To celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2023, we selected 30 objects from the collection. These objects reflected the breadth of history in the borough of Dacorum. A call-out was made to emerging artists to interpret this collection of objects into one piece of artwork. This artwork would be exhibited and then subsequently added to the museum’s collection. Marli Jessop was selected and commissioned to create this final piece. She has worked to combine and connect the artefacts into the final piece of art titled ‘30 pieces of history’, which is now on display at The Forum, Hemel Hempstead, alongside a description of all 30 objects.
About the artist
Marli is a GB athlete and a student of fine art at Buckinghamshire University, specialising in portraiture. She grew up in Hertfordshire and knows the area of Dacorum well, having competed for Dacorum and Tring Athletics Club for many years.
What we loved about Marli’s application was that her proposal included examples of how she thought she could layer many of the objects in a collage style. The fact that she is a portraiture artist will also enable us to highlight some of the people behind our objects, such as Ophelia (the woman discovered in 1971 at the Cow Roast Romano British site) and Reginald Jack Evans (awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his reconnaissance work during the First World War).
In the film below, Marli answers some questions about her work and the piece she has created.
Our 30th anniversary artwork is now on display at The Forum, Hemel Hempstead, alongside a description of all 30 objects.
To find out more about each of the 30 objects visit our website here
