If These Walls Could Talk - A Haunting of Ashton Court by Jack Young and Anthony Elliott is a short zine, documenting the early stages of a collaborative project exploring the history of Ashton Court in Bristol. It is a dialogue between visual art, writing and archival research, in an attempt to uncover local histories from below and reverse haunt the troubled legacy of the aristocratic Smyth family. 

EXCERPT:

'The Smyth family’s motto reads: QUI CAPIT CAPITUR, which literally translates as: ‘He who captures is captured’. 

How might we capture this family? The motto inadvertently sets the family up for their own destruction, like the hollow foundations of their house. The motto reads like the myth of Diana and Actaeon: the errant explorer peering without consent at the naked body of Diana before being turned to the stag. The hunter becomes the hunted. 

How might the hunter (the Smyths) become the hunted within the archiving of history and the poetic imaginaries that art allows? How might the voices that had been reduced to numbers or occupations in the archives re-emerge to haunt their tyrants? How might, on capturing Ashton Court, we build from its ruins? How might those who have had their histories stolen salvage something from this place? 

After we've covered our costs, we'll be donating all extra revenue from the first 100 sales to the fundraiser #GLADCOLSTONSGONE! BRISTOL TOPPLERS' DEFENCE FUND! 

Thank you to Artspace Lifespace for inviting us to explore the house and begin this project.