A Concise Dictionary of Fashion; Judith Clarke & Adam Philips

Visited 2/05/2010
http://www.artangel.org.uk//projects/2010/the_concise_dictionary_of_dress/about_the_project/the_concise_dictionary_of_dress

Went to see this fantastic installation at the weekend. Set within Blythe House, previously home to the post office savings bank, now the repository for the V & A archive. This is an hour long exploration of the building and its contents punctuated by a series of curatorial and psychoanalytical responses to the fashion collection.  These are presented in the form of site specific installations accompanied by definitions that provoke an idiosyncratic interpretation of the clothing in terms of 'anxiety, wish and desire'. The guide is not allowed to answer questions about interpretation but can assist with information about materials and practical matters concerning the conservation areas and stores that we pass through. Personal response and interpretation are everything and each visitor to the piece will notice a different set of details. The building is vast; a labyrinth of alarmed corridors on I can't remember how many floors. A warren of staircases, cavernous rooms containing racks, glass fronted cupboards, cabinets and rolls and rolls of textiles wrapped up in conservation white. You catch a glimpse of objects partially obscured by the glare of light on glass and have to pop back momentarily to confirm what you have seen. A spinning wheel, an Islamic vessel, the edge of, what looked like, a stunningly ornate Grinling Gibbons mirror. Stacks, rows, objects propped up against walls and the orderly labels, the labelling and organising of a vast collection of 'things', mostly hand written, some crossed out and updated. Instructions to staff... 'Do not  put anything on this surface or use it for rolling' and there are staff there on a Sunday, waiting patiently for us to move on so they can resume their work carefully shifting artifacts on a trolley. We start at the top of the building, on the roof with panoramic views over London and finish in the basement. I notice strange and seemingly unimportant things; three plastic bin liners of rubbish in a corridor, the surface of a wall, a piece of disused machinery, the thing about an 'Experience' like this is that you are always questioning what parts of the environment are manufactured?

The 'interventions' are whimsical, provocative, amusing, evocative, playful and challenging.