Opening the Cabinet of Curiosities

The Cabinet of Curiosities (or Wunderkammer) has been widely studied by historians of collecting, systems of organisation and art/nature relations, and has often been seen as a chapter in the prehistory of the modern museum. The aim of 'Opening the Cabinet of Curiosities' is to work across disciplines and methods together with curators, scholars and artists in order to re-examine the 19th-century reception of the Renaissance Wunderkammer as well as its contemporary expressions.

Dr Hannah Young has sought to uncover the links between British slave-ownership and the development of the V&A. Absentee slave-owners used their wealth, rooted in the exploitation of enslaved people, to invest in collections that are now found throughout the Museum.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley, VARI Artist in Residence, has created a series of five short films and poems that unearth the names, lives and experiences of individuals whose enslavement is ineffably tied to objects held in the museum’s collections. She explores how this history has (and has not) been remembered, and how its legacies continue to shape the world today.

Find out more about Opening the Cabinet of Curiosities: https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/opening-th...