On the Enclosure of Time – Exhibition Wisbech and Fenland Museum
Wisbech & Fenland Museum was one of the first purpose-built public museums to open in the UK, in 1847. The mahogany display cabinets remain in their original position, 166 years later, creating a museum within a museum. Marjolijn Dijkman’s installation in the Hudson Room, On the Enclosure of Time, positions these vitrines and display objects at the centre of an investigation into hierarchy, preservation and demarcation in museum methodologies. Dijkman’s vitrines are largely empty; together they form a museum without artefacts in which the display cabinets become utopian cityscapes, modernist sculptures, fungus-type growths and humorous skits on possible futures and unfinished displays. The carpet and wall paint in the main museum space have been extended for this installation into the Hudson Room – a space that has hitherto been used as a neutral ‘white cube’ environment. This intervention unites the two spaces and encourages visitors to experiment with the concept of the museum and the language of display. In the main museum space, Dijkman has installed a single glass vitrine in human scale – Untitled (Growth Rings) – which reflects the visitor and their surroundings. This vitrine within a vitrine ad infinitum forces an awareness of physical space and invites us to consider our place in history.
The Museum will be closed for Christmas from Sunday 22 December 2013 and reopen on Tuesday 6 January 2014.
