Notes on Play

About

Notes on Play

For ‘Notes on Play’, multi-disciplinary artist Shenece Oretha has been commissioned to make a new work in response to the ‘Playtimes’ collection in the British Library's sound archive. The project is part of the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2021, Royal College of Art, London, in partnership with British Library’s ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ (UOSH) programme.

For the visual score Possibilities, Oretha has listened to a rich variety of recordings from the digitised ‘Playtimes’ collection, as well as from the ‘Dan Jones Collection of Children's Games and Songs’, both of which document the subversive and interpretative nature of sound in play. 

Inspired by both collections, Oretha places the relationship between play, music and possibility at the forefront. With a focus on the ring games, songs and drumming from the Black diaspora featured in the sound recordings, Possibilitiescelebrates play’s capacity to be a universal and embodied form of language and community.

Shenece Oretha

Shenece Oretha is a London-based multidisciplinary artist who explores the voice and sound's mobilising potential. Through installation, performance, print, sculpture, sound, workshops and text she amplifies and celebrates listening and sound as an embodied and collective practice. Her work is attentive to not just the music, but the musicality of her experiences of Black oral traditions, ceremony, spiritual practice and literature, combined with the intimate emotional, physical, relational and communal resonance they generate.

Events 

• Artist in Conversation: Shenece Oretha in Conversation with the Curators
  Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/152379191263
   
• Panel Discussion: Thinking through Play - Lola Olufemi, Zarina Muhammad, Róisín Tapponi and Shenece Oretha
  Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/152526927145
   
• Online Creative Workshop: Practice Play with Meera Shakti Osborne
  Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/152097763505

MA Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, London

Established over 25 years ago, the MA Curating Contemporary Art (CCA) programme at the Royal College of Art is recognised as an international leader in curatorial education and training and for its commitment to collaborative group project-based work that integrates theory and practice throughout the curriculum. The CCA programme approaches the field critically, theoretically and through best practice in commissioning, curating and programming with London-based and international arts organisations and spaces. These partnerships ensure that the knowledge and understanding of these practices is grounded in the context of public audiences, urbanisation and the digital.
 

The British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world- class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation and includes books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, photographs, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Over 10 million people visit the British Library website every year where they can view up to 4 million digitised collection items and over 40 million pages.

The British Library is also home to the nation’s sound archive, an extraordinary collection of over 6.5 million recordings of speech, music, wildlife and the environment. These recordings, from the UK and around the world, date from the birth of recorded sound in the 1880s to the present day. The sound archive forms a vital part of the nation’s collective memory and tells a rich story of the diverse history of the UK.