CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2024

At the invitation of the University of Connecticut's Seeing Truth project led by Alexis Boylan (Professor of Art History and Africana Studies Institute at UConn), funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, Jane Wildgoose is extending her investigations into colonial legacies in museum collections. This work is being developed in partnership with Nick Kaplony at Artquest, building on the Artists Decolonise Museums project they commissioned in 2021, and Conway Hall, the UK's historic hub for free speech and independent thought. Jane is making regular visits to Conway Hall where, working closely with Librarian Olwen Terris, she is teasing out interconnections between material in their Library - the largest and most comprehensive Humanist and ethics-related research resource of its kind in the UK - and the Lost But Not Forgotten Archive she established at The Wildgoose Memorial Library as part of practice-based doctoral research in the School of Art & Design History at Kingston University London (completed in 2015). This, and ongoing Research & Development during 2024, will lay the foundation for an event to be hosted by Jane Wildgoose and The Wildgoose Memorial Library at Conway Hall early in 2025. Watch this space for further developments.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter - Spring 2024

Jane Wildgoose heralded in the New Year with a trip to the Bervie Brow Research Station, on the East Coast of Scotland, where she resumed work with its proprietor, Harry Willis Fleming, "quarantining" selected items from the WML collection (see Autumn-Winter 2022). While snowed in - and despite being entranced by the magical sunlight that burnt brightly (though briefly) each day - Jane and Harry spent much of their time below-ground continuing their work installing selected WML items in the Bervie Brow Cold War bunker's Strong Room. This long-term collaboration will continue with a further trip later in the year - watch this space for news on progress.

Jane Wildgoose was delighted to accept an invitation from Imperial College London, commencing in March 2024, to supervise one of their students on the Humanities, Philosophy & Law BSc project 2023/24.

In April 2024 Jane Wildgoose was proud to be featured as poster girl - in Henry Bourne's iconic portrait of her wearing her Hastings Jack in the Green costume - for the Museum of British Folklore's Making More Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain exhibition, at London College of Fashion in Stratford Olympic Village, 105 Carpenter's Road London E20 2AR, from 9 April-20 June 2024.

In May 2024 Jane Wildgoose was inspired to be invited to the opening of Lana Thorn's BA Fashion Communication Show, in the Lethaby Gallery at Central St Martins/UAL, and to receive a copy of the magazine Lana devised and published for her final project: Phantasmag ("For the Outsiders By the Outsiders") - which features Lana's interview, "Such Sights to Show Us: Revisiting Hellraiser with Costume Designer Jane Wildgoose," conducted at The Wildgoose Memorial Library earlier in the year (Phantasmag issue 001, May 2024: 42-53).

It was moving and exilhirating (though unseasonably cold) participating in Collapse London (2024): "a ritual protest that intervenes in the dynamics of capitalist architecture [and] makes visible the exhaustion of a human body always running out of time," with Dominique Savitri Bonerjee and the host of dancers who joined with Dominique to create a collective mass of collapsing bodies in the heart of the City of London, on 31 May 2024.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2023

Jane Wildgoose is excited to announce a new publishing partnership with Roelof Bakker: on 27 October 2023 Jane and Roelof launch the first in a series of Wildgoose Memorial Library Pamphlets, published by Roelof's Negative Press, at the Small Publishers Fair at Conway Hall in London: Passing Fables & Comparative Readings: Soundings from the Lost But Not Forgotten Archive of The Wildgoose Memorial Library (WML Pamphlet No. 1) and 'Lovely Objects' and Natural history Specimens: Jane Franklin's 'Civilising Experiment' of Pan-Imperial Significance (WML Pamphlet No. 2). Jane and Roelof will give a talk in the Green Room at Conway Hall on 27 October, at 2pm, when Jane will read from 'Lovely Objects' and Roelof will discuss his new publication Some Queer Animals.

On 23 September 2023 The Wildgoose Memorial Library threw open its doors to a host of Readers, old and new, in celebration of the WML's 20th Anniversary. A big thank you to everyone who made it such a memorable night - for turning out, for dressing up, for bringing gifts, and for being so enthusiastic about this landmark event! Special thanks to Ben Gaskell for lavishly decking the Library with vines and hops, and a giant Corpse Lily (now flourishing and proliferating on the WML terrace); and to Fuchsia Wildgoose for her sterling assistance singlehandedly (wo)manning the bar.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2023

Jane Wildgoose is appearing as a guest on Whitechapel Gallery Radio (WRS) in conversation with performance artist and Whitechapel Gallery Writer-in-Residence Martin O'Brien on 14 July 2023.

On 6 July 2023 Jane Wildgoose and Harry Willis Fleming will give a joint presentation about their twenty-year ruin-gazing collaboration - in which they'll be discussing their exploration of the history and afterlife of North Stoneham House in Hampshire and "quarantining" selected items from the WML collection at the Bervie Brow Research Station in Scotland - in the first of four online events hosted by Luke Bennett and Sheffield Hallam University Space and Place Group. Harry & Jane will join photographer & urban explorer Denzil Watson and Portuguese researcher & curator Ines Moreira in Exploring #1: In Ruins (Harry & Jane's talk begins at 1:18:24 / ends at 1:53:43).

At the beginning of June 2023 Jane Wildgoose will be welcoming students and staff from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to The Wildgoose Memorial Library as part of SAIC's Study Abroad trip to the UK. Jane has also accepted an invitation to join them on a tour of the Coffin Works in Birmingham, and the Making Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain exhibition at Compton Verney - where Henry Bourne's portrait of Jane at Hastings Jack in the Green is on view, along with a wealth of costumes and artefacts relating to folk traditions past and present, until 11 June 2023.

The Wildgoose Memorial Library goes on air as an hour-long broadcast at 4pm on 17 April 2023 - and remains available to stream on NTS Radio Time is Away. A very big thank you to Elaine Tierney and Jack Rollo at NTS for such inspiring synergy, and to Fuchsia Wildgoose for permitting us to feature The Infant and the Library - her spellbinding account of growing up at the WML - in the broadcast, also to everyone who contributed.

Following up on last year's Seeing Truth interview with Alexis Boylan (see Spring-Summer 2022), as part of the University of Connecticut's Seeing Truth: Art, Science, Museums, and Making Knowledge project, Jane Wildgoose is looking forward to taking up an invitation to travel to New York in May 2023 to continue, and expand the conversation with Alexis and colleagues.

Jane Wildgoose is looking forward to welcoming students from the Slade School of Fine Art to the WML in March 2023 for one-to-one consultations about our intersecting interests in research and practice.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2022

Jane Wildgoose will be spending the first two weeks of September 2022 ensconced in the Strong Room at the Bervie Brow Research Station, on the East Coast of Scotland: where Harry Willis Fleming is generously facilitating "quarantining" selected items (including coral, ivory, and taxidermied specimens) removed from the WML collection in London, as part of an ongoing programme of work that reflects on the history of the acquisition, and interrogates the ongoing status, of these materials in collections today. This collaborative work in progress is a continuation of R&D Jane began as Artist in Residence at King's College London, in association with King's Digital Lab, in 2021. Watch this space for further developments in the new year.

Following a research trip to the Rothwell Ossuary near Kettering with the painter Joanna Whittle, earlier in the year, Jane Wildgoose is joining the artist to take part in the University of Sheffield's Festival of the Mind during September 2022. Jane will be exhibiting her Lost But Not Forgotten hair wreath - commemorating the lives of individuals whose skulls were stolen from the colonies for museums in London, during the 19th century - alongside new works that Joanna has produced during a collaborative project with the archaeologist Lizzie Craig-Atkins, in Material Mourning: as part of Futurecade at the Millennium Gallery from 15-25 September 2022. Jane will also be joining a panel discussion with Joanna and Lizzie, exploring funerary archaeology and mourning rituals of the past, in the Festival's Spiegeltent on 22nd September 2022.

