I CAN TELL NICELY

By Emily Tracy 2023

This project explored and celebrated the incredible ‘Survey of English Dialect’ archive which is held as part of Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture. The archive builds a nationwide picture of dialect variation and was collected in the 1950’s and 1960’s by the Department of English at Leeds University.

The artworks were made to help share the archive with a wider audience and increase its visibility, drawing out new narrative and perspective on the collection.

The finished artworks incorporate the methods of research and cataloguing systems, as well as archive items including image and sound. The work explores dialect, words and pronunciation, grammar particular to the UK to produce a series of collage artworks with a set of audiograms, overlaying sound with image. These are presented online and exhibited by five partner museums including; Avoncroft Museum, Dales Countryside Museum, Food Museum, Ryedale Folk Museum, and Weald and Downland Museum.