THE KEEPER
The Keeper receives, records and maintains the Dufton Hoarde. Her role involves placing the objects, consulting the fragments and revising the records on a regular basis. Classifications are kept open where confirmation is not possible.
The Keeper is responsible for what has been retained and for the spaces around what is missing.
The Keeper is artist Dawn Hurton.
The role emerged through the making of the Hoarde. It provides a position from which she can care for the work without explaining every uncertainty or claiming authority over every history it touches.
The Keeper is not a fictional historical character. She is the artist as custodian: making, observing, recording and holding the museum open.
The Hoarde arrived bit by bit through making, walking, looking and paying attention to what is here.
I made objects, gathered fragments, walked the same Pennine paths and worked with discarded fibres, rag pulp, earth pigment and mineral from the lead spoil.
I read records, listened to stories and kept noticing the things that returned.
The Registers, fragments, labels, field notes, missing things and things that would not stay missing gradually became a structure.
After that, I built the rooms around them.
The Keeper appeared. I had been there all along.