KEN. TO BE DESTROYED. A new publication from Sara Davidmann

Edited by Val Williams

Published by Schilt, Amsterdam.

Ken.To be destroyed began with an archive and a discovery. Sara Davidmann and her siblings inherited letters and photographs belonging to their uncle and aunt, Ken and Hazel Houston, from their mother Audrey Davidmann. The letters chronicled the relationship between Ken and Hazel. Hazel had been a dental secretary. Ken practiced as an optician in Edinburgh. It emerged soon after they were married that Ken was transgender. In the context of a British marriage in the 1950s, this inevitably profoundly affected both their relationship and their relationships with the people around them. They remained together from 1954 to the end of Ken’s life. They had no children.

The archive contains letters, photographs and papers. Hazel and Audrey wrote to each other frequently in the late 1950s and early 60s after Hazel discovered that Ken was transgender; these letters tell Ken and Hazel’s story which at that time was a family secret. Publicly Ken was a man, but in the privacy of the home he was a woman.

In response to the letters and family photographs Sara Davidmann has produced a new set of photographs using analogue, alternative and digital processes. Looking at the vintage photographs she was acutely aware of their surfaces. The marks of time and damage had become part of the images. This led her to work on the surfaces of the photographs she produced using ink, chalks, hand colouring, magic markers and correction fluid. In the series ‘The Dress’, ‘Closer’, ‘Dealt with in Scotland’ ‘and ‘Looking for K / Finding K’, Davidmann has created works which interrogate and question the position of art practice within the exploration of archives. From the raw material of the archive to these new photographic works, a new story emerges.

More info is here.