Quilts at the V&A

When were you thinking of?

Lizzy

Meanwhile...

From the blurb : The V & A are intending to place in long-term storage its collection : of historic musical instruments, which is unparalleled in the UK. The : reason for this destruction, given by a V & A spokesman, is so that : "the gallery can be redesigned to show the fashion collections." Musical : instruments have been part of the collection since its inception in : 1851: the museum has received adverse comment on this plan from curators : worldwide. The removal is to take place in Spring 2010, and is a : short-term decision which will have long-term negative results for : scholars and music lovers alike.

The only reason I have ever wanted to go to the V&A was to see its musical instruments collection. So we tried when were in London last (we only get there every few years). The collection was closed - they were only opening it a couple of days a month. So we looked at their modern design collection, which is okay but no better than we could see in Scotland and nowhere near in the same league as the art deco collection in Brno, and a whole of crap furniture which mainly serves to show that the British aristocracy have had appalling taste for 500 years.

And now they want to get rid of the most important collection they have simply because it doesn't fit the interests of its braindead trend-obsessed director.

The instrument collection SHOULD be taken out of there. And so should the money allocated to look after it. Hand it over to an institution with a clue and a sense of responsibility; cut the V&A's funding, fire an appropriate proportion of their staff, and use the value of their salaries to hire some new curators to look after the stuff properly, elsewhere.

We were in Barcelona recently - the Museu de Musica there is a model of what a musical instrument museum should be, incomparably better than anything in the UK. It might not be a bad move to simply shift the whole collection to Catalonia. Given the V&A's priorities, they'd probably regard a vanload of used Spanish knickers as a fair swap.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- e m a i l : j a c k @ c a m p i n . m e . u k Jack Campin, 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland mobile 07800 739 557 Twitter: JackCampin

Mark saw this and is trying to figure out if we can make it down there before the exhibition is over. Tristan's first taste of quilting, so to speak... well, other than getting used to the sound of the sewing machine while he was "on the inside". It made him kick! (So did the mixer).

-- Jo in Scotland

Hi Jo,

Glad to see you are back online!! They're never too young to start going to quilt exhibitions....

Fantastic looking exhibition, to awkward for me to visit, but lovely to see the BBC slide show.

Janner

France

James is away in Spain next week, so maybe then?

Next week is doable for me - DH can cope with the boys :-) Earlier in the week would suit me better, how about you?

Lizzy

The BIG quilt exhibition started on the 20th March! I have my ticket already.

Pity they can't find room for the musical instruments though.

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

Roberta wrote:

Monday? I have a customer to see Tuesday amd may need to go back north later in the week.

Monday is fine for me, and now that it should take a smidge over 2 hours from Manchester to London a day trip is feasible. Let's go to email for fine tuning the details.

Lizzy

You have mail! :)