London is a Place for Me?

2022

Print on viroc, engraved letters filled with shards of glass, tray framed

This is part of the installation ‘The Grip’.

70 x 50 cm

Edition of 10

Chantelle May Purcell (b. 1985) is a London-based curator and artist. Her work explores the intertwined histories of Britain and the Caribbean, inspired by personal experiences, folklore and the ways in which culture is preserved through storytelling. Whether working as a curator or artist she seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the world through connection and empowering communities. Her work involves objects and sound to create sensory and multi-layered installations.

Purcell graduated from Kingston University with a MA in European Practice. As a curator she has worked on public realm projects including; Enfield Winter Lights, cultural pop-ups to revitalise areas and is co-founder of Artist Hive Studios in North London. She hopes to provide a lasting legacy for the arts and is currently working towards a time based media festival with StrangeLove spotlighting artists from the Afro-Diaspora.

For this exhibition Purcell wanted to personally add to the exhibtion’s context by including an original artifact from the fifties. The Grip is inspired by her grandad’s suitcase, originally used to travel from Jamaica to the UK in the late fifties.The installation is a commentary on the 1948 British Nationality Act, an open invitation to citizens of the ‘Colonies’ who were enticed to return to the Queen’s Empire. The installation explores the experience of diasporic identities, intergenerational loss of culture and the ability of objects to hold resonance, nostalgia and longing.