Half Crowns in their Petticoats for Thrift Radiates Happiness
at Birmingham Municipal Bank, 14th-17th March 2013

See very nice writeup of this by Anneka French on Axisweb HERE. And review by Cathy Wade of the whole show on This is Tomorrow HERE.

17 VOICES / 59 TRACKS / 48 MINUTES /

Thrift Radiates Happiness was a four day long group exhibition that took place in the old Birmingham Municipal Bank that presented a new commission by Elly Clarke. Half Crowns in their Petticoats consists of a series of extracts from audio recorded interviews Elly has had with former employees of the bank. Most recordings took place on site in the bank itself, some at the bank's Retirement Club and a few more in people's homes.

The audio was presented via headphones with an accompanying track list.

Artists of Thrift Radiates Happiness are: Spartacus Chetwynd, Elly Clarke, Tom Crawford, Caitlin Griffiths, Ellie Harrison, Mecanoo, Sparrow+Castice, Julie Tsang, Nicole Wilson and Mary Yacoob.

Thrift Radiates Happiness was curated by Charlie Levine in association with Aedes Architects & RIBA.

Click on the following links for Full audio from the project | Review by Cathy Wade

Thrift Radiates Happiness website

Sound recording & editing by Ben Neal & Ross Abatis from Psicon lab.

A catalogue featuring portraits of all my participants was published on occasion of this exhibition. More info can be found HERE.

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