The Literary and Philosophical Society started as a conversation club in 1793 and grew to seed many of the institutions in the North East. Many members and admirers gifted the society a wide variety of objects; birds shot, plants grown, fossils found, a mummy unearthed and creatures not yet defined to name a few. Some objects were domestic curiosities and artefacts while others found their way to them from a strange and mysterious world still uncategorized. Along with these objects came the tools needed to understand them such as scientific instruments and volumes of writing of the research already done. These objects first formed the Lit and Phil Curiosa/Newcastle Museum and later went on to seed many institutions across the North East and beyond. These objects tell a wider story about the roots of the society and the seeds of learning and wonder it has sown. I am working to fund a further project which will chart the multidirectional trajectory each object has taken and establish its role in the wider cultural landscape. These findings will be synthesised artistically by myself and invited artists to widen the impact of the research done.
Nomen Nudum:Naked Name explores those ideas focusing on the wombat and platypus which were gifted to the society from John Hunter via Joseph Banks in 1798. They arrived salted and in a cask of spirits at the Mouth of the Tyne in 1799. A woman was asked to carry these unexplained barrels from the quayside to the Literary and Philosophical Society. As she mounted the cask on her head for ease of transport, the bottom gave way washing her in foul smelling spirited brine. The platypus fell at her feet in all of its odd and frightening glory; part bird, part quadruped and fully unexpected. It was the first time one was seen in the hemisphere yet alone on the banks of the Tyne. I endeavoured to created work that sparked that sense of wonder. I photographed the specimens which currently reside at the Great North Museum along with related ephemera archived at the Lit and Phil Library. I displayed these photographs in Solander boxes I constructed out of materials recycled from the Lit and Phil Bindery.
