuysconnemara.space

About the Museum of Imaginative Knowledge

Dr James Lattin founded the Museum of Imaginative Knowledge in 2013. Its main areas of focus are cross-border cultures, contemporary archaeology and classificatory arts. It is particularly concerned with the investigation of objects and information which are not yet deemed museum quality by the current cultural norms.

The Museum exists in temporary exhibitions, through lectures and walks given by Dr James Lattin, and the publication of catalogues and pamphlets.

(Left) Dr Lattin’s talk on Fogo Island, Newfoundland (part of the 2016 tour of North America)(Right) Dr Lattin and Dr Iris Taylor giving a guided tour of the Hackney Road (May 2016)

The Museum’s residency at the Museum of Everyday Life,Vermont, September 2016

The Museum’s collections and research interests

The Museum has several rooms dedicated to the towns of Angarth and Wygarth, which are both situated on the English-Scottish border. Important artefacts include the world’s largest one pence piece collection, evidence of civil unrest, and misplaced underwear. Much of the collection originatesfrom Judley Hall, a country house which is in state of serious disrepair, but has an excellent collection of heirloom detritus.

(Left: Judley Hall, right: a piece of Blaurite, used in the manufacture of Blu-Tack)

The Museum also undertakes research into local phenomena such as rural typologies, which involvesthe cataloguing of gates, stone walls and hedgerows. In 2016 it has published studies into the varieties of lichen near Angarth, and also about St Otto, the medieval saint of hedgerows.

One significant piece of ongoing work is the investigation of the Ei’Grayne archipelago, a series of islands in the North Atlantic, stretching from Scotland to Canada.

(Left: an Aegyptian Gate documented by the Department for RuralTypologies, Right: a page from the Atlas of Ei’Grayne)

(A selection of pamphlets from the Imaginative Press, including studies of the contents of drawers, lost railway lines, a local lay-by and the fate of the antiques once belonging at Judley Hall)

Left: Dr James Lattin explaining the Royal Boxer Shorts at the Museum Studies Department, University of Leicester, June 2015

Right: The Museum installed at the Norfolk House Music Room, Victoria and Albert Museum, October 2014

Joseph Beuys in Connemara

Joseph Beuys in Connemara is a project which recreates the time the artist may have spent in the West of Ireland in the 1970s, through appropriation of his work and the idea of the artist’s residency. Through a website (beuysconnemara.space), and time spent in a cottage in Connemara, I have created a legacy for Beuys using photography, writing, drawing and sculpture, in collaboration with other artists.

(Left: site documented by Beuys for his unfinished Stone Classification System, Right: the new work ‘Stag

[with Electric Sun] and Erased Blackboard Table’ at the Beuys Haus)

The project draws upon the material heritage of Connemara, such as its geology, peat bogs, seashores as well as the objects within an unrestored 1970s cottage which provides the headquarters for the residency. It draws upon the time Beuys spent in both Ireland and Scotland in the 1970s, and provides new evidence for unseen work produced in this period, as well as contemporary reflections on his legacy.