Abstract/Summary

Exhibition at The Museum of English Rural Life (20/10/18 — 13/01/19) ‘The Outside In’ by artist Steven Claydon took the form of a series of interventions in the galleries of the Museum of English Rural Life (The MERL). Melanesian artefacts from Claydon’s personal collection and new sculptural works were introduced into the displays and juxtaposed with the museum collection, creating mysterious collisions of cultures and contexts. The Outside In explored how the value of an object can extend from being a simple tool through to a more complex role as a spiritual or apotropaic implement, used to ward off evil in an English cottage or shelter the spirit of an ancestor in a New Guinean longhouse. Through highlighting their attach meaning and narratives, Claydon demonstrated that the agency of objects across contexts speaks to their individual power as things.