St Cuthberts Mill : Giving Voice: An Interview with Katherine Van Uytrecht and Katy Drake

'Illuminating Knowledge' on Somerset

In March 2024, artists Katy Drake and Kath Van Uytrecht brought their collaborative project Giving Voice to the Society of Antiquaries of London. Inspired by the Beyond Notability research project and by objects in the Society’s collections, the residency explored the stories of women whose contributions to archaeology, history and heritage have too often been overlooked. The result was ‘Illuminating Knowledge’, a striking large-scale screen print on Somerset® paper now on display in the Society’s library.

Reimagining the Society’s emblem, the Lamp of Knowledge, the print brings together more than 200 individual lamp forms, each representing a woman associated with the Society between 1870 and 1950. Together, rather than a single source of knowledge, they create a network - a visual celebration of the many women whose work helped shape the Society’s history.

The project also included a series of playful and thought-provoking zines and printed objects, which were used to transform the library on International Women’s Day 2024. Since then, the works have prompted conversations and curiosity among visitors and Fellows, opening up new ways of thinking about the Society’s past and the women within it.

For Drake and Van Uytrecht, print is an ideal medium for this kind of storytelling: it can be shared, encountered, and talked about, carrying ideas beyond the page. In this interview, they talk about the making of Giving Voice, the women and objects that inspired them, and how art and print can help bring hidden histories back into view.

'Illuminating Knowledge' at the Society of Antiquaries of London

What first drew you to the women and stories uncovered through the Beyond Notability research, and how did these histories shape the direction of Giving Voice?

We really wanted to work with the Society and initially were looking at various items in their collections that could be possible research points for us. We first heard about the Beyond Notability project through the Head of Library and Collections at the Society. It caught our attention as the research aligned with our previous collaborative work around breaking silence and giving voice to women and their stories.

Screenprinting on Somerset

The Society connected us with Dr Amara Thornton and Dr Ammandeep Mahal, two of the researchers from Beyond Notability who explained the scope of their work. Their research, deep knowledge, methodology, aims and ambition for the project was inspirational and their desire to bring women’s previously unnoticed work and contributions to light was contagious.

One aspect of the research which really piqued our curiosity was the amount of women and the range of their stories and backgrounds. We were particularly interested in the women Fellows of the Society and the women who were unnamed or were only acknowledged through their job role e.g. ‘woman cataloguer’ or ‘housekeeper’. These definitely directly influenced our approach to creating the zines and the print. We wanted to encompass the broader view and aims of the research: how knowledge is disseminated, how knowledge is represented, who has access to knowledge, what knowledge is valued, and who and what contributions are notable. For the team at Beyond Notability, each woman and each contribution is important and valuable and we wanted to make sure that our work illustrated this.

In Illuminating Knowledge, you reimagine the Society’s Lamp of Knowledge as a network of more than 200 lamps. What did this visual language allow you to say about women’s collective contributions that a more conventional representation might not?

We wanted to highlight some of the objects in the Society’s Collection in our work. The Society’s Emblem is based on a 14th century bronze Jewish lamp. However, we wanted to represent the way knowledge is collected and shared in a different way. We did not want to create a hierarchy in our representation, and to demonstrate that everybody’s role and contribution is important and part of a bigger whole.

We decided to use a selection of images based on a range of Roman and Athenian clay votive lamps held in the Society's collections. Our use of shape, colour and abstraction allowed us to show the broader field of knowledge as connecting nodes and coming from a variety of sources and perspectives.

This abstraction opens a space for the viewer to make their own connections and interpretations and offers the opportunity to question what is happening in the image. Not making the image explicit or definitive allows the audience to think more expansively about modes of knowledge, and to draw their own conclusions.

Work in progress, on Somerset

Paper is such an important part of printmaking. Why did you choose Somerset® Tub Sized Satin for Illuminating Knowledge and the limited-edition zines, and how did the qualities of this paper influence the finished works?

We love this paper and we couldn’t wait to use it because it’s the BEST!!

We used screen printing to print these works and Illuminating Knowledge is a very large print 150cm by 200cm. We needed a high quality, robust paper because the print is so big.

We knew the print was going to go up in the library in a location that is not easily accessible. We needed an archival paper that could withstand buckling and changes in atmosphere for a long time.

This is the largest screenprint both of us had ever made. We used two sheets and joined them together for framing. We also needed the paper to be robust enough to handle whilst printing.

It was quite unwieldy trying to print across the join on the screen bed that could only hold one sheet of paper easily. Its weight and durability made it easier to focus on image making, rather than worrying about damaging the paper.

Limited edition zines made with Somerset
(small self-published magazines)

We printed many layers of water-based ink on the work. Somerset Tub Sized Satin keeps colours accurate and is ideal for water-based screen inks, as it doesn’t buckle or warp when printed. This was especially important for our work as we wanted it to read as a single image, not two put together. Warping could have highlighted the join and distracted away from the image.

The covers of the limited edition zines were made from proofs of the print which allowed us to make the covers unique and connect them directly to the print.

The project has sparked conversations among visitors and Fellows at the Society. What have you learned from seeing people encounter the work, and has their response changed how you think about the project or the stories it tells?

Yes, definitely. During the project, strangely, we didn’t consider the longevity or what impact the work impact might have in the Society.

Work in progress on Somerset

It is the only contemporary work on display, and it is one of the first things you notice when you enter the library. Due to its size, location and nature of the work, it has a very strong presence; it stands out as it is so different to the other artworks.

This really has helped to keep the Beyond Notability research alive and open to new audiences, as visitors are curious to know what the print is about. We are very proud of the artwork and its longevity in disseminating research and broadening audiences. This was unexpected for us, that the work would be a continual creative signpost to the research.

We now think of this project as a symbiotic relationship between the research and the artwork. This relationship is mutually beneficial and demonstrates alternative ways of accessing and disseminating knowledge.

We are so grateful for the incredible research that inspired us and for how, through our interpretation, the research has the possibility to live in another field. It allows the stories to continue to be told and heard. We don’t know yet how visitors encounter the zines hidden on the shelves as they come to the library to conduct their own research. But we hope that this too will spark interest and curiosity about these objects in the library and once again bring the stories to light.