Artists Alejandro Acín and Isaac Blease have embraced chaos theory as a visual research method for reinterpreting the colonial history of the UK. The project is based on the archive of the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection, which has more than 2,000 films made by colonial workers and their families between 1920 and 1960. Alone with Empire aims to subvert the official narrative, and approaches this collection through fragmented narratives; the authors use a digital interface that generates new film sequences by randomly mixing the material from the official collection, and through this process the archive is revealed to the viewer in a casual, participative way, breaking up chronological and geographical lines. The first installation was shown at City Hall in Bristol in 2018, and there the public was invited to intervene in the archive by creating their own sequences and cataloguing each piece using emotional keywords. The result of that experience is shown in an installation here with more than 250 films, as well as photographs, sound narration and sounds recorded in the collection area.

IC Visual Lab is an independent organisation based in Bristol, focused on education and the promotion of contemporary photography. Its mission is to support the development of photographic practice from a variety of approaches and to reach all types of audiences. In 2016, they launched ICVL Studio, a collective specialising in production, editing, multimedia, archive management and curating.

Alejandro Acín is an artist and creative producer based in Bristol. His career has focused on the management and dissemination of visual archives that draw on important collections such as the Bristol Maritime and Industrial Archive and the British Empire Commonwealth Collection. He is currently an associate professor at the University of South Wales and Coventry University. His work has been exhibited in Colombia, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Isaac Blease is an artist and curator based in Bristol. He uses photography, film and archival material to explore the connections between private and public memory and their influence on historical narratives. Blease graduated in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales and completed an MA in Curating at the University of the West of England. His book, Charaxes Imperialis, about the butterfly collection bequeathed to him by his grandfather, will be published in 2019 by ICVL. He received the Deutsche Bank DBACE Award in 2017 and has been shortlisted for the Magnum Graduate Award and Photoworks/Jerwood Award. His work has been published in the British Journal of Photography, Paper Journal, Darwin Magazine, Der Grief and Source Magazine.

IC Visual Lab (UK)
Alone with Empire

2019 Edition
Indoor installation
Venue: Library of the Foral Deputy of Biscay