Artists Make Works Using BBC Archive

Six artists have created new moving-image artworks, taking the vast BBC film archive as inspiration. The artworks are the result of a residency program that took place over a span of six months at BBC Scotland. During the residency, the selected artists were offered unprecedented access to the UK broadcaster’s facilities and archives.

The artists—Kate Davis, Kathryn Elkin, Luke Fowler, Torsten Lauschmann, Stephen Sutcliffe, and Alia Syed—began their research earlier this year. The resulting short films were screened last week at CCA Glasgow and Tate Modern in London, as part of Tate’s “TV as Material” weekend.

The short films are now available to view online on the BBC website. Although the works offer a diverse range of approaches, they all seem to share an interest in how the medium of television has shaped our understanding of art and culture.

The residency, Artists and Archives: Artists’ Moving Image at the BBC, was one of several new projects part of an ongoing commitment by the BBC to allow artists access to its archives. Earlier this month, BBC Four broadcasted a series of station identifiers (known as idents) created by renowned artists Laure Prouvost, James Richards, John Smith, and Sebastian Buerkner (see “Artists Take Over the BBC”). The idents, which were also the result of archival research, were aired to celebrate the channel’s recent season devoted to Abstract art.