Mutter matter: murmurings from the drawing room table

‘Mutter matter; murmurings from the Drawing Room Table’, a collaborative, site responsive installation by Jane Fox and Irene Mensah was developed and shown at Pitzhanger Manor House, London W5 in June/July 2012 at the invitation of curator Carol Swords. The work attends to the fragile and elusive nature of memory and the significance of domestic objects and materials in exploring and re-siting the past. It builds on the artists’ previous work ‘Mutter Matter - murmurings from the kitchen table’ selected by curator Celia Davies for ‘House’ festival, May 2011 at The Regency Town House, Brighton. The impetus for the work was two domestic books, each inherited from a grandmother: ‘Enquire Within Upon Everything’ 114th edition, 1929 inherited from Hilda Fox (Fox) and ‘Quotations and Recipes’ 1931, Wisbech, inherited from Lily Shaw (Mensah). The books provided a lens through which the artists explored their own and their grandmother’s lives via collisions of memory and material, and in conversation between themselves in an original re-working of recipes, texts and domestic convention, and in response to site. At Pitzhanger Manor, owned by the architect Sir John Soane from 1800 -1809, a new voice enters the dialogue – Dr William Kitchiner, Regency cook and author of ‘The Cook's Oracle’ (4th edition 1822). ‘Mutter matter; murmurings from the Drawing Room table’ draws on this and other traces from Soane family life to expand and hone the work, creating new collisions and resonances within its layers. The artists tread a careful collaborative path and test a range of shared creative strategies within which to hold and develop a multi faceted artwork. ‘Mutter matter; murmurings from the drawing room table’ was funded by Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England and supported by Wright’s Baking and PM Gallery and House.