Place: Mercedes Cebrián
We asked Mercedes Cebrián to write about an especially intriguing or pleasant place she'd visited. She sent us this brief text on the Victoria and Albert museum, one of her favorite spots in London.
Now that no one is listening I’ll say it. After my first time visiting London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, known by the locals as the “V&A;”, I immediately thought, “This museum is for girls.” Or better yet, it’s a museum for the idea that has prevailed over the centuries about girls’ tastes, we girls who seem to be interested above all in clothing and textiles, design, any object connected to domestic life and, in particular, small things. A friend of mine corroborated this: while going through the museum with him he made me see that the collection was not quite epic enough, and in that I think he’s right.
Once freed from the shame I felt about harboring this reactionary thought, I could argue straight into the camera with politically correct phrasing that the Victoria and Albert is essential for understanding applied arts, that it speaks to us about industrial development in the West as well as in the East, and that the variety of objects displayed in its collection is such that anyone can find in it whatever he or she might be seeking. But while half of me would be explaining all this blah blah blah with a certain degree of composure, the other half would completely forget about the level of consistency among the V&A;’s dominant museographic criteria and would rush toward the collection of netsuke – those little figurines that are used to adorn kimonos – or to the collection of chairs and tables easily recognized as true celebrities of the furniture world; and, of course, to the collection of wallpapers designed by the Pre-Raphaelite William Morris.
A museum like this seems to be conceived for people of a scattered nature. Today I’m excited to see the most highly embossed scissors in the world; tomorrow, for a change, shoes and boots from centuries past; on Tuesday, contemplation of daguerreotypes. More than anything the Victoria and Albert is a container for material culture and should therefore be consumed in small morsels. For me it’s the sophisticated version of an enormous traditional neighborhood bazaar whose pride lies in having “a little bit of everything.” And in the bowels of this “everything”, among hundreds of cups, vases, jars and other glass objects hand-blown throughout history, one finds, crossing through a discreet mirrored door, the members’ room. In this luminous lair (buildings in cloudy cities always have large picture windows) you can work, read or chat with your mouth full of ever-so-English biscuits, never far from a large pot of Darjeeling or some other concoction that harkens back to British colonial past. There the word bourgeoisie regains its most warm and comfortable meaning. And it is there – as much in the room as in the word – that I like to stay a while to muster my forces and return again, rolling up my sleeves, to this difficult 21st century.
Other entries:
[Pilar Quintana]
[Wilmer Urrelo Zárate]
[Ronaldo Menéndez]
Translated by Galen Basse / Photos submitted by author
Now that no one is listening I’ll say it. After my first time visiting London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, known by the locals as the “V&A;”, I immediately thought, “This museum is for girls.” Or better yet, it’s a museum for the idea that has prevailed over the centuries about girls’ tastes, we girls who seem to be interested above all in clothing and textiles, design, any object connected to domestic life and, in particular, small things. A friend of mine corroborated this: while going through the museum with him he made me see that the collection was not quite epic enough, and in that I think he’s right.
Once freed from the shame I felt about harboring this reactionary thought, I could argue straight into the camera with politically correct phrasing that the Victoria and Albert is essential for understanding applied arts, that it speaks to us about industrial development in the West as well as in the East, and that the variety of objects displayed in its collection is such that anyone can find in it whatever he or she might be seeking. But while half of me would be explaining all this blah blah blah with a certain degree of composure, the other half would completely forget about the level of consistency among the V&A;’s dominant museographic criteria and would rush toward the collection of netsuke – those little figurines that are used to adorn kimonos – or to the collection of chairs and tables easily recognized as true celebrities of the furniture world; and, of course, to the collection of wallpapers designed by the Pre-Raphaelite William Morris.
A museum like this seems to be conceived for people of a scattered nature. Today I’m excited to see the most highly embossed scissors in the world; tomorrow, for a change, shoes and boots from centuries past; on Tuesday, contemplation of daguerreotypes. More than anything the Victoria and Albert is a container for material culture and should therefore be consumed in small morsels. For me it’s the sophisticated version of an enormous traditional neighborhood bazaar whose pride lies in having “a little bit of everything.” And in the bowels of this “everything”, among hundreds of cups, vases, jars and other glass objects hand-blown throughout history, one finds, crossing through a discreet mirrored door, the members’ room. In this luminous lair (buildings in cloudy cities always have large picture windows) you can work, read or chat with your mouth full of ever-so-English biscuits, never far from a large pot of Darjeeling or some other concoction that harkens back to British colonial past. There the word bourgeoisie regains its most warm and comfortable meaning. And it is there – as much in the room as in the word – that I like to stay a while to muster my forces and return again, rolling up my sleeves, to this difficult 21st century.
Other entries:
[Pilar Quintana]
[Wilmer Urrelo Zárate]
[Ronaldo Menéndez]
