Jump to content

New Exhibition Opening


Recommended Posts

Peckham Platform has a new exhibition opening this Friday, 7th August. It would be great if you could include the exhibition in your art listings. Please see information below about our preview, the exhibition itself and attached promotional image.


Public preview:


Cuming: A Natural Selection

Opening: 7 Aug 2015, 6pm - 8.30pm


In ?Cuming: A Natural Selection? artist Janetka Platun has responded to the fire which devastated Southwark?s Cuming Museum in March 2013.


About

In March 2013, a fire devastated Southwark?s Cuming Museum, a building in Elephant and Castle holding one of London?s most eclectic collections. This summer, Peckham Platform has collaborated with artist Janetka Platun to stage an installation inspired by the fire and the museum?s collection and to work with community groups in an exploration of loss and survival.


The museum cares for the worldwide collection of the Cuming family, who lived locally from the late 1700s until 1902. They collected widely from archaeology, ethnography, art and natural history and in 1902 around 20,000 objects were bequeathed to the local parish and a museum opened in the Newington Library building on Walworth Road in 1906. In 2006 it celebrated its centenary and opened new galleries in the adjacent building, Walworth Town Hall.


Cuming: A Natural Selection has arisen from workshops held by Platun with three local groups ? families at Peckham Library, a young women?s art group at Camberwell Leisure Centre and a woman?s art group run by Inspire, at St Peter?s Church off the Walworth Road. Each participant was asked to write a short description of an object they had lost but without naming the item. The text was then read out and the group invited to draw what they thought the object was, creating multiple versions, which will be displayed at the gallery.


Platun?s fascination lies in the fact that the Cuming family were not interested in purchasing objects considered fashionable or expensive at the time. Rather they purposely purchased fakes, everyday and ephemeral objects from around the world. The collection includes some of the earliest relics of ancient Egypt brought into Britain, along with objects from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania.


Platun?s project has been an opportunity for the museum?s team and audiences to reflect on the fire, the museum?s collection and provide personal responses to loss. The project is inspired by the objects that were rescued, the objects that miraculously survived and the artifacts that were destroyed. One such lost piece is a figurine of St. Anne, the patron saint of lost objects and those who search for them.


Only one image of the figurine exists, taken from the front; there is no record of what she looked like from the back. Using 3D printing, a relief of St. Anne has been recreated and Platun has hand carved an imaginary back representing each lost object the group creatively responded to.


Hashtag: #ANaturalSelection

Link to comment
https://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/topic/69251-new-exhibition-opening/
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Latest Discussions

    • It’s about chains, and the ethos of family run business versus unhealthy competition 
    • 'Tom Lehrer, acclaimed musical satirist of cold war era, dies aged 97' https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/28/tom-lehrer-dies-aged-97-dead-musical-satirist  
    • But all those examples sell a wide variety of things,  and mostly they are well spread out along Lordship Lane. These two shops both sell one very specific thing, albeit in different flavours, and are just across the road from each other. I don't think you can compare the distribution of shops in Roman times to the distribution of shops in Lordship Lane in the twenty first century. Well, you can, but it doesn't feel very appropriate. Haa anybody asked the first shop how they feel? Are they happy about the "healthy competition" ?
    • ED is included in the 17 August closure set (or just possibly 15 August, depending on which part of the page you trust more) listed at https://metro.co.uk/2025/07/25/full-list-25-poundland-stores-confirmed-close-august-23753048/. Here incidentally are some snippets from their annual reports, at https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02495645/filing-history. 2022: " during the period we opened 41 stores and closed 43 loss-making/under-performing stores.  At the period-end we were trading from 821 stores in the UK, IoM and ROI. ... "We renogotiated 82 leases in the year, saving on average 45% versus the prior lease agreement..." 2023: "We also continued to improve our market footprint through sourcing better store locations, opening 53 and closing 51 stores during the year." 2024:  "The ex-Wilco stores acquired in the prior year have formed a core part of this strategy to expand our store network.  We favour quality over quantity and during the period we opened 84 stores and closed 71 loss-making/under-performing ones."
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...