At Joanna Whittle's invitation, Jane Wildgoose's Lost But Not Forgotten wreath goes on show, alongside Joanna's work and items she has selected from the collection, in On Shifting Ground at the Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery in Rossendale, Lancashire from 22 October-18 December 2022.

The Wildgoose Memorial Library and its Keeper are happy to be cited in Shubigi Rao's Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book at the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, until 27th November 2022, and in the accompanying book, Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory of the Banished Book (Volume III of V, 2022). The WML may also be glimpsed briefly (at 1:47) in the trailer for the book's companion film, Talking Leaves (2022): which "weaves together the mytho-poetics of legendary libraries, half-truths, hearsay and contested narratives, forming a lyrical manuscript that is a lush celebration of the unquenchable human need to tell and share stories, and a haunting elegy to waning communities of print."

On 18th December 2022 Jane Wildgoose joins Simon Costin, Director of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, in an online webinar entitled Sol Invictus examining the many correspondences that exist between Saturnalia, Yule and Christmas; Jane will also be reflecting on the significance of Persephone and the annual celebration of the Winter Solstice at the WML.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2022

In March 2022 Jane Wildgoose is welcoming Harry Willis Fleming to the WML to remove numerous "quarantined" items selected from the collection as part of continuing R&D, which began while she was Artist in Residence working with Neil Jakeman and King's Digital Lab at King's College London during 2021. Coral, ivory and taxidermied specimens - which, although conventionally and legitimately sourced for the WML over many years, pose ethical questions about their original acquisition and continuing retention in collections today - will be sent on their way to Bervie Brow Research Station, where Jane and Harry plan to instal them in the Strong Room over the Autumn: as part of the next phase of the project to document and present them online as the focus for dialogue about ethical issues concerning their continuing retention in collections.

In April 2022, at the invitation of the University of Connecticut, Jane Wildgoose is honoured to take part in an online interview with Director of Academic Affairs Alexis Boylan as part of the University's Seeing Truth: Art, Science, Museums, and Making Knowledge project: discussing collecting, death studies, the difference between a library and a museum, practice-based research, and more.

The Wildgoose Memorial Library and its Keeper are happy to be cited in Shubigi Rao's Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book at the Singapore Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, from 23 April-27 November 2022, and in the accompanying book, Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory of the Banished Book (Volume III of V, 2022). The WML may also be glimpsed briefly (at 1:47) in the trailer for the book's companion film, Talking Leaves (2022): which "weaves together the mytho-poetics of legendary libraries, half-truths, hearsay and contested narratives, forming a lyrical manuscript that is a lush celebration of the unquenchable human need to tell and share stories, and a haunting elegy to waning communities of print."

Jane Wildgoose has recently begun musing on mourning and collecting with the painter Joanna Whittle. Joanna contacted Jane after seeing her online talk about memorial jewellery in the Portland Collection (see Current Events Autumn-Winter 2021); during May 2022 they will be making a field trip to Rothwell ossuary in Northamptonshire, and hatching plans to present work together in Autumn 2022 - watch this space for updates.

Wildgoose is delighted to be back, post-pandemic, with Jack in the Green on the streets of Hastings this May Day Bank Holiday with Simon Costin, Eleanor Pearce, Roelof Bakker, Axel Forrester & Stephen van Dulken, and a cast of many many thousands. Welcome back, Jack!

At the end of May 2022 Jane Wildgoose is looking forward to welcoming Art History students from Hamburg University, and their professor Dr Petra Lange-Berndt, as part of a field trip to London where they will be visiting public and private collections in the city.

During June 2022 Jane Wildgoose has accepted an invitation to take part in a panel presentation, reflecting on the role of evaluation in artists' practice and its development, as part of the Cultural Evaluation New Pilot Training Programme at Queen Mary University.

Jane Wildgoose is privileged to be sitting for a portrait at the WML by the painter John Pearce, whose vibrant landscapes have been exhibited at the Tate and Museum of the Home, and whose retrospective exhibition of portraiture at the Bouillons Kub gallery in Normandy marked the celebration of the artist's 80th birthday earlier in the year.

Following the death (aged 90, at the end of 2021) of the inspirational textile artist Rozanne Hawksley - whose exquisitely executed and deeply felt work speaks as vividly of love and loss as of her fury at the cruelty and iniquity of war - Jane has been honoured, during the Summer, to receive a bequest from Rozanne which extends the Library's collection of memorial jewellery. Having met many years ago over a shared fascination with Victorian mourning, at a time when the seeds of the WML were just beginning to be planted, Jane is moved to now become Keeper of Rozanne's mourning jewellery and to accommodate it within the collection whose inception she both witnessed and encouraged. RIP dear Roz, friend and mentor.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2021

At the invitation of the Harley Gallery, Welbeck, Jane Wildgoose is resurrecting memorial jewellery in the Portland Collection - including the pearl earring retrieved from the head of King Charles I after his execution - in an online talk entitled The Haunting Truth of the Portland Collection's Memorial Jewellery on October 29th 2021.

Jane Wildgoose is guest speaker in two online conversations (there was so much to talk about one conversation was not enough!) with the artists' collective Dust Architects, discussing life writing and artists' practice, as they ask Is There an Equivalence to Life Writing in Visual Arts?

Over the winter Jane Wildgoose has been packing up selected items from the WML collection - including coral, ivory and taxidermied specimens - for removal and "quarantining." Although originally sourced at a time when their collection was not questioned, these items now raise issues about their place in collections, and Jane is developing plans - begun during R&D as Artist in Residence working with Neil Jakeman and King's Digital Lab at King's College London - to present them online, as the focus for discussion about ethically problematic material in collections.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2021

During Spring to Summer 2021 Jane Wildgoose is Artist in Residence at King's College London where she is collaborating with Neil Jakeman, Senior Research Software Analyst in King's Digital Lab. While currently taking stock of the collection during the period of physical renovation taking place at The Wildgoose Memorial Library (see Autumn - Winter 2020), Jane is working with Neil to focus on selected items which, although acquired through conventional and legitimate channels, may be seen as ethically problematic today. Together they will be researching and developing the creation of a virtual 'strong room' in which selected items may be 'stored' while also becoming the focus for debate and discussion.

Developing on the panel she chaired for their conference The Artist Researcher at the Foundling Museum in 2019, Jane Wildgoose is working closely with Artquest during June to July 2021 to plan and present a series of workshops about artists working with colonial legacies in museums.

Jane Wildgoose is taking part in Queen Mary Conversations Week during April 2021. The outcomes of her conversation with Dr Nadia Atia, Senior Lecturer in World Literature at QMUL, will be online shortly, and Jane will appear as a panel member/speaker in On the Undead: A Conversation on the Politics and Performances of Zombies with QMUL's Dr Martin O'Brien and the South African writer, theatre-maker, and poet, Genna Gardini on 14th April 2021.

In March 2021 Eavesdropping - a series of cyanotype prints and a portrait in video made by Roelof Bakker, with a fragment of sound recording of Jane Wildgoose reading from her essay 'A Visit to the Archives' (in Strong Room, the artists' book they produced together in 2014) went online on Roelof's website.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2020

At the close of 2020 Concordia University in Montreal commissioned Roelof Bakker to produce video footage of The Wildgoose Memorial Library. Agreeing to use only the very little light available in the depths of midwinter, Roelof produced lyrical documentation of the Library: capturing its darkling essence before it is dismantled for comprehensive renovations in the new year which will include rewiring and redecoration. A very big thank you to Roelof for another incredibly inspiring collaboration and to Rebecca Duclos, Professor of Art History at Concordia, for commissioning the filming.

