EXPLORING THE FRANKO B ARCHIVES

Following a ‘Research Resources’ award from Wellcome, the Theatre Collection has been working on a project for the past 18 months to catalogue, conserve and make publicly accessible the archive of artist, curator and teacher, Franko B. Franko B’s practice explores the limits of the body, touching on pain, suffering and sexuality in contemporary culture. He rose to prominence in the 1990s due to his extraordinary body-based performances at the ICA in London that often involved blood-letting. Creating work across performance, video, photography, painting, sculpture and mixed media for the last 30 years, Franko’s experiences of suffering, neglect, homelessness and marginalisation as an adolescent, and then as a young gay man and punk living in London during the AIDS epidemic, deeply influenced and intertwined with his practice. Archivists working on the project will introduce the Franko B archive, and there will be an opportunity to handle items from the collection.
More information: bristol.ac.uk/arts/events/2020/february/chhs-research-seminar.html

A SERIES OF FUTURE ENCOUNTERS - Sixth blog post from the Writers in Residence programme at the Franko B Archive

As part of the Wellcome Trust funded project Challenging Archives: Delivering research access, public engagement and the curatorial care of the Franko B archive, writers-in-residence Mary Paterson and Maddy Costa are engaging creatively with the Franko B archive as it is catalogued, conserved and made accessible.

'Although it might not look like it, this post is constructed from two interviews: with Stefan Dickers, Library and Archives Manager at Bishopsgate Institute in London, and Dr Justin Bengry, Lecturer in Queer History at Goldsmiths, University of London. [...]'
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Franko B's Archive is held as part of the Live Art Archives at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection

LEGAL HISTORY AND FRANKO B'S ARCHIVE - Fifth blog post from the Writers in Residence programme at the Franko B Archive

As part of the Wellcome Trust funded project Challenging Archives: Delivering research access, public engagement and the curatorial care of the Franko B archive, writers-in-residence Mary Paterson and Maddy Costa are engaging creatively with the Franko B archive as it is catalogued, conserved and made accessible.

'Inside a manila folder inside a box inside Franko B’s archive is a packet of slides of a performance he made around 1991. To see the pictures, hold the plastic packet in both hands and angle it towards the light of the window. Squint.
Read the post here >

Franko B's Archive is held as part of the Live Art Archives at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection