The journey of an Egyptian Child Mummy and other portraits
WATERHOUSE & DODD, 26 CorkStreet,  London W1S 3ND
21 May to 12 June 2008

Website: www.modbritart.com

Unravelled was largely dedicated to the ‘unravelling’ of an Egyptian mummy loaned by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Exhibited alongside the work inspired by CT scans of The Ashmolean Mummy were a series of self-portraits that use MRI technology.

The mummy, which was the subject of Palmer’s research for the two years prior to the exhibition, was from the collection of Egyptian artefacts in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. The wrapped mummy is an unnamed child who died nearly 2000 years ago.

Instigated by Palmer, the mummy was taken out of the museum in the summer of 2006 and given a full CT body scan at the John Radcliffe Hospital. The scan showed that the child, aged about two, was a boy. From the scans two new sculptures were made in which the boy’s body, free of his bandaging, appeared to float within the 111 glass sheets needed to create each life-size image. Drawn with a black pen, instead of the engraving tool, the repeated lines had an intensity and energy reminiscent of Giacometti’s drawings.

For the exhibition, the actual mummy of the boy was presented in the gallery alongside Palmer’s two sculptural body images. The startling juxtaposition of artistic subject and its representation both disturbed and at the same time deepened engagement with the artist’s project.

Palmer visited and documented the site south west of Cairo where the mummy was discovered in 1888. Whilst there she gathered sand, and filmed and photographed her journey. Exhibited alongside her sculptures were short films and a series of informal photographic portraits of local boys from the village where she stayed. These ‘reunited’ the Ashmolean boy with his homeland, the place he knew during his short life. If the mummy, as a small wrapped body, even at this distance in time had something of the melancholy of a child’s gravestone, Palmer’s films and photographs were brimming with life.

Through Unravelled we learned a little more of the narrative of what happened to a small boy in Egypt during the Roman period. As well as gender and revealing the shape of the body and skeleton, the scan revealed the detail of the elaborate bandaging of the body and use of gold studs. Each piece of information contributed to a more detailed picture of another era. But as art the exhibition offered even more as it merged past and present, engaged with science and other disciplines while always considering the aesthetic impact of each work and display.