Visit London Blog » the women’s library http://blog.visitlondon.com Enjoy the very best of London Wed, 22 May 2013 11:26:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Hand Made Tales and the Women’s Institute Craft Day at the Women’s Library http://blog.visitlondon.com/2011/02/hand-made-tales-womens-institute-craft-day-womens-library/ http://blog.visitlondon.com/2011/02/hand-made-tales-womens-institute-craft-day-womens-library/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:14:51 +0000 Lettice http://blog.visitlondon.com/?p=19327

The Women’s Library in East London has gone craft crazy. The current exhibition Hand Made Tales: Women and Domestic Crafts, explores the role of sewing, gardening, knitting and cooking in women’s lives. If you enjoy making things, you need to find time to visit this exhibition.

Hand Made Tales is full of beautiful hand-made items, as well as craft tools, vintage craft books and haberdashery. The exhibition explores connections between craft and history – in times when women had limited rights of ownership, they took care over the items they made. The exhibition also considers emotional connections made by craft, for example when we treasure and use our grandmother’s button jar, sewing box or knitting needles.

To complement the exhibition, artist Nicola Malkin has created some art pieces which have been scattered around the building, including giant knitting needles on the wall.

Last Saturday, London branches of the Women’s Institute took over the exhibition with a fun day of craft demonstrations, tea and free talks.

The most interesting speaker was Anne Stamper, the WI Honorary archivist who explained how the WI preserved, shared and developed craft skills throughout the 20th century, supporting rural communities and holding major exhibitions to showcase expert work.

It was also fascinating to see demonstrations of traditional craft and it inspired me to go home and teach myself tatting (with a lot of help from YouTube tutorials!).

Hand Made Tales runs till 26 March 2011. Free entry. The Women’s Library has an ongoing programme of thoughtful talks, walks and events. www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary

]]> http://blog.visitlondon.com/2011/02/hand-made-tales-womens-institute-craft-day-womens-library/feed/ 3 The Brilliant and the Dark at The Women’s Library http://blog.visitlondon.com/2010/09/the-brilliant-and-the-dark-at-the-womens-library/ http://blog.visitlondon.com/2010/09/the-brilliant-and-the-dark-at-the-womens-library/#comments Sat, 25 Sep 2010 09:00:32 +0000 Kate Stanworth http://blog.visitlondon.com/?p=14982 Images from the original performance at the Royal Albert Hall Ellen Southern and singers Ellen Southern and singers Female choir, Gaggle, performing The Brilliant and the Dark Female choir, Gaggle, performing The Brilliant and the Dark Female choir, Gaggle, performing The Brilliant and the Dark Female choir, Gaggle, performing The Brilliant and the Dark The audience at The Women's Library Audience members on the balcony of The Women's Library

On Thursday night I went to The Women’s Library in East London to see an incredible performance of The Brilliant and the Dark, a vocal composition originally performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1969.

The piece, which tells stories from women’s history through the eyes of war workers, crusaders’ wives and witch hunters, was re-interpreted by female choir, Gaggle. It was preceded by a hushed and intimate arrangement lead by vocalist Ellen Southern.

I spoke to Ben White, who had initiated the project together with fellow artist Eileen Simpson.

“It started when we were invited to take part in an exhibition at the Library called Out of the Archives,” he said. “We found the piece in the library’s collection and we united with Gaggle to re-enact it. The costumes were created based on photographs of the original performance.”

Ben and Eileen are the founders of Open Music Archive, a project which aims to source and distribute out-of-copyright music.

In order to use and remix elements from The Brilliant and the Dark however, the duo had to negotiate with the copyright owners. They created a video of the remixed piece with the choir, which they exhibited in the exhibition. But for the live event they wanted to re-interpret the piece again.

“The idea is that it is different each time,” said Ben. “It is never fixed or finished.”

Out of the Archives runs until the 2nd October 2010 at The Women’s Library

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