“Something” is a moving image vignette with a running time of 05:04, featuring a reading by a reader, accompanied by a page-turner recorded by the recorder.
Something (2022) film still
Image Description: Open book with the word “alternative” prominently displayed in large, bold, black, sans-serif font, in an off-white page. A small and dark piece of rock is positioned on the open page, to the left. A hand, wearing a white glove, is visible reaching into the book, about to turn the page. Small numbers (“01” and “03”) are displayed on the screen.
Conceived in 2022, it serves as the introduction to Elle Reynolds’ PhD, completed in 2024. The moving image vignette is available to view on the Society for Artistic Research platform: View here.
This research-based work explores the physical and durational space of alternative art schools, engaging with processes of intervention and redaction within an archival mapping context. Initially inspired by Anton Vidokle’s An Incomplete Chronology of Experimental Art Schools (2006), the work reconsiders the location and nature of alternative pedagogies. Through the deliberate inclusion of a white-gloved brown hand, a narrator, and a static viewing format, it interrogates the concepts of the archive—questioning who creates it, who has access, and who it serves. These interventions, as forms of knowledge-making, traverse contexts to reorient time and knowledge, inviting questions from the space of imagination. The inclusion of symbolism (in this instance, the archival glove, minstrel references, etc.) represents linguistic and visual strategies of layering that run throughout the PhD.
Something (2022) film still
Image Description: The image shows an open book displaying a list of art schools and their founding dates. A gloved hand is gently resting on the open pages, near the bottom right. The list is divided into two columns; the left column features historical art schools, while the right details more contemporary or itinerant institutions.
Vidokle’s An Incomplete Chronology of Experimental Art Schools appeared to be one of the most comprehensive overviews of alternative art schools. By conducting a close reading of Vidokle’s list, salient terminologies and the spatial language of art education were identified, revealing the framework’s underlying assumptions and limitations. A focus predominantly on North American and Western European educational experiments highlighted significant gaps in representation. Vidokle’s catalogue provided an opportunity to interrogate and reinterpret the practice of listing and categorisation. For instance, the final five schools in the Incomplete Chronology are presented only as titles, with no supplementary information, leaving their contexts unexplored. This limited development, inspired interventions that led to the creation of an expanded and alternate Listing Space, depicted in the vignette.
Through additions and redactions, the narrator and page-turner introduce speculative and conceptual movements across geographies and non-linear temporalities, assembling new narratives within the archive. For example, the vignette highlights the Highlander Folk School, focusing on its innovative pedagogies and the contributions of prominent individuals who initiated and attended the school.
At the conclusion of this reimagined listing, the five unelaborated examples from Vidokle’s original catalogue are replaced with the Àsìkò Art School. This intervention tests a more expansive approach to listing by prioritising geographical location and proposing a spatial representation that integrates time, relationality, and the nomadic experiences central to Àsìkò’s pedagogical model. Through this spatialised mapping within the vignette, the archive becomes a site of dynamic interaction, challenging static notions of historical categorisation and enabling the articulation of alternative narratives.
This vignette was the starting point for a multifaceted PhD examining contemporary and alternative art pedagogies through three distinct protagonist roles. A toolkit developed during the research will be exhibited alongside a publication The Protagonist’s Handbook is planned for 2025. Elements of the practice-based PhD will also be accessible in 2025 on the Research Catalogue of the Society for Artistic Research.
Something (2022) film still
Image Description: The image shows a pair of hands in white gloves turning the pages of a large book. The pages display the words “n”, “nate”, “native”, and “natively” in a simple, sans-serif typeface. The word “Strike” appears as a caption in the lower-left corner.
Elle Reynolds (lives and works in London) is an academic practice-based researcher. Work has been exhibited at locations, art-spaces and galleries, in Estonia, Italy, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom. Alongside is extensive teaching experience; most notably at Bradford College of Art, the School of Oriental and African Studies, Istituto Marangoni and Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.
Reynolds’ collaborative artistic research project, No Telos (2017–2019), can be found in No Telos, published by Beam Editions in 2019, and through performances at Convocations, held at the Venice Biennale Research Pavilion in the same year. Learn more.
Recent mapping projects by Reynolds include a series of postcards reflecting on the gay night “FLESH” held at the Hacienda nightclub in Manchester, a moment just before the onset of AIDS. These postcards will appear in a forthcoming book on nightclubbing Clubbing and Communing, due June 2025 June, Arts Council England and Essex Heritage Trust. Additionally, a condensed mapping of UK alternative art schools will be published in an upcoming Arts Council England publication, How to set up an art school, due March 2025.
