People Make Television

Raven Row, London, January 2023

After a 5 year sabbatical, Raven Row invited us to continue our design work with them for their re-opening exhibition ‘People Make Television’. Re-screening a collection of groundbreaking community made television programmes from the 1970s and 80s throughout it’s varied gallery spaces, the show used innovative infrared audio and digital cataloguing techniques to enable numerous visitors to wander from screen to screen and pick up their audio via headphones and see the details of the programme being screened.

Quietly referencing the audio visual equipment of era from which the films were made, we designed and fabricated a collection of freestanding plinths for Raven Row’s collection monitors from carefully mitred and oiled cherry veneered board.

In the contemporary gallery spaces on the ground floor, ‘video wall’ type Hantorex monitors were built into a speaker-esqe cherry board surrounds with the black monitor unit sitting on a matching black painted panel containing an infrared reader disc and a numbered list of the different programmes showing in a loop on that particular screen. These were arranged in casual clusters with their power cables connecting a central floor box, and pairs of chairs facing each monitor.

In the Georgian rooms on the upper stories, the setting was more domestic, with TV screens placed on acoustic cloth fronted console tables in front of sofas and arm chairs with a remote control on a cherry veneer plinth in between.

The beautifully elegant graphic design throughout the exhibition was by John Morgan Studio once again.

These brilliant photographs from the opening weekend are from Eva Herzog.