Prince Albert’s Web (2011)

In 2011, we electroplated a genuine spider’s web in silver removed from Harun's garden. This act was inspired by a Wikipedia mention of the presentation of such an object to Prince Albert in 1844, celebrating his visit to the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham.

Subsequently initiating a dialogue with two of the Royal Archives, we discovered conflicting information about its existence and whereabouts. Both were unable to locate the original gift, but provided confirmation that something resembling the item had once existed.

We manufactured this formerly apocryphal object, presenting it in an original Victorian case sourced from Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. This was accompanied by our correspondence with the Royal Archives as part of the exhibition ‘Their Wonderlands’ (mac Birmingham, Nov 2011- Jan 2012).