Jane Wildgoose's chapter 'Post Specimens and Present Ancestors: Passing Fables & Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library - An Artist's Response to the Unique Status of Postcolonial human Remains in Museums' is published in Post-Specimen: Encounters Between Art, Science and Curating by Intellect Books in December 2020.

In September 2020 Jane Wildgoose was commissioned by Queen Mary University London to take part in a conversation with Dr Nadia Atia, Senior Lecturer in World Literature at QMUL, and to produce a piece of work in response to the fascinating discussion they had, which will appear online during Queen Mary Conversations Week in 2021.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2020

A special issue of the European Journal of Life Writing, 'Dialogues of the Dead,' co-edited by Jane Wildgoose with colleagues in the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King's College London, Professor Clare Brant and James Metcalf, was published in July 2020. Drawing on the proceedings of a conference of the same name at King's, in 2018, as the co-editors write in their introduction: 'we had no idea when we started this special issue that it would appear in these dreadful circumstances' of a pandemic, 'but we hope it offers some useful comparisons with other grim moments of history, and some suggestions as to forms of consolation.'

'Life Writing and Death: Dialogues of the Dead,' EJLW vol. 9 (2020) includes two of Jane Wildgoose's articles: FINIS: Objects, Death and the End of Time, Afterlife Writing and Situation of Graves and (in the Creative Matters section) Afterlife Writing and Situation of Graves II.

Jane Wildgoose was honoured to accept an invitation from Artquest as panel member/selector for the fourth round of their WFH Residency in July 2020.

In May 2020 Jane Wildgoose was grateful to receive a [Covid-19] Emergency Response Fund Award from Arts Council England: to refocus and critically review the content, quality and future development of The Wildgoose Memorial Library collection, and to research and expand her thinking about the role the collection may continue to play in the real and digital worlds.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2019 - Spring 2020

Jane Wildgoose's installation In Sorrow Shut which was specially commissioned to accompany the exhibition Victoria: Woman and Crown (commemorating the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth at Kensington Palace in May 1819) is on view at Kensington Palace until 5th January 2020.

On 10th January 2020 Jane Wildgoose will be presenting a paper entitled 'A Noble Hall of Stone, Mahogany and Plate Glass': Encasing human remains in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century museums' at the Making a Case for Cases: The Furniture of Display conference at the Bowes Museum in County Durham.

Jane is delighted to be helping out over Xmas with Sabine Maurer of the wonderful florescence: the art of flowers - decking the halls with holly across London and the South East.

Jane has been kept busy with writing, editing, and developing new projects throughout the autumn and winter of 2019 - more to follow when new publications appear and projects begin to take shape during 2020; meanwhile her chapter 'A Catalogue of the Portland Museum, Lately the Property of the Duchess Dowager of Portland, Deceased' was published by Yale University Press in Britain in the World: Highlights from the Yale Center for British Art (edited by Martina Droth, Nathan Fils and Michael Hatt) in autumn 2019.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2019

The WML's recent residency at King's College London in the REACH (Research & Engagement in the Arts, Culture and Humanities) Space, in association with the Centre for Life-Writing Research, brought together an inspirational range of speakers and respondents from across the arts and humanities - from within King's and from many other institutions including UAL, the Royal College of Art, St George's University of London, Durham University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; the V&A, Science Museum, Tate, Abbey House Museum (Leeds) and Highgate Cemetery; as well as independent artists and scholars and members of the public who participated in intimate workshops on life writing and death: discussing grave matters, wills, funeral processions, and brief lives; dissecting the anatomists, and reflecting on Victorian mourning and magical objects. Jane Wildgoose is hugely grateful to everyone who contributed and generously shared their knowledge. She would like to say a special thank you to Professor Bill Sherman, Director of the Warburg Institute, who launched the week in conversation with her as part of his Talking in the Library project. Jane was also delighted to meet Neil Jakeman, Senior Research Software Analyst in King's Digital Laboratory, who applied the latest digital technology to documenting the WML@KCL by 3D modelling selected items from the WML collection and producing 360 degree images of the WML@KCL.

During 2019 Jane Wildgoose has been working with Dr Duncan Grewcock and the MA Museum and Heritage Development students at Nottingham Trent University, in association with curator and archivist Bev Baker, to produce a special commission to accompany the exhibition Liberated Voices: Stories of Women In-Justice, which opens at the National Justice Museum in Nottingham on 6th April 2019. Jane's installation, which is presented in the Museum's Courtroom, focuses on a sampler in the NJM's collection embroidered by a prisoner named Annie Parker in 1880 using her own hair. Contextualising the sampler with records of nineteenth-century women prisoners from the Museum's archives, the installation draws on social reformer Elizabeth Fry's recommendation (published in 1827) that women prisoners should learn needlework and other domestic skills as a means of gaining employment and escaping 'the temptation of want and misery.'

Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker talking about the challenges of curating Queen Victoria's image and the responsibilities of curating her legacy in the plenary session of the Victoria's Self-Fashioning: Curating Royal Image for Dynasty, Nation and Empire conference at Kensington Palace on 21st May 2019.

Jane Wildgoose's installation In Sorrow Shut, which has been specially commissioned to accompany the exhibition Victoria: Woman and Crown opens on 24th May 2019 at Kensington Palace where it will be on view until 5th January 2020.

Jane Wildgoose is an invited Panel Chair at The Artist Researcher: Artists and Museums Working Together at the Foundling Museum, in association with Artquest, on 7th June 2019 when she will be discussing 'Difficult material: navigating ethical challenges in collections' with panellists Abeera Kamran, Dr Hannah Young and Victoria Adukwei Bulley.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2018 - Spring 2019

On 17th January 2019 Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at a Bookfest celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King's College London where she is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow.

On 22nd January 2019 Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at Highgate Cemetery, when she will be speaking about The Wildgoose Memorial Library: Behind Death's Door in Crouch End.

As an invited participant in the Victoria & Albert Museum Research Institute's (VARI) Opening the Cabinet of Curiosities project, Jane Wildgoose has been commissioned by editors Lisa Skogh and Earle Havens to contribute an essay to A Field Guide to Curiosity: A Mark Dion Project, published by the V&A Museum at the end of January 2019.

Jane Wildgoose's article 'Beyond All Price: Victorian Hair Jewellery, Commemoration & Story-Telling' is published online in Fashion Theory Issue 6: Hair Revisited (Volume 22, 2018), pp 699-726 on 26th February 2019.

From 27 February - 6 March 2019 The Wildgoose Memorial Library will host a series of events at King's College London in association with the Centre for Life-Writing Research's Professor Clare Brant and doctoral research student James Metcalf and King's College Archives, as part the Arts & Humanities Research Institute's series of pop-up research workshops taking place at King's College London.

On 13th March 2019 Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at the Paul Mellon Centre in a workshop that forms part of the Fashioning Victoria project collaboration between Historic Royal Palaces and University of Warwick.

Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at a workshop exploring The Mind in the Matter: New Approaches to the Psychology of Collecting hosted by the Society for the History of Collecting at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), School of Advanced Study, Senate House on 27th March 2019, where she will present a paper entitled 'The Work of The Wildgoose Memorial Library: Collecting & Recovering the Past from Somewhere Outside the Realm, Beyond the Reach of Intellect.'

