Look into the eyes of a county’s people - and see yourself

Magoria is a generative screen work commissioned by Faces of Oxfordshire and curated by Tom Freshwater. It was commissioned as part of events to celebrate 1000 years of Oxfordshire and its people.

Exciting to watch never knowing what’s coming next. Nervous anticipation of the next montage. Beautiful and creepy at the same time. Everything that is right with modern art. (Ali, exhibition visitor at Cornerstone, Didcot)

The work generates a continuously evolving montage of faces from historical and contemporary photographic portraits of the people of Oxfordshire. The name is in tribute to phantasmagoria, an early 19th-century optical illusion that presented ghostly apparitions using projections and glass.

Magoria toured various Oxfordshire venues between 2007 and 2009, collecting further contemporary portraits of Oxfordshire people as it travelled. It is now permanently installed in Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock - returning to the venue at which it was first shown.

Historic portraits were used with the support and permission of Oxfordshire Studies. Supported by Arts Council England and Oxfordshire County Council.

Exhibition History

• Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock : Nov 2009 - present
• Who is Who? : Banbury Museum, Banbury : Jan 24 2009 - Mar 1 2009
• Winter Light : Cornmarket (outdoor projection), Oxford : Nov 28 2008
• Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot : Oct 22 2008 - Dec 31 2008
• Witney Library, Witney : Aug 30 2008 - Oct 20 2008
• Abingdon Library, Abingdon : Aug 13 2008 - Aug 28 2008
• Henley Library, Henley : Jul 8 2008 - Aug 11 2008
• Cowley Road Carnival, Oxford : Jul 6 2008
• Who is who? : Museum of Oxford, Oxford : Feb 1 2008 - Apr 20 2008
• Nightfair : Gloucester Green Market, Oxford : Dec 7 2007 - Dec 8 2007
• Reflecting the County : Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock : Nov 14 2007