Ink: An exhibition with infinite spread

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Taking place in UCL's North Lodge on Gower Street, the exhibition provides the setting for a series of interactions around the history and substance of ink. It draws from the one million objects housed within UCL's Museums & Collections and also includes contemporary art works, film, text and other media from across the breadth and depth of UCL's departments.

Designed, built and transformed into an intimate and highly distinctive space by architects Mobile Studio, who also teach at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, this is the first time UCL's North Lodge has been used for a public exhibition.

In this audio slideshow, curator Simon Gould provides a preview of some of the objects on display and discusses the significance of this most visceral material.

Contemporary artworks by Madi Boyd, Samuel Keyte, Ruth Maclennan, Janne Malmros, Jo Volley and Barry Sykes sit, amongst other things, alongside a Roman ink well, a fossilised squid, a 15th-century German prayer book, a miniature Hampton Court maze made of ceramic ink and a plastic unicorn.

Every day a 'live respondent' will inhabit the space, including Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson, artist and poet Ansuman Biswas and calligrapher Paul Antonio. They will respond to the exhibition, producing an object that will be added to the ever growing repository of ink throughout the course of the exhibition.

This project is supported by UCL under the Beacons for Public Engagement programme which is funded by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils, Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust. 'Ink' runs until 11 December 2010 within UCL's North Lodge on Gower Street. It is open from Wednesday to Saturday from 12-6pm.

To find out more follow the links above, email ink-exhibition@ucl.ac.uk or call +44 020 7679 0670.

Image: Corona portable typewriter circa 1915, courtesy Lucy Steggals, by Neil Rodger

UCL context

The Public Engagement Unit works to support activities which encourage a culture of conversations between university staff and groups outside the university.

The UCL Public Engagement Unit is one of six in the UK to be funded by the Beacons for Public Engagement programme set up by HEFCE, Research Councils UK and the Wellcome Trust.

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