Ruth Ewan

Ruth Ewan
We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted to Be, 2011

On 5 October 1793 the recently formed Republic of France abandoned the Gregorian calendar in favour of an entirely new model, the French Republican Calendar, which became the official calendar of France for 13 years. Each day of the Republican Calendar was made up of 10 hours. Each hour was divided into 100 minutes and each minute into 100 seconds. Inspired by this historical model, Ewan created new clocks and altered existing ones around the town to tell decimal time. To accompany the installation, the artist also produced a booklet that further illuminates the utopian concept of revolutionary time.

Ewan is interested in the dissemination and control of radical ideas. Her ‘A Jukebox of People Trying to Change The World’, a collection of politically engaged songs, exemplifies her method of researching and assembling strands of history, and presenting them in ways that highlight their continued relevance and potential for change.