Artists, researchers and curators often hold peculiar collections of materials they have discovered in their work processes. These artefacts largely remain private and unaddressed, but like all possessions they speak to the imaginations and desires of their holders. In this live exchange Adrian Heathfield and Wendy Houstoun delve into their personal archives to give each other gifts: fragments of video and sound recordings, images and texts. This little game of exchange is improvised – part of a series of archival grafts initiated by Heathfield – where one person’s treasured moments are transplanted into new relations with another’s. In the public sharing of closely-held objects a hybrid picture emerges, not only of the givers themselves, but also of things held in common.
