ETERNALLY YOURS: CARE, REPAIR AND HEALING
Image: Image courtesy of TOAST
This summer, Somerset House presents Eternally Yours, a free exhibition exploring ideas around care, repair and healing. Staged across the three Terrace Rooms, Eternally Yours showcases diverse examples of creative reuse, from historical artefacts that embraced upcycling and repurposing, to recent work from leading artists and designers that have repair at the heart of their practice. This timely exhibition invites visitors to appreciate the worn and aged, uncovering the history and emotional value of the items we hold on to, rather than discard. It takes the idea of ‘repair’ as a philosophy and a provocation, inviting us to reconsider our way of life and relationship to the planet, and everything that surrounds us.
Image: Molly Martin will demonstrate traditional Japanese embroidery as part of Eternally Yours. Image courtesy of Roo Lewis
Eternally Yours unpacks how ‘repair’ can guide both our individual and collective healing through revealing unexpectedly hopeful - and helpful- stories of repair and reuse. The exhibition is very timely for both people and the planet, as we face the dual dislocating experiences of a global pandemic and climate crisis. Contributing to a growing awareness that disposable products are damaging the world around us, people are increasingly looking for more sustainable ways of living. With the new ‘right to repair’ legislation implemented by the UK government in summer 2021, this exhibition asks what this might mean for the design and maintenance of our possessions. Furthermore, the show gives visitors a chance to consider the sense of calm and comfort they find in the objects they treasure at the most uncertain of times. Moving beyond the monetary value of objects to explore their emotional meaning, Eternally Yours seeks to spotlight the worth in the seemingly worthless.
Image: Hope’s Sweater, 1951, moth eaten sweater and darning, 30 x 40 x 3cm, 2011. Image courtesy of Celia Pym
Highlights include, engaging works by artists and designers, a series of artist-led workshops and free mending consultations led by lifestyle brand TOAST and ‘The Beasley Brothers’ Repair Shop', a pop-up created by designer Carl Clerkin and modelled on traditional East End repair shops of old, hosts live workshops and demonstrations from artists and designers including Peter Marigold, Gitta Gschwendtner, Jasleen Kaur, Poppy Booth, Fiona Davidson, Michael Marriott, Alex Hellum and Jon Harrison.
Dates: 16 June - 25 September 2022
Tickets: FREE
To find out more, visit the Somerset House website HERE.