Withdrawn Objects

Stephanie Mann (b.1990) Withdrawn Objects (2022) 2 stone cores, four cored objects and supplementary notes, 2022.

Acquired directly from the artist in 2023. Exhibited for ‘Meet me at the threshold’, Talbot Rice Gallery, March –May 2022. Reference EU5901

Following an extensive period of research and discussion with Heritage Collections staff, four object fragments -two items from Geology and two from the Art Collections- were donated to artist Stephanie Mann. Beyond repair, surplus to need because of duplication, or not formally accessioned by the University, the items were offered up as subjects for Mann’s project. She ‘cored’ each object, leaving a perfect puncture mark in the centre. Intending to embed this extracted material into other objects she then ground the cores into microscopic dust.

Using a Hassler Cell and high-pressure pump, Mann has infused the dust of two of the objects into the minute holes in the rock’s natural structure – creating new geological compositions. These two cores were acquired by the Art Collection, along with the return of the four cored collections objects.

Parts of The University of Edinburgh Art Collection are on display across campus, while others are in storage, but all can be accessed for teaching and researched through Heritage Collections. Works like Withdrawn Objects are not only examples of the many artworks in the collection that have developed from extensive artistic research and thinking, but that are also tools for questioning collecting practices and the preservation of the past and future heritage.

Heritage Collections are working with Mann to develop an accompanying set of prompts to sit alongside the objects for use in research and teaching. In the meantime, however, some possible questions this work might raise include:

• How might this artwork and other forms of artistic practice be used in your own teaching?
• How could this help students connect with ideas of the sustainability, environment, heritage, value, and care, or reflect on the production of (scientific) knowledge?
• Why is something collected, kept or preserved? Who decides what value something holds? How might this map onto thinking about sustainability and the environment?
• How does this work speak to ideas of destruction, reuse and preservation?
• What emotional or historical weight do objects carry? How and why does their meaning change over time? Does that impact its value?