This online platform collects research related to Dan Guthrie’s new body of work Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure, 2025, commissioned and produced by Spike Island, Bristol and Chisenhale Gallery, London.

Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure is a commission that imagines the future of the Blackboy Clock, an object of contested heritage publicly displayed in Guthrie’s hometown of Stroud, Gloucestershire. It proposes the ‘radical un-conservation’ of the clock; a theoretical term put forth by Guthrie to describe the act of acquiring an object with the intention of destroying it. The commission will be exhibited at Spike Island, Bristol from 8 February – 11 May 2025, and at Chisenhale Gallery, London from 6 June – 17 August 2025.

This platform includes an interactive timeline that traces the history of the Blackboy Clock and wider contested heritage debates in the UK, a journal with texts authored by Guthrie and other contributors, access materials and a self-care guide related to the commissioned artworks, and a list of events programmed alongside the exhibitions.