On 28th March 2019 Jane Wildgoose will present a paper entitled 'FIRST, DO NO HARM: Representing the human skull in the medical museum during the heyday of craniology,' at the Representing the Medical Body conference at the Science Museum.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2018

Jane Wildgoose's replica of the little cardboard coffin she made, to transport a wisp of Lord Nelson's hair (bought on eBay) down the River Thames towards Calais - where his lover, Emma Hamilton (to whom he bequeathed all his hair) is buried - for the BBC Radio 4 programme On One Lost Hair has been selected to be included in Historic England's exhibition Immortalised: The People Loved, Left and Lost in our Landscape at the Workshop, Lambeth SE1 7AG from 31 August-16 September 2018.

Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at the Troubling Objects: interrogating collecting and collections conference at the Victoria & Albert Museum on 11th September 2018.

Issue #22 of Garageland edited by Arlene Leis and themed on [Difficult] Women is published at the end of October 2018 and includes an invited essay by Jane Wildgoose, entitled The Work of Mourning & Measurements of Silence.

On 9th November 2018 Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at the Facing Death Creatively conference at St Christopher's Hospice Education Centre in Sydenham, where she will be talking about Materials of Mourning: Hair & Commemoration.

Jane Wildgoose has accepted an invitation as guest speaker to talk about her work with museums and collections to MA Museum & Galleries students at Kingston University in November 2018.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2018

On 24th May 2018 Dr Jane Wildgoose is co-convening a Day of Life Writing & Death with Professor Clare Brant and James Metcalf (doctoral research student in the English Department) at King's College London where she is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Life-Writing Research.

Over the weekend of 26th/27th May 2018 Jane Wildgoose joins Sabine Maurer of Florescence Floral Decorators to help with the installation of a huge floral heart outside Polpo restaurant in Duke of York's Square for Chelsea in Bloom on this year's theme of 'Summer of Love.'

On 31st May 2018 Jane Wildgoose is representing Strandlines - the digital community at King's College London dedicated to exploring lives on the Strand, past, present and creative - when she will be contributing to 'Short talks from the College Archives,' focusing on Rebecca West's correspondence and related material in the Liddell Hart Archive at King's College London, and West's writing for The Freewoman (first published from an office just off the Strand in 1911) as part of Historic England's London History Day 2018 at King's College London's Archives from 2-4pm.

Jane Wildgoose is chairing a conversation between the artists Fay Ballard and Judy Goldhill accompanying their exhibition Breathe at the Freud Museum on Sunday 3rd June 2018 from 3-4pm.

The Wildgoose Memorial Library presents Lost But Not Forgotten: Collecting & Interpreting Human Skulls & Hair in Late 19th-Century London at the Lumen Crypt Gallery at St John on Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Road London E2 9PA, from 12-6pm on Friday 8th - Sunday 10th June 2018.

Jane Wildgoose has accepted an invitation during June 2018 to contribute to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Study Abroad, London & Paris Collecting & the Collection: Design & Fashion course 2018 on a visit to Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Collections, National Trust), where she will talk about her work with the Rothschild Collections and her exhibition Beyond All Price at Waddesdon in 2015.

Jane Wildgoose's article about her work with the Rothschild Collections and mourning at Waddesdon Manor entitled 'Beyond All Price: Victorian Hair Jewelry, Commemoration & Story-Telling' will be published in Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture later in 2018.

Also in June 2018 The Wildgoose Memorial Library will be hosting Professor Dr. Dietmar Rubel and students from the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Munchen taking the 'Collecting as Art' Field Trip to London.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2017 - Spring 2018

In February 2018 the article Strong Room: Material Memories and the Digital Record, co-authored by Jane Wildgoose and Roelof Bakker and developed from the presentation they gave last year at the IABA Europe Life Writing, Europe and New Media conference at King's College London is published in the new edition (Volume 7, 2018) of the European Journal of Life Writing.

On 5th March 2018 Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at the Opening the Cabinet of Curiosities Short Course at the Victoria & Albert Museum, which runs from 8th January to 5th March in association with the V&A Research Institute.

Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker on 10th March 2018 with Sarah Wade at the Natural History of Witchcraft convened by art historian Petra Lange-Berndt at the Grant Museum UCL in collaboration with The Whitechapel Gallery, as part of the Mark Dion: Theatre of the Natural World exhibition programme.

Jane Wildgoose is presenting a paper entitled All That Remains: Loss, Mourning and Touching Specimens at The Wildgoose Memorial Library with Sarah Wade in the Dialogues: Things and Their Collectors session of the Association for Art History Annual Conference at the Courtlauld Institute of Art & King's College London (5-7 April 2018).

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2017

At the invitation of BBC radio presenter Alan Dein and producer Mark Burnham, Jane Wildgoose is giving an interview in Highgate Cemetery discussing funeral protocols in 1880s London for a Radio 3 Between the Ears programme The Plot for Karl Marx broadcast on Saturday 18 November 2017.

In November 2017 Jane Wildgoose is delighted to accept an invitation from Professor Alexander Nemerov (Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts & Humanities at Stanford University, California) to contribute at long distance to a lecture he is giving on Pegwell Bay, Kent - a Recollection of October 5th 1858 by William Dyce. Knowing that Jane feels a special affinity with this painting (which she first saw at the Tate Gallery when she was five years old), Professor Nemerov has asked her to write a few paragraphs about her thoughts on it - and to think too about how those thoughts might connect within the trajectory of her career. Her thoughts and images will be included in the lecture on 13th November 2017, as part of the Introduction to the Visual Arts: History of Western Art from the Renaissance to the Present course which Professor Nemerov teaches at Stanford.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2017

Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at the V&A Research Institute in March 2017 at a workshop about Opening the Cabinet of Curiosities, when she will give a working paper presentation about Inhabiting & Interrogating the Cabinet of Curiosities in the 21st Century.

On 23rd March 2017 Jane Wildgoose will give a talk about Victorian hair jewellery as one of a series of events accompanying the exhibition The Age of the Beard at the Florence Nightingale Museum, London SE1.

On 24th March 2017 Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker in a workshop about practice-led PhDs, hosted by the Centre for Philosophy & the Visual Arts at King's College London, at the Inside Out Festival organised by TCCE (The Culture Capital Exchange) at Somerset House.

On 8th April 2017 Jane Wildgoose is giving a paper entitled "'The effect of it will long be remembered by the multitudes':The Duke of Wellington's Funeral Car, In Motion, and At Rest" in the Sculpture in Motion panel chaired by Martina Droth and Sarah Victoria Turner at the Association of Art Historians Annual Conference at Loughborough University.

In association with the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King's College London Jane Wildgoose will be speaking about Lord Nelson and the Strand at the Strand Lane "Roman" Bath, as part of Historic England's London History Day on 31st May 2017.

Jane Wildgoose and Roelof Bakker, photographer and Negative Press publisher, will present Strong Room: Material Memories and the Digital Record, on 8th June in the Space session at the IABA Europe Life Writing, Europe and New Media conference at King's College London. Jane will also chair the Sharing, participation, and mash-up in digital storytelling session on 9th June.

Jane Wildgoose is speaking at a Negative Press event with artist and poet Martin Crawley at his home and studio in Bow on 17 June 2017

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2016

On 25th November 2016 Jane Wildgoose will present a paper entitled "'Beyond All Price': Victorian Hair Jewellery, Commemoration & Story-telling" at The Personal, Fashionable and Archival Spaces of Hair symposium at Somerset House, London WC2.

Also this Autumn:

During October 2016 Jane Wildgoose is working with long-term collaborator Sabine Maurer of Florescence Floral Decorators and the brilliant artist Yasemen Hussein to devise and photograph installations celebrating the turning of the year from Autumn to Winter at The Wildgoose Memorial Library.

