Lina Peterson: Imagined Objects of Desire

Artist list

Lina Peterson

The pieces made for the exhibition were made between March and August 2010 as part of a museumaker commission for the University of Nottingham Museum of Archaeology. They were inspired by objects from the museum's collection, which holds a wide variety of artefacts covering a 500 000 year period.

I chose to work with both beautifully preserved pieces on display in the museum and with unrecognisable fragments kept in the museum's basement. The museum objects help us understand the lives of our ancestors, but they can also confuse and lead us astray. I was interested in highlighting this idea of the unknown and the feeling of discovery associated with archaeology. By placing my objects next to the museum pieces it is my hope that the viewer will look at the museum artefacts in a different light and to take a deeper interest in them.

The final objects are what I call "hybrid-artefacts", part ancient, part new. I hope that they are intriguing, humorous and playful, with each piece in a sense a collaboration between the original maker and myself.

Lina Peterson, September 2010