Next year, Kingston Museum is celebrating the Kingston-born photographer and pioneer of the moving image Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904). Muybridge was born, and died, in Kingston but spent much of his working life in the USA. He took photographs of humans and animals moving using motion sequence photography and typically displayed them on a grid. Put together, the photographs showed movement, like an animation. This was the first time movement had been seen like this and Muybridge famously proved a galloping horse lifted all four hooves off the ground using this technique – something which is undetectable to the naked eye.
As part of this celebration of Muybridge, Kingston Museum will be holding a ‘Muybridge Co-Curate’ exhibition from April to September 2022. Co-curation will involve organisations, groups and members of the community in Kingston representing themselves – their stories and histories – around the theme of ‘movement’. A key part of this is giving control to communities in Kingston that are not represented strongly enough within the museum, or in its collections. It is also an opportunity to represent LGBT+ voices, perspectives and stories both within the museum and the collections it cares for.
Image caption: Plate 59. Starting for a run, 1878. Eadweard Muybridge. Kingston Heritage Service
The theme of movement can be interpreted in a number of ways. It could be physical movement such as dancing, it could be movement of people such as migration or it could be movement as progress. Kingston Heritage Service is keen to hear whether the LGBT+ community is interested in being involved, and also how the LGBT+ community would like to interpret the theme of movement, and what you would like to display in an LGBT+ section of the Muybridge Co-Curate exhibition.
This model of co-curation is something Kingston Heritage Service would like to continue to do and so we are very interested in working with Kingston Forum in the long term. Please send any thoughts or ideas about the theme of movement for the Muybridge Co-Curate to Rosamund Lily West, rosamund.west@kingston.gov.uk