| Description | This work consists of a small brown faux leather suitcase belonging to Barbara Steveni, which she used for storing personal family mementos. The contents of family photographs of several generations; love letters; personal letters and cards from family and friends; children’s drawings and press cuttings have now been removed to separate folders. Barbara Steveni used the suitcase in various untitled performances where she drew out images or other archival items and used them as an aide-memoire to narrate stories and anecdotes about them. Each time the suitcase was used in a performance she assembled images appropriate to that performance. In discussions with Louisa Riley-Smith, Barbara Steveni stated she had used the suitcase in two performances: ‘first sometime towards the end of the 1980’s (post Barbara Latham becoming Barbara Steveni), BS does not recall the venue nor the circumstances and the piece was untitled. She recalls she took the suitcase for the performance and drew out images of her childhood and time in India. The 2nd time this performance was reactivated was in response to an invitation by Jo Melvin for BS to come to Chelsea School of Art in 2000 and BS chose to draw out this time images associated with her time at the school herself at the start of her career as an artist. Again the piece was untitled. So in each case different appropriate images were drawn out of the suitcase. This piece seems to be very closely connected with the identity of BS the artist.’ [Quoted from Louisa Riley-Smith's valuation of Barbara Steveni's archive, 2018, Ref.: BS/BAR/10/2] There is other anecdotal evidence (conversations between Barbara Steveni, Victoria Lane and Judy Vaknin and with JP Latham) that the suitcase was used in the performances at the Queel event, 2002 and at 'Potential: ongoing archive' event, 2002. It also may have been used at a performance of 'Borschtsch' in St Petersburg, 1993. The Suitcase, alongside ‘The Banner’, is one of the first instances of Barbara Steveni’s use of the archive in her work. This became more explicit from 2002, when she titled her work ‘I AM AN ARCHIVE’. Sets of images and items were kept together in envelopes or plastic sleeves within the suitcase and this arrangement has been preserved in how they have been catalogued below. Many of the items have changed over time and in 2020, JP Latham extracted some items with personal value and a set of letters that John Latham wrote to Barbara Steveni. JP Latham has chosen which items are included in the suitcase and his notes on many of the photographs have been incorporated into the catalogue of each set of items below. |