Little Cures - Meet the Artists
Find out more about the artists, curator and the creative process
Curator's Welcome
… he was troubled by severe melancholy so that he could neither eat nor sleep. This was the cause of these tears and the illness.
— John Hall, The Little Book of Cures
As the curator of the Little Cures online exhibition, I have had the joy of combining aspects of the past and present. I have been fascinated by the process of staging ‘interventions’ of contemporary fine art inside the hushed interiors of Hall’s Croft, seeing what narratives about our modern selves can be pulled out by placing the work of contemporary artists besides historic items of domesticity and medicine.
The ‘Shakespearian’ era is a brilliant foil for our own times: are we not equally defined by moving words, by family, conflict and plague? The COVID pandemic has been an amplifier of themes already in the forefront of my mind when curating the chosen artworks - themes such as isolation, relationships, introspection and anxiety about the wider world.
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
— Othello, Act 1 Scene 1
I worked alongside creative producers from the Trust and a professional photographer to stage the work of 5 artists inside Halls Croft. The artists are my peers, aged between 25 and 35, and are representational of a ‘millennial’ generation often chided in the media for a so-called sensitivity. I hope that Little Cures will prompt some re-examination of this criticism and demonstrate that self-awareness of mental health is in fact a generational strength and asset.
By using the theories of the physician John Hall as a mirror to reflect something of our modern selves, and by bringing contemporary artworks into his former home and dispensary, the historic understanding of ‘melancholy’ is woven back into the space in a fresh and arresting way.
Like individual vignettes, the photos that form the core of the exhibition are a record of specific moments in time, yet they stretch and warp time in a unique way. I hope they help you reflect on this year’s hardships but also on its fleeting status in the continuing cannon of time and ideas
Martha Kelsey