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Ancient Ruler Worship (texts for students, No. 35)

FINNEMORE, Peter (Peter Finnemore graduated in 1987 in Fine Art Photography at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. In 1994 he received an MFA in Photography at the University of Michigan, USA. He lives and works in Llanelli, west Wales. His recent exhibitions include, University of Michigan Galleries, USA, Street Level Gallery, Glasgow and Cambridge Darkroom Gallery, England. In 2005 he represented Wales at the Venice Biennale of Art and was awarded the Gold Medal for Fine Art at the 2005 National Eistedfodd. Peter Finnemore’s poetic and multi-layered art draws upon his close attachment to his home place in rural west Wales, and tests the boundaries of the ordinary. Finnemore locates his practice within and around visual explorations on the themes of Welsh identity; it’s history, culture, landscape and it’s psychological and spiritual nuances. Finnemore’s films have evolved from his stills photographic works for which he is well known and which in themselves synthesised performance activities, tableaux and the photographic document. The site of his films is his family garden and home space. Although these are ordinary spaces they are infused with theatrical and transformative possibilities and a number of different ideas are explored including ritualised and existential movement, the creation of visual koans, cultural enquiry, cosmology, humour and pathos.)

Peter Finnemore - Statement of work

This new work grew out of the Lesson 56 project, which explored hegemonic imperial narratives of Welsh history and culture through the schoolbooks of my Grandmother. Through documentation, collage and juxtaposition it mirrors an engrained narrative about how a nation gets a sense of itself through story. Education and language becomes a tool of perceptual / intellectual control.

Like history itself, this project itself is not static or complete. In recognition of this, the Lesson 56 project continues to evolve into other artworks and new forms. This new artwork is worked from my archive of images and objects that refer to Welsh history and culture and the notion of the past overlaying a complex pattern of the past upon the present.

This raw laser print and wash image of the castle, is a still taken from the film the Silent Village (Humphrey Jennings 1944) and is a depiction of Castell Carreg Cennen / Carreg Cennen Castle. Which in the film is fictionalized as a site of national resistance during WW2. This draws upon the rich history of the castle as a contested stronghold of overlapping resistance and occupation. Interestingly in the film the schoolteacher Miss Daniels, recites from the Lesson 56 chapter to her classroom as a means of instilling historical memory and patriotism against oncoming fascism.

The physical ruler with its historical information of dates and the ongoing of history, becomes entangled in a double meaning word-play of ruler, meaning monarch / Head of State. The physical object of the ruler, is a tool for drawing straight lines. In relation to this, the texts on the ruler implies a logical and systematic rational. However, history itself, is not consistent and does not travel in a straight lines. This artwork is not only about the visualization of generational memory, deep history and its possible reinvention, it is equally a discussion with the language and materiality of art.