6 December 2012
Film archive crucial to Turner Prize win
Artist used footage held by university
WHEN artist Elizabeth Price stepped up to claim this year’s Turner Prize, staff at the North West Film Archive had reason to cheer.
Almost 12 months earlier it had fallen to them to find the all-important archive footage of the 1979 Woolworths fire which was used as part of Elizabeth’s winning piece.
The films are part of a collection of BBC archive footage held by the university library’s Special Collections, of which the NWFA is a part.
Specialist expertise
Service manager Marion Hewitt put the ease with which the archive could help Price down to good custodial practice, cataloguing, and specialist expertise in transferring film to HD digital files.
She said: “This was an example of an artist using archive film creatively, which is not typically what we do. But many artists do use film, from the old school to the cutting edge, and creative reuse of our collections is only possible because of the underpinning custodial work.”
Cataloguing and access assistant Will McTaggart said: “It is rewarding to know that we have been instrumental in providing these powerful images for Elizabeth’s award-winning work.”
£25,000 prize
Price’s film used cuttings of gestures from the clips held by the North West Film Archive, tied in with hand gestures from a performance by the Shangri Las.
She was presented with the £25,000 prize by the actor Jude Law at a ceremony held at the Tate Gallery, in London.
The work carried out by the North West Film Archive staff in keeping the films in order will be crucial when they move to new facilities at Manchester Central Library in 2014.
