Dion Kiston: Silver Lining
English Heritage
2024
In 2008, English Heritage acquired the JW Evans Silver Factory in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, which began as a cottage industry in 1881. The workshops are preserved in situ, containing thousands of dies for the manufacture of silverware; the entire factory’s working equipment; and the workers’ ephemera, magazines and posters. Kitson sets up a dialogue between the heritage of the museum and Ikon, a contemporary art gallery celebrating its 60th anniversary.
Kitson, whose practice includes designing and making jewellery, spent time working at a local silversmiths, learning processes and techniques similar to those of the factory workers. At JW Evans, Kitson introduces new sculptural works into the preserved site: a selection of silver pieces, including ashtrays, are placed among the original moulds; in the former Director’s office a Newton’s cradle made from laughing gas canisters is perched on the office desk; a hammer, apparently bent through telekinesis is found among tools; as is a Frosty Jack cider bottle cast in metal and a silver heroin spoon.
Through Silver Lining, an off-site commission for English Heritage, Kitson honours a lost industrial past, utilising new technologies to create sculptural interventions in a former silver factory, celebrating the history and popular culture of Birmingham and the Black Country.
Links
www.english-heritage.org.uk
www.ikon-gallery.org
www.bbc.co.uk