studio

The studio is used not only as a place of production, but also a space for experimental installation.

It was originally a coach house, based in ‘ Piazzetta Vetturali’, where the horse-drawn Postal Carriages would stop on the route between Florence and Lucca.

In his work. ‘ Just for one moment I thought I was Masaccio’, Tim Dunbar posited the idea that Masaccio would have visited Pescia, in the early 1400’s, to see the chapel designed by Buggiano, the adopted son of his friend, Brunelleschi.

His baldacchino which dominates the Cappella Cardini in the church of San Francesco, is said to be Masaccio’s model for the Trinity fresco in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. Masaccio would have dismounted in the coach house, ( Anne Grebby’s studio) and made his way to San Francesco, a few minutes walk away.

A collection of speculative narratives such as this led to ‘The mnemonic cast’, a series of collaborative exhibitions and texts in which Tim Dunbar and Anne Grebby monitored the restoration process of the coach house studio, examining the architectural structure, the walls, and floor, looking for traces of previous structural intervention.

Drawings, diagrams, paintings, photographs and videos were made in an attempt to take a notional ‘cast’ of the space.

Recent developments from the project were shown in the exhibition, ‘ mnemonics’ at the Lanchester Gallery, Coventry in 2008.