The Cabinet of Curious Places is a transportable wooden box embedded with objects, data, audio and video, that expands out to include a handsewn banner and larger objects, videos and narratives. QR codes act as a key, linking the objects to the five places on the map of England, on the banner. People are invited to explore, unravel the stories of each place by connecting objects to places, to open drawers, put on the headphones and listen to music, read, watch and discover.

The cabinet tells stories of how the people and ecologies across five ‘curious’ places in England respond to change and remain resilient in these increasingly uncertain times. The cabinet will be carried from place to place, sometimes appearing alongside the mysterious interactive artwork, the Future Machine, and a series of ritualised artist interventions, engaging communities in each very different locality. This artwork is the third element of the ‘When the Future Comes‘ project an ambitious 30 year collaborative and generative project in Christ Church Gardens a memorial garden, Nottingham; Finsbury Park, London; the Windermere-Leven waters, rural Cumbria; Peppard a village in Oxfordshire; and Cannington, Somerset.

The Cabinet of Curious Places has been created by Rachel Jacobs, Juliet Robson, Frank Abbott, Caroline Locke, Wallace Heim, Esi Eshun, Alex Dayo and Dave Kemp. It has been built by artist/architect/designer Will Harvey, with support from artist/creative programmer Robin Shackford and artist Ismail Khokon.

The Cabinet of Curious Places has been exhibited at:
Wild Isles Exhibition and Concert at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham, March 2024
Gallery One, Primary Studios in Nottingham, April 2024
Our Stories are Wild, Derby Cathedral, June-July 2024

www.whenthefuturecomes.net/cabinet