Ahead of our Autumn Grants Round Opening We Look at Afterall’s research into The Other Story

Afterall were awarded a Digital Project Grant of £8,000 in 2015 to support the creation of The Other Story (1989–90) microsite, a digital case study of a landmark exhibition which proved fundamental for establishing the work of important neglected or emerging artists.

Having grappled many times with the limitations of the printed page for representing the multisensory experience of visiting an exhibition – notably in producing the image-based “walk through” sections of books in Afterall’s Exhibition Histories series – the team at Afterall, led by Dr Lucy Steeds, wanted to explore the possibilities that digital technology and online publishing have to offer in bringing past exhibitions back to life.

Afterall’s research into The Other Story, and its consequential critical significance, began formally in 2009 at a symposium looking at “Exhibitions and the World at Large”. The exhibition opened in 1989 and united the art of Asian, African and Caribbean artists in post-war Britain. Guest-curated by artist Rasheed Araeen, it began at the Hayward Gallery in London before touring to Wolverhampton and Manchester. Artists included Rasheed Araeen, Saleem Arif, Sonia Boyce, Frank Bowling, Li Yuan-chia, Donald Locke, David Medalla, Ronald Moody and Aubrey Williams.

While the show is now hailed for its critical significance, most of the exhibition’s legacy is known through its exhibition catalogue, with little understanding of how individual works were installed and placed next to each other. It was therefore the task of Lucy Steeds and the team to work on recreating the exhibition digitally to show how it looked to visitors at the time.

One of the main features of the microsite is the gallery where the team have digitised a vast number of installation images of the exhibition (courtesy of the Central Saint Martins’ slide library), close-up images of works in situ and even external shots of the building showing signage and works installed by artists such as Kumiko Shimizu. The images show how the works were exhibited together and how they were grouped into the four sections: In the Citadel of Modernism; Taking the Bull by the Horns; Confronting the System; and Recovering Cultural Metaphors. The images are presented alongside the exhibition wall text which would have been displayed at the Hayward. The site also includes an interactive exhibition plan to show the layout.

To accompany the digitised images and plans, Lucy Steeds has written an interpretive tour of the exhibition via an essay “Retelling the Other Story – Or What Now?” and artist Bo Choy has recorded a video response from her current homes in Hong Kong and London which reflects on the exhibition.