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Archive for the ‘art exhibits’ Category

Celebrating the Mrs. Dalloway centenary around the globe

Posted in art exhibits, Dalloway Day, events, Mrs. Dalloway, tagged , on Sunday 15 June 2025| 4 Comments »

There are many celebrations marking the centenary of the publication of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Below are just a few.

Celebrating at Monk’s House in Lewes

Virginia Woolf’s writing lodge at Monk’s House

What: Mark the centenary of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway on the very day the novel unfolds, with an intimate event at Monk’s House – the Sussex home where Woolf lived and wrote for over twenty years.

When: June 18 at 7 p.m.

Where: On the lawns beside her writing room

Who: writers Holly Dawson and Charlie Porter will explore the novel’s enduring resonance and power. Olivier Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated actress Lindsay Duncan will perform readings from the novel, bringing Woolf’s voice to life.

Why: This special event, held in partnership with the National Trust, also launches Monk’s House campaign to raise £26,000 to conserve Virginia Woolf’s shawl. Incredibly fragile and believed to be the only surviving item of her clothing, the shawl offers a rare and tangible link to Woolf’s daily life. Specialist conservation work is urgently needed to stabilize and protect it for future display at Monk’s House. Charleston is proud to support this campaign, with all donations going directly to Monk’s House to fund the conservation work of this historic item.

How to attend: Book your £50 standard ticket. This ticket grants you access to attend the evening performance at Monk’s House at 7 p.m.

For There She Was: Centenary Exhibition of Virginia Woolf’s

What: For There She Was: Centenary Exhibition of Virginia Wool’s Mrs Dalloway Through the Eyes of Twelve Artists

When: June 14- July 12. Hours are Monday – Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Where: David Simon Contemporary, High Street, Castle Cary, Somerset, BA7 7AW

How: David Simon Contemporary has invited 12 contemporary visual artists to respond to the novel. This exhibition of paintings, sculpture and ceramics includes work by Chloe Holt FRSA, Steven Hubbard, Victoria Jinivizian NEAC, Alice Mumford RWA, Sue Wales, Frances Watts, Neil Wood, Emma Rose, Mike Service, Richard Twose, Sara Ingleby-MacKenzie and ceramics by the Chelsea Potter. They have come together to create a rich tapestry of works that reflect on the timeless themes and motifs of Woolf’s masterpiece. A highlight will be Mark Hussey’s talk on July 3. He is the author of the newly published book Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a Novel.

Get more information: Visit the gallery’s website.

Dalloway Day in Boston

When: Saturday, June 21, 2-4 p.m.

What: An afternoon party that includes a gathering and series of short reading

Where: Victorian-style Eliot Hall in central Jamaica Plain. Participants can sign up to read a short passage, but reading aloud is not required. Afterward, there will be snacks and drinks at VeeVee’s garden terrace next door.

How to register for the event: On eventbrite

How to register to do a reading: On Google

A talk and exhibition in Ankara

What: “A Portrait of a Character: Mrs. Dalloway Turns 100,” a special event organized by the Woolf Arts Archive.

When: June 21 at 2 p.m. Turkey time

Where: Kült Kavaklıdere, Ankara

How: The event will feature a talk exploring the literary and artistic evolution of Clarissa Dalloway, along with “An Exhibition on Screen” curated by Woolf Arts Archive, showcasing a selection of artworks and books inspired by the novel. The program will open with a keynote by Prof. Dr. Mine Özyurt Kılıç, followed by presentations from Atahan Mahir Karabiber and Tuğba Çanakçı of the Woolf Arts Archive team. The event will conclude with a reading session, where participants will share selected passages that give voice to the novel’s various characters.

Event link: WAA – Instagram

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Vanessa Bell exhibit at Charleston in Lewes

Posted in art exhibits, events, Vanessa Bell, tagged , , on Sunday 27 April 2025| 5 Comments »

Virginia Woolf’s sister Vanessa Bell is the subject of a new exhibition at Charleston in Lewes. “Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour” is on now through Sept. 21.

Bell, a member of the Bloomsbury group, was a groundbreaking artist and key figure in 20th-century British art who is only now getting her due. With more than 100 pieces on display, the Charleston at Lewes exhibit is the biggest ever dedicated to Bell, “affirming her as a radical pioneer of modernism in her own right,” according to the Charleston website.

The exhibition includes her vibrant paintings, as well as her revolutionary textiles, furniture designs, ceramics, and book covers. Charleston, in partnership with MK Gallery, organized the exhibition.

Location: Charleston in Lewes, Southover Road, Lewes, BN7 1FB
Hours: Wednesday through Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Cost: £14 | Free for supporters

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Walking through Woolf’s words in “Kew Gardens”

Posted in 33rd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, art, art exhibits, Virginia Woolf, tagged , , , , , on Sunday 16 June 2024| 1 Comment »

I took a walk through Virginia Woolf’s words last week. I moved slowly, quietly. I felt reverent at the silence and the sight of her poetry flowing from the rafters in the light-filled Ellipse Gallery in the tower of the Fresno State Library.

