Back in February I posted about My Foundling Girl - the object I'd been assigned as part of 26 Pairs of Eyes: Looking at the Overlooked. This project was a collaboration between the writers' collective 26 and The Foundling Museum in London. The curators chose 26 objects which were then assigned at random to 26 writers for their response. The resulting exhibition runs all summer.* If you possibly can, go and visit - the museum is fascinating - humbling, heartbreaking and hopeful in equal measures - and the sestudes (62 word pieces - 62 being 26 backwards) offer new insights into the chosen artefacts.
If you can't visit, though, there's an online alternative here, where you can browse through the objects the curators chose, the authors' responses and background pieces on the process as well.
My object was a marble bust called "The Foundling Girl" made by David Watson Stevenson in 1871 -
and my response to her is here. Is she my favourite object in the whole museum? Absolutely.
* The exhibition runs from 4 June to 6 September 2015 at The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London.
Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
I can't remember when I first learned about Thomas Coram and the Foundling Hospital, about Handel's charity performances of The Messiah, or about how artists would donate work to what was in effect the first public art gallery in the UK. But I do know that I was very drawn to the posts I read here by other History Girls* over the years which referred to that hugely evocative place. Heart-breaking. Inspiring. Up-lifting. Rending.
And now I have a link of my own. She has no name, and a few days ago I didn't even know she existed. She's called "The Foundling Girl" and now she's my foundling girl. Because on Monday 2 February, slips of paper were drawn out of a tricorn hat and I was randomly paired with her.
This was the beginning of a collaboration between the writers' collective 26 and the curators of the Foundling Museum, called "26 Pairs of Eyes: Looking at the Overlooked" which will be launched this summer. The object I've been asked to respond to was a marble bust made by David Watson Stevenson in 1871. I found her tucked behind a door in a corridor between two rooms.
She was cream marble against a cream wall.
I most likely would have overlooked her. But now, I was transfixed.
Projects like this are a challenge, of course they are, but also what a gift! Do you have a statue or a painting or an artefact in the Foundling Museum or any other museum/gallery that's somehow yours? It's great, isn't it?
And if you get the chance, be sure to visit my girl.
* Such as Lucy Inglis' post on the 10th anniversary of the Foundling Museum and the 275th anniversary of the Foundling Hospital: "Be Not Ashamed You were Bred in This Hospital. Own it."
or Penny Dolan's experience: My Coram Cup
or Eleanor Updale's story of her father: Another Side of Christmas 1918
So worth re-reading!
Joan Lennon's website.
Joan Lennon's blog.
