We’re delighted to announce the acquisition of a major photographic work by critically-acclaimed Devon-based artist, Susan Derges, which is now on display at RAMM.
Dartmoor-based, Susan Derges is best known for her camera-less techniques. She creates unique, one-off, photographic prints. Eden 6 was created in the River Taw near Exeter on a moonless but starlit night. Derges submerged photographic positive paper just beneath the water’s surface and exposed it to a brief flash of light.
Eden 6 is the first piece by Derges to be added to RAMM’s collection. The work was purchased with assistance from the Friends of RAMM, a private donor and a V&A purchase grant. Two other works in the series, Eden 4 and Eden 5, are held in the collection of the V&A Museum, London.
Susan Derges said,
‘The Eden series is one of my least figurative; with its viewpoint from above focusing on the water, and its more abstract surface patterning. It gives the impression of looking from a great height and therefore suggesting a world-view as well as a specifically local one. Like much of my work it refers to ecological concerns.’
Contemporary Photography
This is the first major work for the museum’s new contemporary photography collection. It also marks a step-change for collecting at RAMM, and is a result of the six-month Art Fund-supported Assistant Curator of Photography position in 2019. This informed new policy guidance by placing an emphasis on locally-based and critically-acclaimed photographers.
Lara Goodband, contemporary art curator at RAMM said,
‘Susan’s move to live and work on Dartmoor in the early 1990s led her to create work of the local rivers. The innovative processes developed during the production of the different River Taw series influenced all her subsequent work. Eden is the last of the large-scale River Taw works made using her camera-less technique. So it is even more special that RAMM should acquire the last available work, Eden 6.’
Derges has a longstanding relationship with RAMM. The museum has exhibited her work in a number of exhibitions since 1993. Most recently, Tide Series was central to RAMM’s Sea Garden exhibition last year.
Visitors can currently view Eden 6 in in Gallery 21 at RAMM. It will be central to a new exhibition of RAMM’s fine art collection Funded with Thanks opening next February. It will also be included in a RAMM-curated contemporary art exhibition to include Dartmoor-based photographers in 2023.