Ane Thon Knutsen watches as conference goers walk through her “Kew Gardens” installation.

I was there early in the morning on Saturday, June 8, to experience Ane Thon Knutsen’s breathtaking installation of “Kew Gardens” at the 33rd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, June 5-9 at Fresno State University.

I was among dozens of other conference participants, each of us lost in our own experience of the unique art installation, each of us feeling lucky to be there, as our view of the installation almost did not happen.

Catastrophe averted

The day before the conference began, the library’s air conditioning stopped working properly — and Fresno was in the middle of a heat wave. That meant that our visit to the installation had to be rescheduled and reformatted.

Our viewing of Ane’s brilliant art installation transformed itself from an elaborate evening arts event with refreshments, poetry, and two keynote talks to a one-hour early morning walk-through in awesome silence.

Kudos to conference organizer J. Ashley Foster for being able to turn on a dime with humor and grace. And kudos to everyone on campus — from librarian Melissa to academic deans and library and student center staff — who made the change possible.

Angling for a view

As I walked through the installation, I was struck by how much I had to use my body to view the art and read the words. I had to read with my legs, feet, torso, and arms, as well as my mind, eyes, and hands.

Sitting to read Woolf’s words.

I had to sway, walk, crouch, take a step backwards, step sideways, step forwards. I also had to stand still and wait patiently for the bright morning sunlight to change slightly and for the strips to still themselves in the shifting air so I could read Woolf’s words.

I watched as other viewers did the same. They stood still. They craned their necks upwards. They crouched. They bent. They sat down. Some even lay down, quietly giggling as the words wafted over their heads and their bodies, ruffled by the wispy breeze generated by weak air conditioning and the movements of those walking by.

About the “Kew Gardens” installation

J. Ashley Foster, conference organizer and associate professor at Fresno State University, and Jane Goldman, reader at the University of Glasgow, at the installation viewing.

Ane spent five years planning her adaptation of Woolf’s short story. It consists of 1,514 letterpress-printed sheets on translucent 18 gms kozo, a Japanese paper.

The sheets are arranged in 94 chains. each 18 sheets long, and they include all the words and punctuation marks that compose Woolf’s short story “Kew Gardens.” The printed words follow the colors named in the story, changing as each color is mentioned.

Ane explains the installation as an “organic book allowing you to walk through the pages, like insects in a flowerbed.”

Later, after the viewing, she said the installation no longer felt like it was just hers, as she had now shared it with dozens of people who love Woolf’s words.

About Ane Thon Knutsen

This was not Ane’s first exhibit focused on Woolf’s words. The associate professor of graphic design at the Oslo Academy of the Arts is internationally known for her letterpress-focused installations and artists’ books. She has won numerous awards for her work and owns and works from her private letterpress studio in Oslo.

Ane gave an artist talk on Friday evening during the conference.

Here is more about her work:

The photos below will explain the “Kew Gardens” installation far better than my words can.

View of the “Kew Gardens” installation as we walked into the Library Ellipse Gallery.

Walking through Woolf’s words.

Sometimes we had to crane our necks to get a view of the words.

Standing to the side to read Woolf.

Some folks sat to ponder Woolf’s words.

And some even lay down to get the right view.

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Woolf’s “On Being Ill”: from Instagram to published book

Posted in art, art exhibits, books, essays, On Being Ill, Virginia Woolf, tagged , , , , , on Tuesday 14 May 2024| Leave a Comment »

Virginia Woolf’s numerous experiences with illness led her to write the essay On Being Ill, published in 1930 by the Hogarth Press. Inspired by this work and the  coronavirus, Norwegian typesetter Ane Thon Knutsen has turned her spontaneous homage to the essay into book form.

Here’s how it came about.

In March of 2020, as lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the globe, Ane already had two other projects focused on Woolf under her belt — A Printing Press of One’s Own and The Mark on the Wall.

Working from her private letterpress studio at home, Ane started a third. She printed one sentence from “On Being Ill” on one sheet of paper every day. Her project ran from March 23 to Aug. 29, 2020, and she shared those pages on Instagram. She also shared her thoughts about the project with Blogging Woolf.

Through this process, she shaped a diary in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed for research on pandemics by creating an artist book.

The book merges Woolf’s sentences with with my reflections on covid, pandemics, isolation, escaping reality through literature, waiting, time, art, love, protests, feminism, typesetting, printing, family, small stuff, big stuff. – Ane

The publication also contains reflections on teaching during the pandemic in the spring of 2021, along with insights and works by master’s students in graphic design and illustration at The Oslo National Academy of The Arts, using Woolf’s essay as a mirror for their own pandemic experiences.

The digital book edition

With an introduction by Mark Hussey, the book is available as a digital book edition of 150. It is now available through several independent bookshops, which are handling distribution. They include the following:

Copies will also be available at the 33rd Annual International Woolf conference in June.

Support and gratitude

The publication is supported with research funds from The Oslo National Academy of The Arts. Graphic design was done by Tiril Haug Johne and Victoria Meyer.

