PHYSICAL EXHIBITIONS
Current: Tape Letters Ashton Indoor Market
Tape Letters: Ashton platforms the stories of individuals and families from Ashton-under-Lyne who used cassettes as a mode of communication between 1960-80s. In the heart of Ashton Indoor market, visitors can listen to recordings, read transcripts and see images from the local community.
Delivered by Modus Arts in partnership with the Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Tameside Council, and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Past:
The exhibition includes the projects’ multi-lingual, inter-generational, and international scope. An important production and curatorial consideration is the involvement and engagement of the archive contributors, whose voices and experiences aren’t typically reflected or represented in formal gallery settings.
The Rich Mix in London, the People’s History Museum in Manchester, and the Bishopsgate Institute in London were chosen as our original exhibition partners, with site-specific approaches deployed in each space respectively.
At the Rich Mix, large-format prints were displayed on the walls of the central gallery space, alongside the installation of an interactive app and a film projection.
At the People’s History Museum, large-scale standalone display boards were strategically placed in the central hall, accompanied by an eight-speaker circle relaying a series of sound poems, display cabinets containing physical cassettes and cassette players, and a variety of long-form videos displayed on digital screens.
At the Bishopsgate Institute’s Library, large-format prints were suspended from the central balcony, with the content focusing entirely on the archival aspect of the project.
Modus Arts is specifically interested in the potential of sound as a creative medium, and the Tape Letters archive provided a rich source of audio material to engage with. The heritage collection and oral history content converged most fully through the immersive multi-speaker sound installation, where audiences were presented with five sound vignettes inspired and drawn directly from the archive. Several creative approaches were taken in the sonification of the pieces, ranging from the spatialisation of audio footage taken directly from the cassettes to the placement of multi-lingual interviews, to comparative field recordings, and to experimental sound compositions drawing from the materiality of the magnetic tape itself.
THE TAPE LETTERS OUTPUTS:
● Apps
● Archive
● Digital Exhibition
● Learning Resources
● Photo Series
● Physical Exhibitions
● Podcast
● Poetry Booklet
● Project Booklet
● Radio Series
● Sound Installation
● Talks & Events
● Videos
Current: Tape Letters Ashton Indoor Market
Tape Letters: Ashton platforms the stories of individuals and families from Ashton-under-Lyne who used cassettes as a mode of communication between 1960-80s. In the heart of Ashton Indoor market, visitors can listen to recordings, read transcripts and see images from the local community.
Delivered by Modus Arts in partnership with the Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Tameside Council, and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Past:
The exhibitions include the projects’ multi-lingual, inter-generational, and international scope. An important production and curatorial consideration is the involvement and engagement of the archive contributors, whose voices and experiences aren’t typically reflected or represented in formal gallery settings.
The Rich Mix in London, the People’s History Museum in Manchester, and the Bishopsgate Institute in London were chosen as our original exhibition partners, with site-specific approaches deployed in each space respectively.
At the Rich Mix, large-format prints were displayed on the walls of the central gallery space, alongside the installation of an interactive app and a film projection.
At the People’s History Museum, large-scale standalone display boards were strategically placed in the central hall, accompanied by an eight-speaker circle relaying a series of sound poems, display cabinets containing physical cassettes and cassette players, and a variety of long-form videos displayed on digital screens.
At the Bishopsgate Institute’s Library, large-format prints were suspended from the central balcony, with the content focusing entirely on the archival aspect of the project.
Modus Arts is specifically interested in the potential of sound as a creative medium, and the Tape Letters archive provided a rich source of audio material to engage with. The heritage collection and oral history content converged most fully through the immersive multi-speaker sound installation, where audiences were presented with five sound vignettes inspired and drawn directly from the archive. Several creative approaches were taken in the sonification of the pieces, ranging from the spatialisation of audio footage taken directly from the cassettes to the placement of multi-lingual interviews, to comparative field recordings, and to experimental sound compositions drawing from the materiality of the magnetic tape itself.