Audio Describer: Over the next 10 minutes, this introduction will present Dan Guthrie’s new body of work Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure and explain how the show will function. To those listening at home or on the go, welcome.

To those in the gallery, you are waiting in the white-walled entrance of Chisenhale Gallery in London. It leads into the main gallery space via a small reception desk. You’re on a gentle downward slope on grey concrete flooring that bears marks and scratches from its 40-year history of exhibitions.

You can find two tablets on a long white bench that is pushed directly against the wall on your right. You can access E-A-R-F-dot-info on these devices, an online platform specially designed to host research related to the exhibition, including access materials. Two over-ear headsets are hanging above the furthest end of the bench, one above the other. You can listen to this audio-described introduction playing on a loop on either headset.

Continuing along the right side of this entrance wall is the artist’s name alongside two A1 large print texts - white on black paper - outlining the themes of the show and a list of events programmed as part of Guthrie’s commission.

Before you on the left is a small front of house desk with book shelves that display Chisenhale Gallery’s publications. Here you’ll find a person sitting behind the low white counter. They can give you more information about the tablets and offer large print guides containing the transcripts of the audio commentary. They can also provide guidance around the exhibition space if desired and escort you on a suggested route between the works.

The exhibition features two short films with creative captions by the disabled and queer-led working group, Carefuffle and embedded audio description by global majority collective, SoundScribe. The artist imagines the future of the Blackboy Clock, an object of contested heritage publicly displayed on the side of a Grade II listed former school building in Guthrie’s hometown of Stroud, Gloucestershire. A mechanised figure of an exoticised Black child strikes a bell on the hour with a long club. Each film puts forward the ‘radical un-conservation’ of the clock; a new theoretical concept proposed by Guthrie to describe the strategic acquisition of an object in order to destroy it.

By deliberately experimenting with form and language, Guthrie probes the limits of visual representation – questioning not only what is shown, but what remains unseen or unsayable on screen. This exploration encompasses the politics of visibility itself, asking how race, memory, and subjectivity are shaped by the act of witnessing.

An integrated narration, primarily designed for blind and visually impaired listeners, draws on this atmosphere of discussion while describing visual elements of the films. Each video lasts 5 minutes and the show starts on a 10 minute loop, alternating between a captioned version and an audio description version.

The commentary…

Artist [interrupting]: No, let’s be real, it’s a debate…

Audio Describer: As I said, the commentary stages a conversation between a neutral, objective audio describer - that’s me, Elaine Lillian Joseph. In this exhibition you will hear two voices delivered from a suspended directional speaker above you.

Artist: You’ll also hear me, Dan Guthrie, the author of these works, presenting a more subjective perspective to what’s on display. The reason why we have a multi-voice AD is to reflect the wide range of voices that have been involved in these ongoing conversations down in Stroud, something which carries across to our captioning too.

London is a city full of statues, many of them controversial for who they memorialise. On the other side of Tower Hamlets which is where Chisenhale Gallery is located, the statue of the slave trader Robert Milligan was removed by the local authority and its owners, in June 2020. Around this time in Stroud, I started to research the Blackboy Clock’s origins. I then went on to sit on a community-led panel to discuss its future, co-write a series of recommendations and co-write a new plaque for the object that was installed in Stroud in December 2024.

Artist: You can access the exhibition’s introduction and audio description for each video as three separate tracks via the online platform. It’s best experienced with headphones on so that you can hear my voice in your right ear and Elaine’s in your left.

Audio Describer: The entrance lobby leads to a wide entranceway which borders the exhibition room, a rectangle, 11m wide by 20m long with a 4.5m high white ceiling. A symmetrical grid of white beams creates repeating alcoves above you. With the reception desk at your back, the wall you are facing is the North wall. A row of sash windows run along the top edge of the wall, just below the ceiling. They overlook Hertford Union canal (once the means of transporting goods to this former veneer factory) though the walls are too high to afford us that view. The ripples of the canal reflect light onto the gallery’s white walls.

The two video works are in opposite corners. Empty Alcove is positioned in the north west corner with its monitor against the north window wall. Rotting Figure which is housed in a 7m by 3.5m black box is in the south east corner.

Our suggested route begins at Empty Alcove. This work is straight ahead of the entranceway. In its proximity to the windows, it is like a window itself, offering a close-up view of an empty alcove screened on a portrait orientated monitor around 1m tall. Ambient sounds of streetlife are played through two speakers mounted either side of the monitor, above the windows on the North wall. These sounds spill across the space in contrast to the stationary film footage. A directional speaker, suspended from a ceiling beam overhangs the seating, four black hardback chairs positioned a short distance from the monitor. This speaker channels the describers’ voices around the listeners.

The second work, Rotting Figure, is housed within a black walled screening room, made from fragments of construction wood. This black box has four walls, a roof and an open entrance. It’s much darker inside with a black carpet. There are four hardback chairs in here, two on either side with an aisle down the middle. An identical directional speaker is suspended from its black ceiling.

Ambient sounds from both works spill into each other, so that when you’re experiencing one, the other is always in the back of your mind. It’s not an intrusion, but a reminder that both of these realities could happen at once, even if one is more possible than the other.

The exhibition is presented at Chisenhale Gallery, London from 6 June – 17 August 2025. With thanks to Ebony Dark Rose for their consultation on the audio commentary. A gallery assistant is on hand to answer any queries. This is the end of the introduction.