What Are You To Me exhibition at Centrespace Gallery

This weekend, I went into town and bought way too many things and got very tired and annoyed at people because THERE WERE SO MANY EVERYWHERE. On Saturday, I also visited an art college's open day for the foundation diploma, so I guess that's partly why I had so many feelings about what I saw later. I went to visit the Centrespace gallery in the Bristol city centre. I've only been there once before, and it's so tucked away it's amazing it's still open. Here is the street it's on:

Teeny tiny gallery road

I've walked past that road so many times, but today I went in and it felt like walking into a secret room in my grandparents' house; you can hear people talking about their memories (home videos being shown on small televisions or projectors) and as soon as you go in there's soft lighting but there are so many things to look at and you just think what the hell is this? But in a good way.

What Are You To Me is a collection of treasures that the collaborators have gathered from their families - photo albums, suitcases, clothes, lightbulbs, a pipe... You're invited to interact with anything you want to in the exhibit, and there are even biscuits & sweets laid out. It feels so cosy and I just wanted to be so quiet in there because it felt like being in my grandparents' attic, trying to be quiet while I looked through all their things because they would wonder what I was doing if they heard me walking around. Paper luggage tags are placed all around the room, where people have written about memories of their family, and you're encouraged to write your own. A lot of it is in faded sepia tones, but then there are some really stand-out pieces like the wedding dress in a suitcase, and a wall covered in descriptions of items (which really reminded me of unphotographable's concept of "a picture I did not take"). I found it so interesting to see these precious items taken account of so objectively, even though they carry so many memories for the people they now belong to.

Hand-drawn family tree

I've started trying to film the things I see as well as photographing them, so this is my attempt at doing that. What Are You To Me is open at the Centrespace gallery on Leonard Lane, just off Corn Street, until 20th November.