I’m on the Lakeside Arts mailing list so when I saw this exhibition advertised I immediately knew that I wanted to see it, and then proceeded to not find time to do so until it was nearly over (it ended on 7th January). Contemporary artists have come together to reimagine the Victorians through modern photography, sculpture and a surprising amount of taxidermy.
The exhibition is spread across three rooms and as I’ve often found at the Djanogly very spread out with a lot of empty space. The first room contained some intriguing sculptures – dressed in a Victorian style but using African wax print material.
The second room was called Unnatural Histories and here the focus was on female scientists of the 19th century. Some items on display include this box of shells collected by Florence Nightingale.
This room also had a series of photos depicting The Ladies Field Club of York 1998-1999. They are staged photos depicting Victorian stylised women in typical pursuits of Victorian field clubs like butterfly catching and archaeology. Hundreds of these clubs existed though the individual contributions they made are forever lost to history. The photos were taken by Mark Dion and J. Morgan Pruett – the models are figures from the art world such as curators and museum directors. I liked them both for their styling and for the idea that in this small way women are being remembered for their contributions to the scientific study of the past.
The third room, “The Animal Body Remade” section contained a lot of taxidermy, of which I am generally not a fan so although there was some very impressive specimens on display, I didn’t actually take many photos. Unlike Victorian taxidermy, the contemporary works here all died of natural causes. I quite liked the kingfishers but I was also intrigued by this snake(?) in a case.
An interesting exploration of Victoriana.
Louise Jayne's Blog 