Allusion is made to the Victoria and Albert Museum as an ‘encyclopaedia of treasures’; like encyclopaedias, content and presentation reflect governing ideologies and hierarchies of taste, demonstrating the way in which society and perception change over time. The Art Nouveau chairs refer to the donation of thirty eight seminal pieces from the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, reviled at the time by critics and ‘banished’ to the Bethnal Green Museum. The 1934 encyclopaedia is open at a page on Interior Design which uses prescriptive language in its’ values of taste: exhorting the reader to remove their 'ugly old Victorian fireplaces'.
Produced for the exhibition 'In Context', a response to the Museums collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