In November 2016 Jane Wildgoose is welcoming students from the BA Film Practice course at London College of Communication to The Wildgoose Memorial Library, which they have chosen to feature as the subject of a short film they are making as part of a project about "hidden" London.

In the new year:

Jane Wildgoose's chapter entitled "Collecting Human Skulls and Hair: In Pursuit of Wonder in Death's Chambers" will be published by Routledge in Wonder in Contemporary Artistic Practice (Christian Mieves & Irene Brown, ed.) in January 2017.

On 1st February 2017 Jane Wildgoose's "strand" about Lord Nelson and the Strand is published on the Strandlines website produced by the Centre for Life-Writing Research at King's College London.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2016

Jane Wildgoose is delighted to be appointed Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Life Writing Research at King's College London.

Jane Wildgoose's article entitled "Ways of Making with Human Hair and Knowing How to 'Listen' to the Dead" is published in the current issue of West 86th, the Bard Graduate Center Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History & Material Culture published by University of Chicago Press (Volume 23, Number 1, Spring-Summer 2016, 79-101).

Jane is grateful to guest editor Pamela H. Smith for inviting her to contribute to this special issue on new directions in ways of making and knowing,which follows on from the publication of Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge (Pamela H. Smith, Amy R. W. Meyers and Harold J. Cook, 2014) in which Jane's work is cited by Mary M. Brooks in her chapter, "Decay, Conservation, and the Making of Meaning" (382, 390).

In her introduction to West 86th, Pamela Smith says of Jane's article, "For historians, the affective life of human beings is among the most difficult of historical phenomena to reconstruct from documents, and it is the power of Wildgoose's insight as a maker that reveals how a view into this hidden life can be gained by considering not just the objects of commemoration and memory but also the affective power of engaging with the materials that go into making those objects".

On 29th April 2016 Jane Wildgoose is giving a paper entitled "Presenting Lost But Not Forgotten at the Crypt Gallery St. Pancras: Negotiating and Constructing Active Critical Conversation Concerning Contested Human Remains in Museums" at In This Place, Cumulus Conference 2016, in the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University.

Jane Wildgoose will be welcoming Caroline Bellios, Assistant Director of the Fashion Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Bess Williamson, Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory & Criticism and a group of students taking Study Abroad/Off-Campus London & Paris: Fashion & Design in June 2016, when The Wildgoose Memorial Library is one of the featured 'highlights' of the research trip along with the V&A and the William Morris & Kelmscott Press collections.

On 2nd August 2016 Jane Wildgoose is making an appearance in her Jack in the Green costume at Christie's late viewing of The Ballad of British Folklore in South Kensington when Henry Bourne will be signing copies of Arcadia Britannica: A Modern British Folklore Portrait. The exhibition, which features the work of the Museum of British Folklore, runs at Christie's from 25 July - 1 September 2016.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2015 - Spring 2016

At the invitation of Dr Duncan Grewcock, Jane Wildgoose is working with students on the MA Museum and Heritage Management course as Visiting Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University during 2015-16.

Jane Wildgoose will be giving a talk about her work to MA Visual Arts students at Camberwell College of Arts/University of the Arts London in January 2016.

Blanche Girouard's interview with Jane Wildgoose, 'I made a coffin for a strand of Lord Nelson's hair' is published in First Person in the 6/7 February 2016 edition of the FT Weekend Magazine.

On 3 March 2016 Jane Wildgoose will be speaking at Bronze, silver and hair: an evening of discussion at Senate House Library. The event coincides with Not With Words But With Things: objects and their meaning in an academic library, an exhibition showcasing some of the remarkable objects that have found their way into the Library 'to support teaching, to record the history of the University of London, to honour their original owners or simply as curiosities'. Jane will be considering 'a generous hair sample, seemingly of William Cobbett'; she will be in the company of Dr. Ruth Richardson, who will muse on 'a silver teaspoon belonging to Charles Dickens's companion Ellen Ternan', and Professor Elizabeth Valentine who will discuss 'a Carpenter medal awarded by the University of London to Nellie Carey'.

Jane Wildgoose will be in conversation with Sacha Golob discussing some of the central themes of her work, including ideas of memory, narrative and imagination, in a Philosophy and the Visual Arts Salon organised by The Culture Capital Exchange at Somerset House on 9 March 2016.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2015

At the end of August 2015 Jane Wildgoose successfully defended her PhD thesis, 'Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables & Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library; an artist's response to the DCMS Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums (2005)' in the School of Art & Design History at Kingston University - passing her viva, with no revisions, to become Dr. Wildgoose. Her Examiners were Christine Borland, Baltic Professor, Department of Arts, Northumbria University and Fran Lloyd, Professor of Art History, Associate Dean for Research & Enterprise in the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University. Jane is grateful to Dr. Duncan Grewcock, her Director of Studies, for his unfailing support and advice throughout the course of her doctoral studies, and to Professor Charles Rice, her second Supervisor, for his guidance and feedback.

On 9 September 2015 Jane Wildgoose will give a guided tour of her installation, Beyond All Price at Waddesdon Manor. The exhibition is on view until 25 October 2015.

Ruth Richardson's review of the installation Beyond All Price, entitled "Evelina's Legacy", is published in The Lancet on 17 October 2015.

The wreath entitled Lost But Not Forgotten (which Jane Wildgoose devised and made for her exhibition at the Crypt Gallery in September 2014) will be exhibited as part of the exhibition (Difficult) Women at the Norman Rae Gallery at York University, curated by Arlene Leis, from 23 November - 7 December 2015, accompanying the Difficult Women 1680-1830 conference at the University on 27-28 November 2015.

Arlene Leis's article "Jane Wildgoose: Material Culture and Self-Representation in 18th and 19th century England", which includes reviews of Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & the Order of Things at Yale Center for British Art (2009-10) and Beyond All Price at Waddesdon Manor (2015) appears in Garageland #19: "Self", published on 20 December 2015.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2015

At the beginning of June 2015 Arcadia Britannica: A Modern British Folklore Portrait of events and rituals celebrated annually in honour of the changing seasons in the UK, from photographer Henry Bourne and Director of the Museum of British Folklore Simon Costin, is published by Thames & Hudson. Jane Wildgoose is thrilled with Henry's photographs of her 'swarming with flowers', as she appears every year at Jack in the Green in Hastings, and to find them featured in publicity for the book in the pages of the New York Times and The Guardian.

The wreath entitled Lost But Not Forgotten will be exhibited as part of the exhibition Research Practices in Art and Design curated by Robert Knifton and Benjamin Angwin at the Platform Gallery, Knights Park Campus, Kingston University from 12-19 June 2015.

Jane Wildgoose will present a paper at the Aftermath: The Cultural Legacies of World War I conference at King's College London (part of an ongoing collaboration between King's College London and the University of North Carolina) on 21 May 2015 in a panel chaired by Bill Balthrup; she will herself chair a panel at the conference with speakers Eileen Chanin, Steven Wright and Carolyn Malone on 23 May 2015.

In July Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker at The National Trust and Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Collections) Annual Conference "Something Rich and Strange": Cabinets of Curiosity in the English Country House at Waddesdon Manor, where she will present a paper about her installation Beyond All Price, which was commissioned by Waddesdon Manor and is on view there until 25 October 2015.

Jane Wildgoose's photographs of Amanda Schiff's boxed assemblages accompanying the book Hermaion: Happy Accident, Lucky Find are on exhibition with the boxes, by appointment, from 3 July - 28 August 2015 at 11 Spitalfields, 11 Princelet Street London E1 6QH.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2014 - Spring 2015

As 2014 ended Jane Wildgoose and Roelof Bakker were delighted that Strong Room (Negative Press, 2014) - the artists' book in which Jane's essay "A Visit to the Archives" appears with Roelof photographs - was presented by KALEID in the USA, where it was purchased for the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven Connecticut, the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York, and the Brooklyn Museum.

