The Wildgoose Memorial Library holds all things curious and reflective of life and death
Ever felt the urge to get lost, or wake up in an unfamiliar place which nevertheless prompts wisps of remembrance? Artist, writer and consultant Dr. Jane Wildgoose has created a place that suits these requirements.
Constantly in progress, this enormous work of art is detailed with curiosities. Accumulating anything that has the capacity to resound with the viewers’ imagination, regardless of how vast, the library is hard to ignore. “I’ve been collecting since I was a child, when I used to go beach-combing in Sussex where I grew up by the sea.”, Jane says.
Jane adds, “My collection is dedicated to memory and remembrance, and to the artist/craftsperson’s role in producing the material culture of death and mourning- early in my career when I was a costume designer.” One of her first sparks of interests in the theme of death happened to be the elaborate mourning costume, trending in the 19th century.
Miss Havisham in Dickens’s Great Expectations became one of her earliest muses; looking like a skeleton that had been dug out of a grave but still wearing “the ashes of a rich dress”. Jane began sketching a series inspired by Miss Havisham; her interest to study graves, the history of cemeteries and the display of human remains (what Jane refers to as the art of death) peaking.
However, Jane’s favourite piece happens to be a picture frame made from wrought iron by her great grandfather with a photo of him on one side and of his wife on the other, which was left to her by her father.
Handcrafted wrought iron frame made by Jane Wildgoose’s great grandfather. The Wildgoose Memorial Library © Jane Wildgoose
She also wrote and designed a medical/musical performance based on a piece of Baroque music that details the process of surgery to remove stones from the body. Her gauge of the past has found an understanding in our present, by appealing to our senses and imagination; but not without a firm base in research and thorough knowledge.
Entrance to the library. The Wildgoose Memorial Library © Jane Wildgoose
As a keeper of the library, a position she earned after the NESTA Fellowship, Jane oversees a constantly evolving Memory Theatre: evocative documents, photographs and books that play a key role in her practice. Apart from the library, she works to commission with high-end galleries and museums across the UK and USA, such as Yale University’s collections of natural history and decorative arts, and the Portland Collection.
In 2003 Jane co-devised a broadcast for BBC Radio 4’s documentary, On One Lost Hair: a discussion on a strand of hair from first Viscount Horatio Nelson’s head bought on eBay. This became the initial stage of the collection as a library, and its naming.
Jane balanced her professional background in design, theatre and film, and her research skills developed during her doctoral research in the School of Art & Design History. She describes herself now as an artist and art historian who works with the history of collecting.
The Wildgoose Memorial Library continues to be an oddment of a place so full of things that soothe all kinds of curiosity and accompanies all sorts of imagination and literary knowledge that it would truly be a shame to miss out on.
Where: The Wildgoose Memorial Library is a private library that can be accessed by contacting them through e-mail on wildgoose@janewildgoose.co.uk. For more information, visit their website: www.janewildgoose.co.uk
