What Remains
Through contemporary artists, What Remains celebrates 40 years since The Women's Art Collection acquired its first artwork.
Mary Kelly, Extase, 1986, laminated photo positive, silkscreen and acrylic on Perspex, 6 panels, 122 x 92 cm each. The Women's Art Collection, purchased with the assistance of the Eastern Arts Association, 1986.
Through the work of contemporary artists, What Remains celebrates the 40th anniversary of the artist residency that led to the formation of The Women’s Art Collection.
Mary Kelly was artist-in-residence at ÐÓ°ÉÔ´´ during the 1985–86 academic year as part of a residency scheme organised by Kettle’s Yard and several of the Cambridge colleges. Part of the resulting work, Extase, was subsequently acquired by the College. Inspired by this, the College invited women artists to donate art to adorn the College buildings. This culminated in donations from over 70 artists in two years and the formal establishment of The Women’s Art Collection in 1992, then known as Women’s Art.
Extase forms part of Kelly's larger installation Interim (1984–89), a multipart work that, rather than presenting history or identity as complete or settled, proposes the ‘interim’ as a space of transition, uncertainty, and possibility — where meanings remain open and identities continue to be shaped.
Taking Extase as its starting point, this exhibition brings together artists working across archives, personal histories and material traces of the past. Spanning textiles, photography, print, collage, publications, and archival material, the works in this exhibition activate histories as a living resource to speculate on our futures. The artists engage histories that are fragmentary, opening spaces for new forms of understanding. They invite us to consider how identities are formed, whose stories are remembered, and how art can conjure new ways of imagining the future.
Curated by Laura Moseley, Curator of The Women’s Art Collection with assistance from Elisabetta Garletti and Harriet Loffler.
This exhibition is generously supported by Griselda Pollock, Maria Sukkar, Emma Jane Davis and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery.
An exhibition booklet with contributions from Laura Moseley, Amy Tobin, Mary Kelly, Lucy Howie, Alina Khakoo and Evelyn Whorrall-Campbell is available to purchase from the Porters’ Lodge.
“Artworks don’t simply document history; they participate in it. They preserve possibilities that might otherwise disappear, and they remind us that the future is always shaped by what we choose to carry forward.”
—Mary Kelly
Works
Exhibition events
Access
Read our Access page to find out more about accessibility in our spaces. Please get in touch if you have any further queries or requirements: womensart@murrayedwards.cam.ac.uk or call the Porter's Lodge at +44 (0)1223 762100.
At a glance
- The Art Collection is split across the ground, lower ground and first floor. All floors are accessible via both a lift and staircases.
- Benches and folding stools are available in the exhibition space on the lower floor – Lower Fountain Court – which is accessible by a lift. This is signposted ‘Art Exhibition’. The door to the exhibition space is wide but not motorised.
- There is free parking and drop-off space, including Blue Badge spaces in the car park on Storey's Way.
- Trained assistance animals are always welcome.
Mary Kelly, Extase, 1986, laminated photo positive, silkscreen and acrylic on Perspex, 6 panels, 122 x 92 cm each. The Women's Art Collection, purchased with the assistance of the Eastern Arts Association, 1986.