Time capsules have been historically adopted in the academic, scientific or civil engineering fields as public representations of white intellectual empowering. Nevertheless, the historic positivism behind these actions has been vanished due to its limited efficiency on the purpose -vehicle for direct exchange between communities in a distant time-. Subsequently, its current connotations are widely different from the ones involving, for instance, the burial of the MIT University time capsule in 1957. The artifacts are not being taken seriously within intellectuals circles anymore. Who would do so in the Internet era when as much information as the contained in a time capsule can be stored in 0.1 mb of your date base or cloud?

Despite its futuristic aura, here time capsules have more to do with the ritual. Whereas that a traditional approach invokes, evokes and provokes the potential dialogue with “the other”, who is spotted in a distant future, our interest relies on encouraging a celebratory climate in the present. An exchange among the attendants where “time capsule is not the point but the social situations it introduces”. Even beyond, temporality endures here the grip of a certain anachronistic disorder. Time capsule becomes an excuse to enjoy diversity and the failure of its inherent goal, which is in a certain way a negation of the anthropological, white and colonial understanding.

Under these premises, a happening will be taking place in a garden near to Five Years in Archway, where the Minorities Time Capsule will be buried in an informal ritual scene accompanied with a barbecue offered to the attendants. The content to be unravel the day of the happening will emphasize the abundant presence of different ethnic groups in the Archway area, and a lack of them in the historic elites prototyping this “time travellers”. Therefore, what it usually represents a scientific experiment turns into a political gesture under party appearance.

Activity: Barbecue and time capsule burial
Location: Gardens at 30 Glesbach Road, N19 3DA.
Duration: 2:00 - 4:00 pm
Materials and equipment: TABLE

Juan Crespo works and lives in London. He graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, where he also completed his MA, Artistic Production and Research. Crespo’s work is informed by local myths, folk heritage and a de-colonial approach to history, which is formalised through a variation of archival gestures, installations, actions or new media projects. He has exhibited with various institutions including: Foco, in Lisbon, Chalton Gallery and Window Space, London, Galeria Senda, Barcelona and La Panera, in Lleida, among others.


Saturday 19 May 2018
51°33’57.8”N 0°07’57.5”W
Minorities Time Capsule:
Juan Crespo
with Sophie Mackfall (hanging paintings)