2015 begins with Jane Wildgoose being an invited speaker at the Curiosity 2.0: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Contemporary Art conference, which accompanies Mark Dion's exhibition The Academy of Things, at the Art Academy in Dresden on 16 - 17 January 2015, where she will present a paper entitled "In Pursuit of Curiosity and Wonder in Death's Chambers".

In February 2015 Jane is an invited speaker at a workshop that brings together medical and art students at the Slade School of Fine Art, and the UCL pathology collection at the Royal Free Hospital, led by artists Deborah Padfield and Donal Moloney, and pathologist Alan Bates, entitled Pain, Personhood & Pathology: identity & its representation in life and death.

Jane Wildgoose's installation Beyond All Price opens at Waddesdon Manor on 25th March 2015 and will be on display to the public there until 25th October 2015.

As part of her collaboration with Waddesdon (National Trust/Rothschild Collections), during January 2015 Jane will be leading a series of workshops with volunteers at Waddesdon Manor, teaching them some of the hair working techniques she learnt from Leila Cohoon at Leila's Hair Museum in the USA in 2013. Together Jane and the volunteers will make hairwork components, which will be incorporated in a new artwork Jane is devising for the installation - which centres on archival and collections material including a lock of hair and a photograph of Evelina de Rothschild (1839-1866), the wife of Ferdinand de Rothschild (1838-1898) who built Waddesdon Manor.

Jane Wildgoose has accepted an invitation to speak at a Scholars Morning and Study Day at Tate Britain accompanying the exhibition Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837-1901 in April 2015.

The wreath entitled Lost But Not Forgotten (which Jane Wildgoose devised and made for her exhibition at the Crypt Gallery in September 2014) has been selected for inclusion in the exhibition Trauma, Loss, Grief: the art of bereavement at the Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts Farnham from 12 - 30 May 2015.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2014

Over the weekend of 20th - 21st September 2014 The Wildgoose Memorial Library presents a new archive entitled Passing Fables & Comparative Readings: Collecting & Interpreting Human Skulls & Hair in Late 19th Century London at the Crypt Gallery St Pancras London NW1. The Passing Fables & Comparative Readings Archive is the product of three years' practice-based PhD research at Kingston University by the WML's Keeper, Jane Wildgoose, who was awarded a full-time PhD studentship by the University in 2011.

Strong Room, the artist's book collaboration published by Negative Press in January 2014, featuring the photographs of Roelof Bakker and an essay by Jane Wildgoose, will be presented by Kaleid Editions at the London Art Book Fair 2014 at the Whitechapel Gallery from 26 - 28 September 2014.

Looking forward to next year: Jane Wildgoose will be exhibiting Beyond All Price at Waddesdon Manor from 25 March - 25 October 2015 as part of the Contemporary at Waddesdon programme. Beyond All Price will centre on a photograph of Evelina de Rothschild (1839-1866), which is cut as though to fit within a locket and accompanied by a small lock of hair tied with cotton. Bringing together archival material from Waddesdon, mourning jewellery from public and private collections, and print material, the little relics of Evelina will be complemented by new works by Jane using hair as an enduring symbol of loss and mourning, memory and bequest.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring - Summer 2014

Strong Room - an artist's book collaboration published by Negative Press in January 2014, featuring the photographs of Roelof Bakker and an essay by Jane Wildgoose - has been going from strength to strength. It will be the subject of a talk by Jane Wildgoose and Roelof Bakker at Hornsey Library, London N8, on the evening of 7th May 2014 as part of Crouch End Open Studios. Jane Wildgoose has been invited to read from her essay 'A Visit to the Archives', from Strong Room, at the Materials Text Network symposium Perversions of Paper in the Keynes Library in the School of Arts at Birkbeck College London on 28th June 2014.

Strong Room has received some fabulous reviews: from Dennis Duncan for the Material Texts Network at Birkbeck College, and from Eleanor Hemsley for Sabotage. Strong Room has been selected to travel to the F Book Show at 72 Gallery in Tokyo, from 26 March - 13 April 2014, and selected for inclusion in the curated exhibition of artists' books at KALEID 2014 London on Saturday 19th July 2014. Strong Room is on sale at the Tate Modern bookshop, the Photographers Gallery, and Foyles in London, as well as online from Negative Press.

The shellflower made by Jane Wildgoose and presented like a relic in a glass box, which was purchased by the Paul Mellon Collection in 2012 in memory of Charles Ryskamp (1928-2010), is on show from 15 May - 10 August 2014 at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven CT USA in Of Green Leaf, Bird and Flower - an exhibition curated by Elisabeth Fairman, who was organising curator for Jane's exhibition Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & the Order of Things at the Center in 2009.

On 21st May 2014 Jane Wildgoose is an invited speaker in a panel debate entitled Over My Dead Body: The Ethics of Displaying Corpses at the Life Science Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne. The event is chaired by Simon Woods, Co-Director of the Policy Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre, Newcastle University.

On 19th June 2014 Jane Wildgoose is a guest on Juliette Kristensen's Paperweight programme on Resonance 104.4fm, the arts radio project broadcasting to the South Bank and Bankside London. In a live programme broadcast at 3.30pm and archived online, Jane will be talking about The Wildgoose Memorial Library and Collecting with fellow guests Jenny Doussan, who will discuss her work as Curator of the Art and Textile Collections at Goldsmiths College, Leonie Hannan and Kate Smith from UCL's Hundred Hours project, and Zoe Hendon, Head of Museum Collections at the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture.

Jane Wildgoose is eagerly anticipating welcoming Caroline Bellios, Assistant Director of the Fashion Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the group of students taking the Designing London: Fashion, Objects, Culture, and the meaning of "Britishness" research trip to London during June - when The Wildgoose Memorial Library is proud to be featured as one of a host of 'repositories of British' on the itinerary, alongside the Soane Museum, the Wellcome Collection, and Highgate Cemetery.

Meanwhile, Jane Wildgoose is continuing her practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library at Kingston University, where she was awarded a studentship in 2011.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2013 - Spring 2014

Jane Wildgoose is delighted to announce the publication, in January 2014, of Strong Room by Negative Press. An artist's book, Strong Room includes twenty-eight photographs by Roelof Bakker revealing traces of past human activity in a vacated municipal building, together with his accompanying essay which explores the loss of tangible experience and physical presence in an increasingly digital world. Strong Room also includes a specially commissioned essay from Jane Wildgoose entitled 'A Visit to the Archives', which focuses on the historical and academic importance of a paper-based archive, and the potential of its material qualities to prompt the imagination and evoke memories.

Roelof Bakker and Jane Wildgoose will be speaking about their collaboration, and reading from Strong Room, at a Writers' Guild of Great Britain Off the Shelf event Short Story and the Image at Black's in Soho on 13th January 2014.

At the end of January 2014 Jane Wildgoose has been invited to speak about her practice, and her current practice-based research at Kingston University, to MA students at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London.

In February 2014, at the invitation of her Director of Studies Dr Duncan Grewcock, Jane Wildgoose will be giving a presentation to MA Museum & Gallery Studies, and Heritage (Contemporary Practice) students at Kingston University: in which she will be contextualising her practice-based PhD project Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library with reflections on her former career as a Costume Designer for film, theatre and performance; her practice as an artist collaborating with museums and collections, and with BBC Radio, and her ongoing role as Keeper of The Wildgoose Memorial Library.

In March 2014 Jane Wildgoose has been invited by Imperial College to give a presentation as a Visiting Lecturer on the role of art in death and mourning to fourth year students of Medical Science/Biomedical Science, and Death, Autopsy and the Law.

