Any answers?
I wouldn’t do this for anyone Jason, but since it’s you, some answers:
1. The aims are still under discussion as it will involve a legal process and application to the Charity Commissioners. It seems wise to wait until the final resolution of the estate which is crawling towards its conclusion. The exact wording may change but I doubt it will move much from ‘to increase awareness and appreciation of the life, work and ideas of Robert Lenkiewicz’, as previously said.
2. A physical restoration of the mural is out of the question for obvious reasons. The digital replica still depends upon locating a high quality image in its heyday. Then the money to achieve it.
3. I’m not sure of the validity of comparing SWIB’s community photographic record of Plymouth with TLF’s complex and valuable archive, whose storage and insurance is a substantial cost.
The circumstances are also very different. SWIB is backed by a wealthy charity, Plymouth Barbican Association, which has been a major property owner here for over fifty years. SWIB has no overheads as such, apart from one (quite recent) wage, achieved through a heritage lottery bid due to PBA’s close links with English Heritage. Prior to that, an army of volunteers had been working for many years on the archiving. As you know, TLF’s archive could not be handled in the same way because of issues of fragility, security, value and confidentiality. TLF has itself only had access to this material for about a year. We have started work on digitising but it will take some time. Until we fully know what the archive contains, it will be hard to state an overall policy but as much as possible will be made available to serious research requests.
In general terms, since SWIB’s new premises are just around the corner, I can tell you that it doesn’t exactly pack them in. They do however fit perfectly into the ‘community benefit’ criteria for funding. Lenkiewicz’s material is very different, as we saw when Plymouth Museum banned images which were relatively tame by his own standards. I, for one, would be cautious about the ‘sanitising’ of his work to fit public funding criteria – if, indeed, it even qualifies. On the other hand, the uncensored exhibitions which TLF has staged this year has reached 15,000 people with voluminous comment books from an engaged audience. The Torre Abbey exhibition included work previously unseen from the archive in the form of facsimiles from the ‘Death and The Maiden’ notebook. TLF has also staged about a dozen supporting educational talks/events this year ( I spoke to a 100 people last night at Seaton) – I’m not aware of any by SWIB.
I won’t bother citing other things that have been done or are in progress but it’s still on a wing and a prayer (with ongoing complex legal issues) through generous sponsorship and starting to generate our own income.
I hope that helps. You will understand though I have made a exception TLF can’t respond to every question on a public forum on an ongoing basis. You can contact us directly with any queries or follow progress through subscribing to the regular newsletters though our website – next one due soon.
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