Evie Gurney

4717 was a collections-based curatorial project developed over six months in collaboration with the RCA and LUX. We sought to challenge the expected notions of archive, collection and display by transforming the gallery into a site of active production for ten days, exploring ideas of identity, narrative, individuality, subjectivity and collectivity through film, live performance, sculpture, sound and digital art. 

Taking Ursula Mayer’s Gonda (2012) as a starting point, this rich and multilayered work became a catalyst for new commissions from Anne De Boer, Libita Clayton, Ines Camara Leret & Jesse Cahn Thompson and Jade Montserrat. Experimenting with forms of collection, transformation, dispersion and memory, 4717 was an exhibition of multiple voices and multiple practices interwoven with the audience's sensory experience.

The changing exhibition space and the activities it hosted were broadcast via a video live-stream. The link to this live-stream has been acquired by LUX as their 4717th work, making it the first live moving image work in their collection. The link 4717.org.uk lies dormant alongside a set of instructions until it is reactivated by other parties interested in producing further iterations of the project.