Small project, big butterfly

For the last two years, I designed the exhibition ‘Sensational Butterflies’ for the Natural History Museum. (See link here). This year, the front lawn where they usually exhibit the live butterfly show was closed for refurbishment which meant, naturally, no show. In its place I worked on this much smaller butterfly project for them. Ironically, it’s a display about the world’s largest butterfly – the Queen Alexandra Birdwing.

Fascinating fact: the adult females have a wingspan reaching up to 28 centimetres which is about the length of a sheet of A4. Imagine that flapping around.

The two display cases are on show at the wonderful Tring branch of the Natural History Museum. Link below.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/tring.html

(post by Tanya)

Donald Harding

Over the last couple of years I’ve been working with the artist Donald Harding. In 2018 I worked with him to create an exhibition for his piece ‘The Marshes’ and more recently on his website. Donald is a bit of a polymath and describes himself as working in ‘video, text and sound’. Click the link below for more information.

https://www.donaldharding.com

‘The Marshes’ is a very moving piece centred around the horses on the Thamesmead Estate. The work really stayed with me as it uses a unique and haunting mix of fact and fiction. It showed most recently at the South Kiosk Gallery in Peckham. Keep your eye open for upcoming shows.

https://www.donaldharding.com/the-marshes

(post by Tanya)

Poetry in London Bridge Station

Working with the Museum of London, I designed the 3D layout and 2D panels for the display cases in the expanded London Bridge station. On show are many fascinating objects excavated during the build. If you’re passing through the main concourse, it’s well worth slowing down to take a look.

I find this kind of work so satisfying. Why? Not only do I relish the design process, I get a genuine kick out of working with historical content. For instance, take the caption below about a goose’s wing bone. A few centuries ago, someone living close to the Thames by London Bridge selected a particular bone to carve into a writing instrument which, in its smallness is something to ponder on; but what’s more, is that it survived and is now on display for the thousands passing through the station every day. To me that’s poetry. You have to wonder what it was they intended to write. A few lines to a loved one maybe? Or maybe a letter of complaint? Perhaps a drawing, or a simple list of figures? Which leads me to think about the practicality of such a pen. I’ve found that even without splitting the nib a reed pen works really well, although I’ve only tried bamboo. Which makes me wonder what kind of mark bone would make ... every project creates a wide net of ideas.

(post by Tanya)

Agatha Christie, Unfinished Portrait

This summer, once again I had the pleasure of working with Alice Graham on the touring show Agatha Christie, Unfinished Portrait. We worked together to deliver the show for the International Agatha Christie Festival. Click the link below for a great video made by The Shorely – you can see me in the background, working alongside Alice and the amazing James and Josh from Art Works Exhibition Services. The show was on at Torre Abbey until 24 November.

The Shorley:

https://www.theshorely.com/articles/agatha-christie-unfinished-portrait-exhibition

Art Works Exhibition Services:

https://www.arthandling.co.uk

Graphic production by Displayways:

https://www.displayways.co.uk

For more on this show on the portfolio section of this website:

http://chutneychorus.com/#/exhibition-agatha-christie

(post by Tanya)

Museum Insider

This project for Museum of London Docklands is to give children a flavour of life as a docker in Victorian London. I made labels for the costumes, panels for the furniture, retouched sheet music for the Joanna (that’s ‘piano’ if you don’t speak Cockney) and had fun drawing a repeating pattern for the tablecloth. What I enjoyed most of all, however, is the fact that I’m a direct descendant of a Victorian docker! My great-grandfather John Philip Cornish lived from 1862-1948 in Stepney and worked as a casual docker ‘on the stones’. This meant he’d turn up at the docks and stand on a cobbled forecourt amongst hundreds of men and hope he’d be chosen for a day’s work. It was a tough life. Below is a photo of John in his late 60s. Although he’s looking pretty content, note that he’s covering one hand - he lost two and a half fingers to the docks but must have wanted to keep that ‘Mum’.

The family continued to live in Stepney, my grandfather too worked ‘on the stones’, choosing to stay put during the Blitz, where my father remembered being bombed out five times. But perhaps that’s a story for another day …

(post by Tanya)

Look here!

It’s that time again ... we’re opening our doors as part of the Crystal Palace Artists’ Open House. We’ll be sharing client and personal work – it promises to be an exciting mix.

See you soon!

http://www.crystalpalaceart.co.uk

We're on Instagram!

Chutney Chorus is now on Instagram. We’ve many strings to our bow and it’s great to share them all: print design, exhibition design, animation and illustration. See you there!

On the move

We’re very excited to announce that we’re adding motion graphics to the great services we offer our clients. We created this Instagram ad for T-shirt apparel company ‘Those Who Wait’.

We should also mention that ‘Those Who Wait’ is our very own brand ... that’s right! As a sideline, we’re now designing T-shirts for stylish urbanites. Check it out:

https://thosewhowait.com

A footnote for the technically-minded: the ad was created in After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop and Audition. (There’s many moving parts to motion which is what we like.)

Animal magnetism

Many of you will be familiar with these characters as you’ll have received our 2019 New Year animated card. Based on the Chinese zodiac, we created a dozen animals, split each into three and set the animation rolling. It was mesmerizing to make and hopefully mesmerizing to watch.

See it, along with our other GIFs, here:

http://chutneychorus.com/gifs/

A glimpse behind-the-scenes at the museum

The Museum of London asked me to help them reinstate a wall of objects in their War, Plague & Fire gallery after using them in a temporary show.

So, what does it take to get this done? Step one is the curator chooses the objects and writes the captions. Then, both the objects and the wall are carefully measured. This info is handed to me, and I start to design the captions and panels while simultaneously creating drawings to scale. Then, between my clients and I, we go through several proofs where we work out the best arrangement, taking into account practical issues such as load-bearing, lighting and legibility as well as making sure the historical narrative is engaging and seamless. Once that is agreed by all, the job is ready to install. I send off caption and panel artwork to the manufacturers who create them to spec e.g. 3mm thick board, printed in two colours. Back inside the museum, my scale drawings are handed to the install team who do the skillful work of mounting the objects so they’re both secure and displayed to maximum effect. Once that’s done the finished captions are installed and the gallery is ready for the public.

3D drawing to scale

(post by Tanya)