Community Through a Screen - Open Call Exhibition, Curated by Orla Davey

The internet fosters an environment in which people can form a safe space, an accepting place for conversation. The way in which websites have evolved from blogs into social media dedicated to sharing information, and expressing interest, opinions and love for different media has shaped the way popular culture has formed.

Fandom has been present throughout our culture since the 1960’s if not earlier, starting with the beatles and their fanbase forming Beatlemania to today’s fanbases of Taylor Swift and My Hero Academia. Common phrasing within our current language, and icons associated with humour or emotion have all stemmed from fanbases and internet culture.

While currently there is an ongoing debate surrounding the nature of online presence for young people, this exhibition is built to demonstrate the way in which young people have found their interests and their communities around the internet in a time when some may find it difficult to find community in person.

Within this exhibition young people responded to an open call to demonstrate how they have artistically responded to fandoms, digital communities, pop culture and subcultures through art, cosplay and shared memories. The work in this exhibition sheds a light on how young people find kinship through internet culture, and use fandoms to find their communities.

‘What do Fans produce? Fans produce meanings and interpretations; fans produce art-works; fans produce communities; fans produce alternative Identities. In each case, fans are drawing on materials from the dominant media and employing them in ways that serve their own interests and facilitate their own pleasures.’

- Dr Henry Jenkins, Sociologist and Author of Participatory Culture

Orla Davey (North Devon, 2002) is currently based in North Devon and Plymouth working with photography and textiles to express herself as a neurodivergent woman. Currently, Orla is studying Museum Studies MA at Arts University Plymouth, working on her current thesis, arguing for more internet culture representation with museum and art gallery institutions. As a gallery assistant at Studio KIND in Barnstaple, Orla is working with them to curate this exhibition.