Good — Matthew Richardson

Good
2023 (104 pages 297 x 210mm softback)

The beginning of this work was the discovery of some fragmented and rough notes written by Iris Murdoch in the back of a copy of Colin Wilson’s The Outsider (1954) held in the Iris Murdoch collections at Kingston Univerity Archive. The notes are the first thoughts for Murdoch’s The Bell (1956) and this bookwork combines elements from The Bell and Wilson’s The Outsider.

The Bell by explores ideas of separation, morality and the conflict between sex and religion, and takes place at a lay retreat and convent of Benedictine nuns. The Outsider looks at the psyche of the artist as outsider through the lives and works of writers and artists, including Albert Camus, Van Gogh and William Blake.

Making Good
Kingston Univerity Archive, 5 June - 25 August 2023

Working with and through the material archive is a process that produces chance discoveries. The process is one of careful reading and re-reading, handling, conserving and repairing (and ‘making good’). It is a very human and engaged activity of noticing things, of linking people, places, objects and their stories in new and original ways. Making Good is a sharing of process, of finding connections and crossovers between writer, artist, researcher and archivist, through tools, processes, materials, images and artefacts.

Making Good was a curated collaboration between Matthew Richardson, Dayna Miller, Kingston University Archivist and Frances White, Deputy Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre, University of Chichester.