Project presentations
The Original Cell at Maughan Library
Free entry, booking recommended.
The address is The Original Cell at the Maughan Library, King’s College London, Chancery Ln, London WC2A 1LR
Enter through the open gates on Chancery Lane, opposite the Law Society. The entrance to the building will be on your left. An Artangel front of house member will sign you in and direct you to the Original Cell and the Weston Room.
Enemies and Rascals is an audio work. For those with hearing impairments, large print transcript and exhibition guide will be available.
Wheelchair access to the Original Cell is not advised due to the nature of the site. Step-free and wheelchair access to the Weston Room is permitted by an access lift. If you require step free access to the Weston Room please contact foh@artangel.org.uk
“I began researching this history in 2023, yet the work arrives at a moment when the rhetoric surrounding this 18th century conflict – most notably the proffering of liberty, accompanied by the brutal reality of invasion – resonates with unsettling familiarity today.” - Terence Gower
Enemies and Rascals is presented at the Original Cell at the Maughan Library, King’s College London. The building, constructed in 1851 as the Public Record Office, was London’s first purpose-built fireproof structure. It housed the UK’s public records, including those relating to Britain’s colonies, and was colloquially known as the “strongbox of empire”. Colonial correspondence, originally scattered across Whitehall, was transferred here in the 1850s, where it remained until the 1990s, when the building was closed and all records were moved to the new National Archives building in Kew. Other bound documents, pamphlets, and surveys were placed in what would later become the library of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, much of which was transferred to the Foyle Special Collections Library at King’s in 2007. Many of the documents that underpin Enemies and Rascals are thus stored in the building.
Essay by Terence Gower
Hazards of the Archive
Voices in space. Enemies and Rascals is an immaterial work, where spoken phrases are carefully grouped like a collection of artefacts on display. We are in an archive storage room, but the shelves are empty. Where did the archive go? Are we hearing the voices of the missing documents, the echo of letters, speeches, and proclamations that once filled the room?
Tickets for Enemies and Rascals also include entry to The Quebec Act. This is an exhibition of related rare books and historical documents, which is located down the corridor from Enemies and Rascals.
The 1774 Quebec Act earned star billing in the soon-to-be United States as one of the so-called ‘Intolerable Acts’, which reorganised the British government’s influence over the Province of Quebec and set the scene for the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
Curated by Terence Gower with Katie Sambrook and John Wilby of the Foyle Special Collections Library, the exhibition allows visitors to witness history in the making, providing a precursor to the events which unfold in Enemies and Rascals, namely the 1775-76 Invasion of Quebec.
Terence Gower
Terence Gower
Canadian artist Terence Gower lives and works between New York, Mexico City, and France. Known for a research-driven practice dealing with archives, Gower has spent the past 15 years focusing on U.S. international Cold War geopolitics – an interest seeded by a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2010.
In 2024, The Power Plant Toronto presented EMBASSY, a survey show of Gower’s work on cold war geopolitics, featuring over a decade of research into mid-century US diplomatic architecture using sculpture, video, and archival documents. Gower presented two related architectural interventions in 2023; at Philip Johnson’s Glass House (New Canaan, CT), and at Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, both using installation and musical performance to examine the social and acoustical characteristics of each site.
Recent large-scale commissions include Project Etere, Bali; Six Formes, Geneva; SuperPuesto, and Noguchi Galaxy, New York; Workshop Pavilion, Léon, Spain; and Bicycle Pavilion, Mexico City. He has participated in the Gwangju, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Chicago (Architecture), Canadian (National Gallery), and Havana Biennials.
His video works have screened internationally at venues including the Stedelijk Museum, Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, and film festivals across Europe, North America, and Asia.
Enemies and Rascals marks an important development in Gower’s practice: his first major commission in London, the first time Gower has used sources outside the twentieth century, and his first collaboration with a sound designer, audio director, and script developer.
Credits
Enemies and Rascals by Terence Gower is commissioned and produced by Artangel.
Presentation Partners: King’s College London.
This commission is supported by the Terence Gower Exhibition Circle, the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation and the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom.
Artangel is generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England and the private patronage of The Artangel International Circle, Special Angels, The Guardian Angels and The Company of Angels.
1) The Original Cell at Maughan Library. Photography by Thierry Bal.
2) Portrait of Terence Gower at Maughan Library. Photography by Thierry Bal.
3) Exterior of the Original Cell at Maughan Library. Photography by Thierry Bal.
4) The Quebec Act exhibition at the Weston Room, Maughan Library. Photography by Thierry Bal. Curated by Terence Gower with Katie Sambrook and John Wilby of the Foyle Special Collections Library.
5) Terence Gower, Lost Embassy, 2024. Film still.