17 June – 19 September 2023
Don’t Look At My Jugs… And Other Stories
A collection of reimagined historical artefacts made by Jam Westwood
Open daily | Free entry
Image credit: Queen Jane of Faceburgh by Jam Westwood. Stoneware vase with mishima text and hand painted decoration with 24ct gold
Our artefacts become our stories – episodes of human life, recorded and preserved. They travel through time and they speak in the future. Don’t Look At My Jugs… And Other Stories is a reimagined museum collection of historical artefacts, each telling its own story – each an episode of everyday lived experience for women today.
This exhibition features a collection of carefully crafted vessels, vases, bowls and coins that make direct reference to the female experience, and in particular to the physical, social, professional and domestic injustices encountered on a daily basis. At a cursory glance, none of these objects would look out of place in a traditional museum cabinet, and yet a closer look reveals a very different story. The stories they tell cast light on the real and often disconcerting position that women have in contemporary society.
Ready for analysis, ripe for understanding and raring to speak, the artefacts that Jam Westwood presents in this arresting exhibition, ask us to consider whether modern society really is as progressive or as civilised as many would have us believe. Or is it up to historians of the future to hear the voice of 21st century woman?
Don’t Look At My Jugs… And Other Stories is an exhibition that highlights the importance of giving space to the female voice, and perhaps no where is it more important than inside the institutions that have traditionally been dominated by the masculine and by the male gaze.
Join us for a private view of the exhibition on Saturday 17 June, 2pm.
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Join Jam Westwood in the gallery on Saturday 5 August to make a sgraffito narrative bowl. Advance booking required.
