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TRACe: The Museum of Memory
Drawing on Tearne's background, and experience of loss - she left Sri Lanka for the UK with her family, at the start of the civil unrest during the 1960s - the book imagines an archive and museum collection cultivated from a trunk of photographs and artefacts from an unknown donor. With no known provenance and in poor condition, the collection stands in as a substitute for the lost possessions of every dislocated individual - whether a displaced person or refugee, or simply someone who has been forced by circumstance to leave the familiar behind, losing special objects in the process. People often cannot help looking for artefacts which belong to their past, and are unable to rest if they can't find them. TRACe provides that rest - it is the story of a collection, and the house which becomes a museum to hold those possessions.
"On entering you will notice that the collection within these rooms appears to belong to one person alone. However, I hope that on closer inspection it will become clear that the exhibits belong to everyone who has ever lived."
"On entering you will notice that the collection within these rooms appears to belong to one person alone. However, I hope that on closer inspection it will become clear that the exhibits belong to everyone who has ever lived."
114 pages, Paperback
Published May 25, 2023
2 people want to read
About the author
Roma Tearne
13 books94 followersRoma Tearne is a Sri Lankan born artist living and working in Britain. She arrived, with her parents in this country at the age of ten. She trained as a painter, completing her MA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. For nearly twenty years her work as a painter, installation artist, and filmmaker has dealt with the traces of history and memory within public and private spaces.
In 1998 the Royal Academy of Arts, London, highlighted one of her paintings, “Watching the Procession,” for its Summer Exhibition. As a result her work became more widely known and was included in the South Asian Arts Festival at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham in 1992
In 1993, Cadogan Contempories, London, began showing her paintings. In 2000, the Arts Council of England funded a touring exhibition of her work. Entitled ‘The House of Small Things’, this exhibition consisted of paintings and photographs based on childhood memories. They were the start of what was to become a preoccupation on issues of loss and migration.
She became Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2002 and it was while working at the Ashmolean, as a response to public interest, that she began to write.
In 2003 she had a solo exhibition, Nel Corpo delle città (In the Body of the City), at the MLAC Gallery in Rome.
In 2006 she was awarded a three-year AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Fellowship, at Brookes University, Oxford where she worked on the relationship between narrative and memory in museums throughout Europe.
Out of this work came Watermuseum a film set in Venice which was shown at the Coastings exhibition in Nottingham in 2008. In 2008 she received funding from the Arts council of England in order to make a film on memory and migration. This film is due to be premiered in 2010.
Her second novel Bone China was published in April 2008 and her third Brixton Beach will be published in June 2009.
She will be having her first solo exhibition since 2001 at the 198 Gallery, Brixton at the same time.
Roma Tearne is currently a Creative Writing Fellow at Brookes University, Oxford.
In 1998 the Royal Academy of Arts, London, highlighted one of her paintings, “Watching the Procession,” for its Summer Exhibition. As a result her work became more widely known and was included in the South Asian Arts Festival at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham in 1992
In 1993, Cadogan Contempories, London, began showing her paintings. In 2000, the Arts Council of England funded a touring exhibition of her work. Entitled ‘The House of Small Things’, this exhibition consisted of paintings and photographs based on childhood memories. They were the start of what was to become a preoccupation on issues of loss and migration.
She became Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2002 and it was while working at the Ashmolean, as a response to public interest, that she began to write.
In 2003 she had a solo exhibition, Nel Corpo delle città (In the Body of the City), at the MLAC Gallery in Rome.
In 2006 she was awarded a three-year AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Fellowship, at Brookes University, Oxford where she worked on the relationship between narrative and memory in museums throughout Europe.
Out of this work came Watermuseum a film set in Venice which was shown at the Coastings exhibition in Nottingham in 2008. In 2008 she received funding from the Arts council of England in order to make a film on memory and migration. This film is due to be premiered in 2010.
Her second novel Bone China was published in April 2008 and her third Brixton Beach will be published in June 2009.
She will be having her first solo exhibition since 2001 at the 198 Gallery, Brixton at the same time.
Roma Tearne is currently a Creative Writing Fellow at Brookes University, Oxford.
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