The Official Memories series by Thames-Side Studios-based Tilla Crowne (Studio TB-253) explores commercially produced tourist slides, examining through them the messages and images the place wanted you to take back home with you. They serve as the records of the memories you were meant to have of your trip, but were they the ones you actually had? How much do they tell us about how a place sees itself, and the self it wishes to project onto others? Onto these slides are stuck butterflies – partly obscuring the official images, the butterfly wings becoming part of the projection, light streaming through the wings and imposing their pattern upon the image. They represent an inconvenient truth, an element of reality juxtaposed against the flatness of the slide.

Concentrating on drawing and installation, Tilla's work explores themes of identity, memory, sexual violence, and the body. Largely autobiographical, she uses biological materials such as broken eggshells and living matter – plants, insects, fungus – as media, either drawing directly onto them or using them to transform objects and spaces. Follow Tilla on Instagram @tilla_the_artist and visit tilla.co.uk

Thames-Side Studios Lounge is located on the second floor of Unit 0 and open to all studio holders and by appointment. To arrange a visit to see Official Memories contact Tilla here

For general Thames-Side Studios enquiries please email [email protected]