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Free

Beyond the Acid Free is an installation and enactment by artist Barbara Steveni, instigator of the Artist Placement Group (APG).

The APG, active in Britain and on an international stage from the1960s to 1990s repositioned the role of the artist in a wider social context, creating artist placements in government and industry and contributing to the British development of Conceptual Art. Steveni’s installation, presented for the first time at Arnolfini will include historical material sourced from APG’s rich archive, now held in Tate Britain, and feature two of the original placements. Video documentation from Steveni’s current work I AM AN ARCHIVE will be shown alongside. I AM AN ARCHIVE gathers artists and professionals across three generations in a series of participatory and documentary walks, taking place on the site of original APG placements, exploring the potential to reactivate APG methodology in the “greed economics of the day” (Tony Benn from his Darwin Lecture ‘Power and Society’).

Steveni’s enactment will include the first-hand relating of stories from her APG journey and the reworking of material.