Police Confiscated Artefacts. Set 2 & Set 5
Year: 2014
Medium: Photography, C-type print
Dimensions: 594 x 841 mm
Exhibition: Blunt Blades, November 2021 – November 2022. The Higgins Bedford. Bedford. UK. This exhibition is realised with the support of The Higgins Bedford, Bedford Borough Council and Arts Council England
Police Confiscated Artefacts (2014) is a series of 12 colour photographs on c-type print featuring knives and other artefacts that were confiscated by Bedfordshire Police and given to Lebrusan in 2013. Lebrusan coherently curated the objects based on their shape, aesthetic and peculiarity and documented them. Police Confiscated Artefacts offer alternative ways of seeing and understanding the knife as an object in relation to the events that shape the world we live in.
ABOUT BLUNT BLADES. THE EXHIBITION
Often provocative, artist Arabel Lebrusan engages with material culture and the feminine tactile environment, looking into wider issues of power relationships, exploitation and inequality. Blunt Blades extends Lebrusan’s study on material culture, exploring our complex relationships with knives and their varied roles. Blunt Blades began in 2013 when Bedfordshire Police gave the artist 3 crates of confiscated knives and other artefacts. Transforming the metal from these confiscated objects into works that could evoke other emotions, the display examines the ways materials carry inherent meanings and how those meanings can be reshaped. Lebrusan’s artworks, in their myriad forms, do not offer answers to the many issues they raise. Instead, they invite contemplation about object materiality, production of meanings and our shared humanity.
