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'Bodies of Knowledge Volume V; Arbiters of Taste
1938 encyclopaedia, wooden hoops, printed silk crepeline, wadding, pins.
34 x 84 x 5cms Collection of Victoria and Albert Museum. 
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Allusion is made to the Victoria and Albert Museum as an ‘encyclopaedia of treasures’. Like encyclopaedias, the content and presentation reflect governing ideologies and hierarchies of taste, and demonstrate the way society and perceptions 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 they were ‘banished’ to the Bethnal Green Museum. The encyclopaedia is open at a page on Interior Design exhorting the reader to remove their 'ugly old Victorian fireplaces'.
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