Trunk Show

Press Release

The radical politics of the 60’s and its critique of race, gender and sexuality have had a massive impact on development of contemporary art. This impact would be felt not only in terms of artwork that directly addressed these issues, but also in terms of an ongoing debate about the role of the artist and strategies for making exhibitions and artworks.
Trunk Show is an international traveling exhibition initiated in the USA by artist and curator Ann Shostrum. The idea is to build an international exhibition from the ground up, involving local curators and artists. With each new location a new trunk is added by the local curator.
Trunk Show aims to ‘shuffle together artists from diverse backgrounds in new ways.’ The project began simply, ‘the first Trunk was the trunk of my car, ‘ and the concept of the exhibition derives from the sense of a Trunk Show as an alternative form of distribution. In the USA a Trunk Show can mean either the US equivalent of a Car Boot Sale, or more specially the long established practice of shop or home-based demonstrations and sales for Women’s Fashion, Accessories and Jewellery in particular.
Trunk Show so far includes over 100 artists based in the USA, Ireland and the UK and features both established and emerging artists. Artists explore themes of portability, mapping, miniaturization, travel and displacement.
Trunk Show at the Women’s Library will reconnect with the activist and self-published materials housed in the library’s special collections. Students from London Metropolitan University will be producing a small catalogue to accompany the exhibition drawing on the tradition of fanzines and self-published magazines. There will also be a small display of books made by fine art students as part of their drawing workshop.
Trunk show is a collaborative project involving The Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University, The Future Art Board Research Group, Satellite, Sirius Art Centre, Visual Arts Leitrim, Roscommon & Leitrim County Council, King House Boyle (Co. Roscommon) and Pennsylvania State University School of Art and Architecture (USA)
Trunk Show will be travelling to London from the Sirius Art Centre in the port Cobh, Co. Cork, Ireland (formerly known as Queenstown.