Meanwhile, Jane Wildgoose is continuing her practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library at Kingston University, where she was awarded a studentship in 2011.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn - Winter 2013

The Autumn Equinox 2013 heralds the 10th Anniversary Opening of The Wildgoose Memorial Library, when Readers old and new are invited to celebrate this landmark event together at the WML. Music will be provided by The Men From Tomorrow - Maurice Horhut (piano) and Yusuf B'layachi (guitar and lute) - joined by Rory Sorrell (guitar and mandolin), and singers Elli Petrohilos and Sabine Maurer, all of whom bring unique personal perspectives to improvising on the blues, jazz standards, rock and roll, and beyond, with Maurice providing his much acclaimed "trademark" boogie-woogie.

In October 2013 Jane Wildgoose has been invited to the University of Chichester as a Visiting Lecturer where she will be presenting an artist's talk to students and staff, giving one to one tutorials to Fine Art students, and leading a postgraduate seminar at the end of the day.

For two weeks in November 2013 Jane Wildgoose is embarking on a long anticipated research trip to the USA, when she will be visiting Leila's Hair Museum in Independence, Missouri - where she will be learning hair working techniques from Leila Cohoon, and researching Leila's extraordinary, extensive collection of jewellery and other artefacts made from human hair. Jane Wildgoose is grateful to the Rothschild Foundation, Waddesdon Manor, for providing financial support for her trip to Leila's Hair Museum.

During her visit to the USA Jane Wildgoose is also taking up an invitation as a Visiting Artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from Dean of Graduate Studies Rebecca Duclos, and Caroline Bellios, Assistant Director of the Fashion Resource Center and Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Fashion Design. As a Visiting Artist, Jane is scheduled to present talks to a Critical Studies seminar class, and in the Fashion Resource Center at SAIC; she will also be giving one to one tutorials to Fashion students. As Rebecca Duclos's guest, she has been invited as first discussant of the new academic year to reflect on the making of On One Lost Hair - and the role that remains, ritual and narrative may play in responding to death, grief and mourning - at the Dean's 'Salon' seminar series for postgraduate students from across the School.

At the end of November 2013 Jane Wildgoose will be speaking about her practice-based PhD project entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library, and her research trip to the USA, at a seminar themed on 'Design and Creative Practice as Research' for MA Design students at Kingston University, with fellow PhD researcher Shaza Sabbagh, who will be talking about her practice-based research as a jewellery designer.

Jane Wildgoose will also be giving a presentation about her PhD project at the beginning of December 2013, at the Research Student Conference at Kingston University, where she was awarded a studentship in 2011.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring-Summer 2013

Katy Barrett's report on Jane Wildgoose and Mary Brooks's seminar Re-materialising Things at Cambridge University, in February, has been posted on the Things - A CRASSH Seminar Series 2011-13 blog.

Jane Wildgoose will be speaking at Kingston University on 1st May, in a seminar entitled Cutting: On the Fabric of the Human Body hosted by fellow doctoral student Ninela Ivanova - with Rhian Solomon, Visual Artist and Director of SKINship; and Amy Congdon, PhD Researcher at Textile Futures Research Centre. The seminar is one of four entitled Craftsmanship Reconsidered: framing, coding, cutting and unveiling, co-produced with Ninela Ivanova, Portia Ungley, Shaza Sabbagh and Karima Al-Shomely, as part of the series Colloquium: Conversations in Theory and Practice,

On 13th May Jane Wildgoose will be speaking at the Curious Exchange Seminar at Dulwich Library, chaired by Jane Millar.

Jane Wildgoose has been invited to be Keynote Speaker at the Working Wonder conference on 14th June in the Fine Art Dept. at Newcastle University.

Meanwhile, Jane is continuing her practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library at Kingston University, where she was awarded a studentship in 2011.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2012 - Spring 2013

During January-February 2013 Jane Wildgoose and fellow doctoral students, Alexandra Reynolds, Annalisa Sonzogni and Eliza Tan, are co-producing four seminars entitled Curatorial Bodies: Role, Space, Discipline and Public in Contemporary Practice at Kingston University - the first part of a seminar series Colloquium: Conversations in Theory and Practice, which will continue through to May 2013.

On 16th January Jane will lead the first of the seminars: Managing, Mediating, Musing: Reflections on Historical Collecting and Contemporary Practice, at Kingston University's Stanley Picker Gallery, in conversation with Jerzy Kierkuc-Bielinski, Exhibitions Curator at Sir John Soane's Museum. Jane and Jerzy will be joined by Rachel Boak, Curator at Waddesdon Manor; Harry Willis Fleming, Henry Moore Fellow 2012/13 and Founder, the Willis Fleming Historical Trust; Jane Millar, Artist and Curator of Curious at West Norwood Cemetery; and Historian and independent Curator, Ruth Richardson - whose 1988 book Death, Dissection and the Destitute is undergoing something of an after-life as inspiration for the Museum of London's current exhibition Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men.

Jane Wildgoose has been invited to speak at Cambridge University on 19th February, at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), in a seminar entitled Re-materialising Things. Jane's paper, The Duchess threatens to produce me among the antiquities, explores her commission from the Yale Center for British Art to devise a cabinet in celebration of the friendship between Mary Delany (1700-1788) and Margaret, Duchess of Portland (1715-1785), in which she focused on aspects of the material culture of the two women's lives that had either disintegrated or been dispersed. Jane is joined in a Conversation with broken things by Textile Conservator Mary Brooks, from Durham University.

During March 2013 Jane Wildgoose is giving lectures on human remains in museums to Heritage Management students at Buckingham University; and on the role of art in death and mourning, to Medical Science/Biomedical Science, and Death, Autopsy and the Law students at Imperial College.

During March 2013 Jane Wildgoose will also give a presentation about her practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library at the Modern Interiors Research Centre Post Graduate Event at Dorich House, Kingston University. Jane was awarded a studentship for her PhD research from Kingston University in 2011.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn-Winter 2012

Jane Wildgoose is indebted to long term patrons John and Barbara Furlong for their recent generous financial support which has provided comprehensive updating of the WML's IT facilities: in the form of a new computer and updated software. A very big thank you to John and Barbara for stepping in to save the digital day.

During October a group of students from UCL's History of Art Dept's new MA Inhabiting Art: Communes, Colonies, Squatting course will be making a site visit to the WML with Course Leader Petra Lange-Berndt.

At Petra Lange-Berndt's invitation Jane has contributed a posting, entitled The Doorkeeper at The Wildgoose Memorial Library: The Cat with Ten Lives to the Preserved! blog, which is related to the AHRC Research Network 'The Cultures of Preservation': in which taxidermists, artists, historians of art and science, curators, and institutions such as the Natural History Museum, the Hunterian Museum and the Grant Museum at UCL have been coming together 'to consider the hybrid nature of anatomical and zoological specimens, with regards to their aesthetics and to their cultural and political significances.'

On 22nd October Jane Wildgoose will be taking part in King's College London's Transforming the Strand: A Virtual Walking Tour in the Anatomy Theatre Museum, in her capacity as Keyholder of the Cabinet of Artists attached to the Strandlines project.

Looking forward to 2013: Jane Wildgoose has accepted an invitation from Cambridge University to speak in one of a series of paired seminars in the Research Programme entitled Things: Early Modern Material Culture at CRASSH (Centre for Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) in the new year. More information to be posted here soon, when the date and programme have been confirmed.

