Collections: My Influences and Approach

Damien Hirst: Treasures of the Unbelievable”

The exhibition by Damien Hirst “Treasures of the Unbelievable” was an exhibition of objects supposedly recovered from a wreck off the East African coast (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/damien-hirst-review-918074). The exhibition included film and photographs explaining the back story to these objects, and their “recovery” is described in Hirst’s film of the same name (https://www.netflix.com/title/80217857). While the works in the exhibition and the style are not a direct influence on my project, this series of works by Hirst demonstrates the importance of context in interpreting and explaining the significance of objects.

The objects look as if they have been recovered from a shipwreck, they are covered in coral and encrustations. However they are given meaning by the elaborate descriptions of the discovery and recovery of the wreck and its “history” which was set out in other elements of the exhibition and the subsequent “documentary” film.

The “Lion Woman of Asit Mayor” is covered with encrustations, like a real recovered artefact. The film includes scenes showing the “excavation” of the wreck, and the same attention to detailed recording as would be made in an archaeological survey.

The importance of this work to my project is that these objects were never underwater, but are given meaning by the context Hirst has created. The objects I will photograph, were underwater and are from real wrecks but many have now lost their contextual information and background and tell us little.