HOUSE STYLE

25 OCTOBER 2013 – 19 JANUARY 2014

Tramway 5, TRAMWAY, 25 ALBERT DRIVE, GLASGOW

House Style presented a series of new commissions initiated by Panel with Annette Lux and Steven Cairns in response to a specially selected film programme sourced from the British Film Institute National Archive.

House Style took as its starting point a monthly Technicolor film series called Roundabout (1962-1974). Roundabout was designed to promote Britain as a progressive world leader to south and south-east Asian audiences. Produced by the British government through its Central Office of Information (COI), every issue was packed with stories that portrayed Britain in the vanguard of research, the forefront of manufacturing, the driving force of the Commonwealth as well as the creative edge of the arts and design. If the message could be summed up in a single word it would be ‘modern’, the idea being that Asian cinema audiences were presented with a vision of what their future might look like and how Britain was helping to realise this vision.

New works by Hilda Hellström, Travis Jeppesen, Rob Kennedy and Daniel Padden set out to reconsider and reposition the stories told, investigating the ways in which cultural identity, status and style can be understood through design, industry and image making. Their experimental narratives, presented in an exhibition design scheme by Steff Norwood and featuring a hand-stencilled trompe l’oeil rug by Bernie Reid, aimed to provoke a new reading of the promotional feature, juxtaposing ideas of national identity with tradition and modernity, documentary and fiction.

Films sourced from the BFI National Archive and the BUFVC.

Roundabout-1963: A Year In Colour is available to buy on DVD from the British Film Institute. The Roundabout series can be viewed online at: http://bufvc.ac.uk/newsonscreen/roundabout

Generously supported by Creative Scotland and presented in partnership with Tramway.