New Blood Entry — Joe Cooke

Artefacts from the V&A collections are sliced up and reshuffled to create strange and humorous new artworks, in the manner of the Dadaist ‘exquisite corpses’, or visual ‘consequences’.The fusion of historical and contemporary artefacts to create something new reflects the architectural plans of the development project as well as the wider creativity and diversity of the local cultural environment.Adorning the length of the hoarding, displayed at a range of human sizes and evoking a variety of emotions, these creatures will engage with a wide audience of passers-by. In conjunction with the hoarding, a smartphone app will allow the public to interact with the project. They will be able to mix the artefacts up themselves and upload their creations to a gallery. This will help to create a buzz about the project and extend its reach into social media audiences.The creations will be fixed to the hoarding as vinyl stickers. Every six months the best creations submitted through the app will be switched onto the hoarding, thus creating a sequence of temporary exhibitions over the course of three years.This dynamism will maintain interest and excitement around the project and the museum as a whole. The continued possibility of having their creations exhibited will encourage the public to interact with the app throughout the development, and in turn this should intrigue them and inspire a visit. The hoarding and app will reinforce that museums are interesting and can be fun.Information about and visuals of the proposed redevelopment will sit amongst the creatures along the hoarding. This will inform the public and make clear the meaning of the hoarding concept.