The Museum of BAM will transform ‘nook gallery’ into a fictional museum devoted to Birmingham. Through photographs, films, found objects and fabricated artefacts. visitors are invited to decide where documented history ends and local folklore begins.
The exhibition presents a version of the city where documented history, local folklore and invention sit comfortably alongside one another. Some exhibits are authentic. Others have been created so convincingly that visitors are left to decide for themselves where Birmingham’s archive ends and its mythology begins.
Pieces include Michael Keaton as a BRMB DJ, Mike Skinner’s pencil case from school and a filled shopping bag from Woolworths on the ramp.
The Museum of BAM
If you’ve ever sat in Pigeon Park with your mates on a Saturday afternoon or
stood outside Mr Egg at 4am with a bag of chips in your hand…
If you’ve ever caught the bus using yesterday’s Daysaver to get to The Ramp
or completed a full circle on the number 11…
If you call it Town. If you drink pop. If you say ta-ra. If your parents met at
SNOBS…
If you whistle Sabbath. If you’ve got balti down your Carl Chinn. If you say
it Mom. If it’s a cob and not a roll…
…then this museum might just be for you.
The Museum of BAM has scoured lofts, drawers, family archives and charity
shops across Birmingham to create this collection. Together, these
photographs, films, objects and memories celebrate a city that has never
been particularly interested in explaining itself.
Some objects document Birmingham exactly as it was. Others preserve how
it is remembered.
Not every exhibit in the Museum of BAM is authentic. Every exhibit,
however, is evidence.
Some visitors will recognise every reference. Others may question what is
real and what has quietly become folklore. Both responses are entirely
welcome.
Together, these objects tell the story of a city impossible to categorise.
A city known only as Town.
About BAM! BAM!
BAM! BAM! is a Birmingham-based creative collaboration between James Bourne
and Daniel van der Noon.
Working with photography, film, found objects and graphic design, BAM! BAM
creates convincing evidence for events that may, or may not, have happened. Their
projects construct plausible alternate versions of Birmingham where documented
history, local folklore and invention exist comfortably alongside one another.
Rather than asking:
“Is this true?”
BAM! BAM! is more interested in a different question:
“Could this have been true?”
Opening Night is on Friday 7th August, 6-9pm at the Nook Gallery, 25c Institute Rd, King’s Heath, Birmingham B14 7EG.
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