COMMONS, 2025
Commons, David Blandy, 2025, A Film & Video Umbrella Commission for The Open Road
26 September 2025 – 11 January 2026
Commons - David Blandy, Exhibition
The Amelia Scott, Mount Pleasant Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 1AW
13 November 2025 - 6:30pm
The Open Road: Screening and Q&A
FormaHQ, 140 Great Dover St, London SE1 4GW
22 November 2025 - 2pm
Free artist talk with David Blandy
The Amelia Scott, Mount Pleasant Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN1 1AW
Guardian - Week in the Arts - Jonathan Jones, 31 October, 2025
Commons was commissioned for The Open Road by Film and Video Umbrella and The Amelia Scott, Tunbridge Wells, as part of the Kent and Medway Museum Partnership National Portfolio Organisation. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England and Screen Archive South East.
Commons combines archive film from Screen Archive South East, 3D scans, and newly captured footage of ancient rocks and woodland - common land preserved for all. Drawing on the collections of objects and specimens at The Amelia Scott, Tunbridge Wells, and The Beaney, Canterbury, This expansive work reveals a series of stories told by multiple voices. Like the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, non-human subjects and objects recount their experiences across years or millennia, deliberately decentring the human perspective. Inspired by the natural world and ideas of resistance, these characters embark on a pilgrimage through deep time, each speaking from their own subjectivity.
The work weaves together Amelia Scott’s activism, local filmmaker Frank P. Barnitt’s 1930s nature observations, a 135-million-year-old fossilised bone, a fox, a crow, a kingfisher, and the dislocated hyper-connectivity of a lost phone, as the object itself speaks about the materials from which it is made. Chaucer’s tale of pilgrimage is reimagined as a matrix of interwoven stories, echoing Donna Haraway’s call for the “modest possibilities of partial recuperation and getting on together.”
Installation view: Commons, David Blandy, 2025 at The Amelia Scott, Photo by Reece Straw
Commons is an elegy to nature and the spirit of resistance. Every object holds a life, a story. Blandy summons each object’s subjectivity, drawing on Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology and the fictive anthropology of Ursula Le Guin. Harman’s philosophy rejects anthropocentrism, proposing that all things, from shadows to clouds to the internet, are objects in relation, with no fixed hierarchy.
Focusing on tales of resistance and hope, Commons redefines the museum experience, animating each object by exploring its inner life. The work is a multifaceted examination of history, the collective and the individual, of what it means to share space and share knowledge, and the transience of life in the face of deep time.
The Open Road is a series of artists moving image works, co-commissioned by a partnership of visual arts organisations; Film and Video Umbrella, The Amelia Scott, Cement Fields, FLAMIN, Forma, and Three Rivers.
Stills & installation images from Commons, David Blandy, 2025
Installation images by Reece Straw
Commons, A film by David Blandy
This new film is inspired by objects in The Amelia’s Heritage Collections and its links to the natural world, Tunbridge Wells Common and further afield, thinking about migration, local history, and pilgrimage.
A Film and Video Umbrella Production
Commissioned for The Open Road by The Amelia, Tunbridge Wells as part of the Kent and Medway Museum Partnership National Portfolio Organisation and Film and Video Umbrella
The Open Road is a partnership between FVU, The Amelia, Cement Fields, FLAMIN, Forma and Three Rivers.
Director David Blandy
Executive Producer Mike Jones, FVU
Arts Development Manager Helena Copsey, The Amelia
Artistic Producer Claire Barrett
Production Manager Alexzandra Jackson, FVU
Script David Blandy
Director of Photography Claire Barrett
Archive Footage Frank P Barnitt, Courtesy of Screen Archive South East, University of Brighton
Voiceover Artists Mike Bracken, Georgia Casimi, Trevor Magaya
Editing & Grading David Blandy
Sound Design & Soundtrack David Blandy
Music En Ardennes by Frédéric Bonzon
Recording Study Centre for Flemish Music (Centre for the Conservation, Study, Promotion and Valorisation of Flemish Music Heritage)
Performed by Balder Dendievel & Tom Hermans
Engineer Sergey Steenackers
Video technician ADi Audiovisual Ltd
Audio Description Sean Welsh, Matchbox Cine
With thanks to Screen Archive South East, University of Brighton, and Kent Film Office
Special Thanks
Project concept, The Open Road, Steven Bode, FVU
Director, Angelica Sule, FVU
Managing Director, Susanna Chisholm, FVU
Communications and Content Manager, Edward Longville, FVU
Research Curator, Dr Ian Beavis, The Amelia
Collections Manager Simon Hedges, The Amelia
Collections Officer Matthew Simpson, The Amelia
Senior Collections Officer Heather Stracey, The Amelia
Research, Joanna Pearson, Volunteer at The Amelia
Creative Technologist, Richard Peretti, Polyplay
Business & Partnerships Manager Jane King, Screen Archive South East
Collection Manager, Michael Matwiejczyk, Screen Archive South East
Programme and Museums Manager Mitch Robinson, The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge
Collections and Learning Manager, Craig Bowen, The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge
General Manager, Gemma Stapeley, Tunbridge Wells and Rusthall Commons
Assistant Kent Film Officer Abi Lendrum, Kent Film Office
Assistance with location Susan & Gavin Barrett
Supported by Arts Council England
Objects Speak
Objects Speak is a new game by David Blandy commissioned by The Amelia Scott for his exhibition Commons. Investigate the building, discover secrets and build your own story from the objects you find. Download the PDF here or pick up a copy at the gallery.
A guided walk with artist David Blandy & Research Curator, Dr Ian Beavis, to visit the ancient woodland and striking rock formations featured in the film. October, 2025, photos: Claire Barrett
