A day in early Summer 2011, children are digging in the earth, somewhere by the River Lea in East London. They begin to find strange objects, holding them up to the sun – tipping them this way and that way. An ancient necklace belonging to the warrior river queen perhaps, a set of keys to a house buried in a volcanic explosion. As the children dig, more treasures emerge, and are all laid out in the sun. Mysteries to explain. Immediately the site is announced to be a precious archaeological dig and cordoned off due to public
A collaboration between myself and pupils from Harrington Hill Primary School. This was an archaeology project which began in the early stages of the formation of the Robin Hood Community Garden, London, E5. Local children were digging ready to plant an orchard and began to find intriguiging things emerging from under the ground. Immediately they began to invent stories and legends around their finds.
Working with key stage 2 pupils on this archive of local legends. The strange objects gave rise to stories which delved deep into the collective psyche. River Warrior Queens, dinosaur bones, spaceships and keys to buildings long forgotten. They provided a perfect step off point for imagination as the stories behind the objects demanded to be unravelled. Once lovingly brushed and cleaned, each child had connected with their find and the power of imagination naturally began to fill in the gaps. The group prepared the objects for exhibition as on a real archaeological site. They entered their stories onto museum labels and attached to the object.
What this project revealed was a snapshot of the collective imagination of an area through the eyes of children, and a journey through the subconscious thoughts of childhood. It brought an array of answers to these mute, mysterious finds. The process of authentification, to name and define points to the philosophy behind language explored by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his ‘Philosophical Investigations’ 1953 he states “The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement.) The conflict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty.*” In this theory, when thinking of the naturally curious minds of children, their playful process of definition gives scope for greater understanding of ourselves.
Project funded by Grassroots Grants 2012
Archaeological finds are carefully prepared.
The objects are labelled ready for display.
nicola godlieb 