Anna Best has a process-based practice investigating narrative structures and the complicated process of making art with other people. Her work covers a range of media, publishing books, broadsheets and websites, film and live events.
In 2015 Peckham Platform worked with Anna Best on the exhibition The Subject Index: An incomplete history of Peckham 1900 – 2014. Best collaborated with the Local History Library and Archive, Southwark (SLHA) which is a public resource on Borough High Street.
The archive brings to life the significance of Southwark’s role as a hotbed of activism around social issues in the 20th century, including the trade union movement, protests, theosophical debate, race and gender equality and social justice. However, amongst the histories less represented are artefacts relating to the lives of women, universal suffrage and psychoanalysis. Predictably, there is a preponderance of material about men in public life.
Spending many hours in the archive, Best extracted material about Peckham and its environs (including pamphlets and ephemera, press cuttings, books, films, index cards, maps and photographs), including women’s biographies including Mary MaCarthur, Annie Besant, Ada Salter and Una Marson.
Her work was also part of the 2016 Peckham Platform Retrospective exhibition, a timeline of all 20 artists commissions realised by Peckham Platform between 2010 – 2016.
Best has also collaborated with a number of artists including composer Paul Whitty, writer Neil Chapman, Somewhere.org, and co- curated events such as Road for the Future (2012) and Shave artist’s workshops (1991-7). Projects have been made with Artlands North Kent, The Barbican Gallery, Danielle Arnaud, The Photographers’ Gallery, Camden Arts Centre and Tate Modern.
