Orlando at the present time


Magical exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse marking 90 years since the publishing of Orlando and looking at its history and interpretation.

Orlando was written by Virginian Woolf in homage to her lover Vita Sackville-West and plays with ideas of gender and time. It’s a book I love and know well. The show was a lovely blend of the history of the book and an exploration of its themes.

I liked the fact that the show had borrowed items from Knole, the house which Vita loved but could not inherit and which features heavily in the book, including portraits which Virginia had used to illustrate the book. There were also numerous copies of the first edition used to show the illustrations. They also had the copy owned by Vita’s mother in which she had written a stream of vitriol against Virginia.

There were immediate reactions to the book including a wonderful dinner service painted by Vanessa Bell with scenes from the book. I’d never seen this before as it is privately owned. It was particularly nice to see it at the moment as the Famous Women Dinner Service is also on display at Charleston.

More contemporary reactions to the work included the film starring Tilda Swinton which was showing on a loop and there were two costumes from it, cleverly one for the Tudor male version of Orlando and one for the Victorian female version. They had also commissioned two new works an installation by Delaine La Bas which explores the section of the book where Orlando lived with gypsies and a film by Paul Kindersley which I didn’t really understand however I didn’t have a lot of time to watch it and hope to go back and try again.

All in all a good examination of the book and I hope to attend various events at Charleston next weekend (11-14 October) to mark the anniversary including a nine hour reading. I may need lots of coffee and cake!

Closes on 6 January 2019

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