Launch Event: Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures

About the Exhibition 

“If luxury is what is produced in excess of an object’s capacity to be used, then anything can be luxury—if you just make it useless.” — Joanna Walsh

Commissioned by ‘a space’ arts, Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures by Josie Turnbull is an immersive installation exploring cycles of desirability, extraction, and obsolescence through the ‘factual fable’ of the Asian Arowana – a critically endangered fish turned luxury commodity. Artificial scarcity and selective breeding practices have transformed the fish into a status symbol and, despite a waning market, a multi-million-pound Arowana trade persists through networks of breeders, collectors, international championships, and ‘groomers’, who perform cosmetic surgeries on the fish.

This installation at God’s House Tower visualises the imagined fate of an anthropomorphised Arowana – a former champion cast aside. Artefacts, including costumes, trophies, and merchandise, build a memoir dramatising the Arowana’s tragic ‘rise and fall’. These individual works repurpose false nails, broken toys, and fast fashion garments – the detritus of overproduction.

The work traces a lineage of British colonial extractive industries in Malaysia, the Golden Arowana’s place of origin, and draws parallels with the ruthless star-making machine of Golden Age Hollywood, as evoked in films like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). By framing the Arowana trade as a contemporary tale of overreach, exploitation and spectacle, Our Coffers Were Emptied to Pay for Your Pleasures reflects on a familiar matrix of frictions; global trade, conspicuous consumption, and ecological and moral decay.

About the Event 

Doors will open at 6pm and guests will be invited to grab a drink and explore the galleries. At 7pm, ‘a space’ arts curator & programme manager, Mia Delve will introduce the exhibition and the artist, Josie Turnbull will talk about the commission and the ideas behind the work.

The bar will be open throughout the evening serving drinks and light refreshments.

Access and Quiet Spaces

The artwork for this exhibition can be found in the Main Gallery and Project Space which are both served by a lift and will be open all evening. The ground floor bar and cafe to GHT have step free access from Town Quay Road. For information on parking and travel please visit the Plan your Visit page of our website.

Throughout the event the Cafe Extension will be used as a quiet space with dimmed lighting, seating, quiet music and water available. Please use this space if you need to for any reason to take a break.

If you’d like to familiarise yourself before your visit you can take a virtual tour of the spaces on our website. You’ll also find a visual story so that you know what to expect and how to identify members of the GHT Team. Please note that the Stories Behind the Stones exhibition will not be open for this event: https://godshousetower.org.uk/accessibility-at-ght/

This event is totally free to attend and we’ll be operating a ‘pay what you feel’ system at the end of the night. If you have a good night and can spare a few pounds we’d really appreciate it. All donations are welcome. You can also support by buying drinks and snacks at the bar! All funds raised will help us to keep these projects free to take part in and to attend and will help to build a creative community around GHT.