Ana Mendes & Kelly Wu: Museums and Material Memory at Courtauld’s East Wing Biennial 25/27

Ana Mendes and Kelly Wu will lead a programme to invite an active consideration of the role of museums, the legacy of cultural history and the potency of material objects in shaping shared memory. Set at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where works by both artists are on display as part of the exhibition RE:VISION, the Courtauld’s East Wing Biennial 25/27, the session will open with a panel and participatory discussion moderated by Romy Brill Allen, Director of the Biennial, followed by a film screening and a creative artist-led workshop.

In their process-driven artistic practices, Ana Mendes and Kelly Wu explore the themes of history, memory and identity. Their works in the ‘RE:COLLECT’ section of the Biennial draw attention to questions that destabilise the systems governing material preservation and object ownership. Both artists position cultural memory as a collective construction that remains resonant on a personal level. The People’s Collection (2014–ongoing) by Ana Mendes gathers individual responses to museum and ethnographic objects, revealing the relationship between identity, memory and material, while Kelly Wu’s Slat of Sunlight, Base of my Door (2024–ongoing) comprises doorstops taken from cultural institutions, presented as remnants of acts that challenge the physical and symbolic access to art and culture. For this programme, the artists will share the research and archival resources that inform these projects and their wider practices.

‘Ana Mendes & Kelly Wu: Museums and Material Memory’ is jointly organised by The East Wing Biennial 25/27, Art Embassy Network and Conduit Art, London, with support from the Instituto Camões, I.P.