Ane expresses special thanks to the Oslo National Academy of the Arts Class of 2022: Araiz Mesanza, Embla Sunde Myrva, Kristine Lie Øverland Emil Holmberg Lewe, Ruth Emilie Rustad, Nicolo Groenier, her former professor Alan Mackenzie-Robinson, former president of the International Virginia Woolf Society Dr. Benjamin Hagen, the Woolf community, her husband Truls and her son Pil.

Ane Thon Knutsen in her home printshop with a volume of On Being Ill, her pandemic project originally shared on Instagram.

About Ane Thon Knutsen

Ane is internationally known for her letterpress-focused installations and artists’ books. The associate professor of graphic design at the Oslo Academy of the Arts has won numerous awards for her work. She owns and works from her private letterpress studio in Oslo.

Ane Thon Knutsen at her exhibition “Printed Works: Adaptations of Virginia Woolf” at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf at Florida Gulf Coast University, Jun3 8-11, 2023.

She also debuted her installation, “Printed Words: Adaptations of Virginia Woolf,” at University Archives and Special Collections at the Florida Gulf Coast University library during the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Virginia  Woolf and Ecologies, June 8-11, 2023.

In “Printed Works,” the self-taught typesetter who has exhibited other letterpress projects and installations related to Woolf, adapted a selection of Virginia Woolf’s self-published short stories. The exhibit focused on Woolf’s poetic short stories “Blue” and “Green.” The printed pages were collected and are being stored in book form in FGCU Bradshaw Library’s Archives and Special Collections.

More coming up

In addition, Ane will display another installation, Woolf’s “Kew Gardens,” May 16 – June 11 for the 33rd International Virginia Woolf Conference. The adaptation of Woolf’s short story consists of 1,514 letterpress-printed sheets of kozo.

According to Ane, it is an “organic book allowing you to walk through the pages, like insects in a flowerbed.”

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Virginia Woolf installation by Norwegian artist opens @fgcu

Posted in 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf, art, art exhibits, short stories, tagged , , , , on Saturday 25 February 2023| Leave a Comment »

Norwegian multidisciplinary artist Ane Thon Knutsen is at it again — at combining Virginia Woolf and the letterpress, that is.

This time, the Oslo Academy of the Arts professor has debuted her installation, “Printed Words: Adaptations of Virginia Woolf,” at University Archives and Special Collections at the Florida Gulf Coast University library.

The Feb. 23 opening reception introduced the installation, which will be on display from now through the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf:
Virginia  Woolf and Ecologies, June 8-11. Registration opens in March.

In “Printed Works,” the self-taught typesetter who has exhibited other letterpress projects and installations related to Woolf, adapts a selection of Virginia Woolf’s self-published short stories.

“Knutsen’s artistic research aims to point out the influence typography, particularly typesetting, might have on the content of the text. It speaks to the power of designing and publishing one’s own work,” notes the FGCU Special Collections and Archives website.

Her first Woolf project: a book

In “A Printing Press of One’s Own,” which premiered at the 27th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf” at the University of Reading, England, in 2017, Ane produced a hand-set volume that includes Ane’s personal essay about her experience finding a space of her own in which she could pursue her passion — typesetting.

Ane Thon Knutsen with her hand-printed volume introduced at the 2017 Woolf conference, “A Printing Press of One’s Own”

According to Ane, “The book is an essay referring to A Room of One’s Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf. The essay reflects upon women’s role in letterpress, and the importance of a room of one’s own in artistic practices.

“In this book I am investigating the first books printed by Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, both in practice and in the written ‘dialogue’ between Virginia Woolf and myself, as we are both self-taught typesetters.”

Her second: up on the walls

In the winter of 2019, Ane had a major installation of Woolf’s first short story, “The Mark on the Wall,” (1917) in Kunstnernes Hus, an art institution in the centre of Oslo.

As described by Nell Toemen, who visited the exhibit and shared her thoughts with Blogging Woolf, Woolf’s story was “handprinted on I don’t know how many papers, white and off-white, neatly arranged so as to fill all the walls. If you would walk the room in eleven rounds you would be able to read the whole story. Reading it this way is an absolutely different experience than reading the story in a book.”

Page 2 of the “On Being Ill” project

Her third: via Instagram

In March of 2020, as lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the globe, Ane used her printing press to print one sentence on one sheet of paper every day from “On Being Ill,“ Woolf’s 1930 essay.

She shared each page on Instagram and she shared her thoughts about the project with Blogging Woolf.

At the time, she said she was using her printing press to print one sentence on one sheet of paper every day from “On Being Ill” “until we can go back to normal. I hope I will not make it through, as we’re counting about 140 sentences, and the paper is restricted to leftovers from my stock.”

About Ane Thon Knutsen

Ane is internationally known for her letterpress-focused installations and artists’ books. The associate professor of graphic design at the Oslo Academy of the Arts has won numerous awards for her work. She owns and works from her private letterpress studio in Oslo.

 

 

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