Oxfam Wunderkammer (College Project)

In the recent months I have started at a new college studying Art & Design. For the last few weeks, as a class, we have been working on our first live brief and public exhibition, situated in the Norwich branch of the Oxfam shop. I think that producing a work for public displays demands a different thought process and level of professionalism of the work as an idea has to be conveyed to the audience. This included writing my first artist statement to accompany the product. I found this quite a daunting experience, especially as I had little to write about in terms of processes involved in the making. 

The groups’ work had a shared theme of the 16th Century Wunderkammer, or Cabinet of Curiosities as it is better known, as each piece had to be something that could have appeared in such a collection. The original Wunderkammer was an opportunity for the wealthy and well-travelled demographic to show off their worldly finds. The items featured were, at the time, items which would now be labelled as; natural history, archaeology, geology and historic or religious relics. More likely than not and “cabinet” was a room often filled from floor to ceiling with exotic items.

Two notable examples of the Wunderkammer belonged to Ferdinand II Archduke of Austria, born 1529 whose collection is still largely intact in Ambras Castle, Austria, and Ole Worm (not pronounced old worm like ‘at the bottom of your garden’) who collected objects in two categories. The first being natural history such as shells, tusks and horns, the second being items which are wondrously small, wondrously old or of wondrously fine quality.

The Oxfam Bookshop, where we were displaying the work, gave us an additional challenge. Not only did we have to create objects which would feature in the Wunderkammer but it also had to be made from music score which was in an unsaleable condition. We had to re-model it so that it could be profitable to the charity. 

I decided that my contribution to our display would be a series of miniature paper dresses based in the era of Henry VIII, the same period as the creation of the Wunderkammer. In total I made 6 dresses, one representing each wife. I intended to differ each dress slightly in order to display the characteristics for each wife. For example a series of hearts and symbolic designs related to love would illustrate the grown of Catherine of Aragon, the wife Henry is said to have truly loved. However due to technical restrictions I was unable to put these additions on the garments. The characters became signified by the colour painted upon the dress. Therefore Catherine of Aragon’s dress was painted red.




Overall I think that the entire “cabinet” of work was aesthetically please because all of them were constructed from the same materials yet there was a grange in individual ideas. I feel that my own work could have been improved if there was no size restriction to the piece; the base size was limited to one sheet of A4. I would have liked to of positioned in a long line, as if to appear as a timeline.


ALL THE ABOVE IMAGES ARE MY OWN