To coincide with University of Birmingham Research and Cultural Collection’s exhibition of Eduardo Paolozzi’s ‘Moonstrips Empire News’, I led a group of Liberal Arts and Science students to Redditch’s Kingfisher shopping centre, the unlikely home of a large collection of Paolozzi’s mosaics.
The group read and discussed JG Ballard’s ‘The Concentration City’ during the journey and upon arrival were asked to re imagine themselves as visiting inhabitants to a far away dystopian metropolis and the Kingfisher shopping centre as a visual archive containing all that is known of human existence. After collecting source material the group used their smartphones to create digital collages imbued with the grammar of present day consumer society; images it was discussed that Paolozzi himself may be making, were he alive today.
Collage images from various participants.