Meanwhile, Jane is continuing her practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library at Kingston University, where she was awarded a studentship in 2011.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring-Summer 2012

As Keyholder of the Cabinet of Artists attached to the Strandlines project at King's College London, Jane Wildgoose is presenting work at a Strandlives Day about 'Luminous and Lesser Lives on the Strand' at King's on 8th May.

On 25th May Jane Wildgoose is a speaker at the Natural History Museum Live Event Displaying the Dead accompanying the exhibition Animal Inside Out.

Jane Wildgoose is taking part in the exhibition BONE at the Florence Nightingale Museum, London, from 19th July - 31st August where one of her vanitas still-life photographs has been selected by curator Simon Gould. She has been invited to appear as a "live respondent" during the exhibition and looks forward to discussing bone with visitors, as well as loaning selected material to the exhibition from The Wildgoose Memorial Library.

Meanwhile, Jane is continuing her practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library at Kingston University, where she was awarded a studentship in 2011.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2011-Spring 2012

2012 began with a piece of Jane Wildgoose's work being accessioned into the collection at the Yale Center for British Art at the beginning of January. The work was originally commissioned by Charles Ryskamp (1928-2010), Yale PhD 1956 (formerly Director of the Pierpoint Morgan Library from 1969-1987 and Director of the Frick Collection from 1987-1997) whom Jane met in 2009 at the Center, at the opening of her installation Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & The Order of Things. The work - a single flower made from tiny shells, of the kind featured in the cabinet made to Jane's design for the installation, and presented like a relic in a glass box - was purchased for the Paul Mellon collection with a gift in Charles's memory by Mark and Adam Eaker, Yale BA 2007.

During March Jane Wildgoose is leading a workshop entitled 'Noblest Bodies are but Gilded Clay' for Medical Humanities students studying 'Death, autopsy and the law' at Imperial College; she is also contributing to Imperial College's 5th Annual Foundations of Clinical Practice Conference for undergraduate teachers in the Faculty of Medicine, speaking about the arts and mortality with a presentation entitled 'An Excess of Delicate Feeling, a Susceptibility to Painful Regret'.

Meanwhile, Jane is continuing her practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library at Kingston University, where she was awarded a studentship in 2011.

A report on the one day conference Materials of Mourning: Death, Materiality and Memory in Victorian Britain, in which Jane took part at York University in December 2011, has been posted on the conference blog. As well as giving a paper entitled 'The Dear Precious Relics & Hair', Jane was invited to show objects from The Wildgoose Memorial Library collection at a roundtable at the end of the day, and to contribute a short piece about the WML to the Materials of Mourning blog.

CURRENT EVENTS

Autumn-Winter 2011

On 24th September Jane Wildgoose joins artist Daniel Boyd at Gasworks in South London to discuss his work, in an event entitled Souvenirs from Australia which accompanies Daniel's residency at the Natural History Museum.

On 3rd December Jane Wildgoose is giving a paper entitled 'The Dear Precious Relics & Hair' at the one day symposium Materials of Mourning: Death, Materiality and Memory in Victorian Britain, at York University.

Jane Wildgoose has been awarded a studentship by Kingston University and at the beginning of October she commenced practice-based PhD research entitled Collecting and Interpreting Human Skulls and Hair in Late 19th Century London: Passing Fables and Comparative Readings at The Wildgoose Memorial Library in the School of Art & Design History, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University.

Also from the beginning of October Jane Wildgoose is co-leading the Material Thinking & Creative Practice module, MA Museum & Gallery Studies/Heritage & Contemporary Practice at Kingston University, with Course Director Dr Duncan Grewcock, in association with the National Maritime Museum.

During Autumn/Winter 2011 Jane is continuing in her role as Keyholder of the Cabinet of Artists attached to Strandlines at King's College London.

CURRENT EVENTS

Spring-Summer 2011

At the beginning of the year Jane Wildgoose accepted an invitation to become "Keyholder" of a "Cabinet of Artists" contributing to the Strandlines project at King's College London. The first strand in a multi-part project, Strandlines aims to explore lives on the Strand past, present and creative. It is a JISC funded initiative organised by the Centre for Life-Writing Research, Centre for e-Research, Department of Geography, and King's College London Archives. On 18th April Jane takes part in a special Strandlines event at King's Old Anatomy Theatre with some of her colleagues in the cabinet of artists: songwriter/musician Julie McKee, poet Ruth O'Callaghan, and artists Lucy Steggals and Luce Choules. During the summer Jane joins the Strandlines team and members of the national 'SPICE' project for workshops at King's College London on 15th June, and at the Jericho Boatyard in Oxford on 26th-27th August.

During May Jane Wildgoose has been commissioned to undertake a period of research as consultant to the Wellcome Library.

On 13th May Jane Wildgoose gives a paper at the 'Pairings: Conversations, Collaboration, Materials' conference at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her paper, Collaboration in Practice: the evolution of Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & The Order of Things, describes the process of collaboration that evolved over a two-year period of multi-disciplinary, inter-institutional collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art, the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, and the Yale University Art Gallery, resulting in the site-specific installation Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & The Order of Things, exhibited at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, USA from Sept. 2009-July 2010. Pairings: Conversations, Collaboration, Materials is 'a two-day conference that seeks to make a significant contribution to expanding knowledge on collaborative practice in craft, design and art environments, with papers and discussions focusing on: collaboration within and across disciplines; good practice of how to work between institutions and collaborate with outside partners; collaborative exhibition curation; collaborative student projects; the influence of collaborative strategies on learning and teaching practice, and collaborative manifestos.'

On 24th May Jane Wildgoose is speaking about Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & The Order of Things at a special event as part of Birkbeck College London Arts Week.

On 7th July Jane Wildgoose is a panel member at the artists' forum accompanying Deborah Padfield's exhibition Mask: Mirror: Membrane at the Menier Factory, London.

CURRENT EVENTS

Winter 2010 - Spring 2011

Life is Very Sweet, Jane Wildgoose's commission as a selected maker for Museumaker, at The Harley Gallery, Welbeck, Worksop, Notts, continues until Spring 2011.
Jane will be giving a talk about the work in the gallery on 19th March 2011.
Museumaker is a national programme to enable museums to work with leading contemporary makers and designers, supported by the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), Renaissance in the Regions, and Arts Council England.
www.harleygallery.co.uk
www.museumaker.com

As an invited contributor to 'Inspired by Soane' at Sir John Soane's Museum, London, one of Jane Wildgoose's photographs of her installation 'Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & The Order of Things' at the Museum is one of 200 donated 'art cards' to be sold anonymously in a ballot drawn at the Banqueting House on 7th October 2010, in aid of the Museum's 'Opening up the Soane' project.
Inspired by Soane

Jane Wildgoose joins a panel discussion about the Great War and Memory at King's College, London, on 27th October 2010, together with Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Dr Lawrence Napper, Rozanne Hawksley, and Harry Willis Fleming, as part of King's College's Arts & Humanities Week.
King's College's Arts & Humanities Week

The Wildgoose Memorial Library takes up temporary residence, in association with A Plan Projects, at Copped Hall in Epping Forest on 15th December 2010 - where visitors may discover more about the Library's singular history, and plans for its future development. As part of the project Jane is also working with Sabine Maurer, whose work as a florist she has been documenting for many years thebouquetcompany.com to devise an "immortelle" of living and fabricated flowers, in the cellars of Copped Hall - an enduringly beautiful 18thc century mansion which is currently undergoing restoration following decades of dereliction.
aplanprojects.com

Jane Wildgoose has accepted an invitation to be keynote speaker at the University of the Creative Arts' Student Research Conference for Mphil/PhD students, themed on 'Concept and context in practice', at the University of the Creative Arts, Farnham, on 16th March 2011.
Concept and Context in Practice conference