How did madness shape the lives and work of the Bloomsbury group and their wider circles? Drawing on new research and lived experience, this exhibition looks again at familiar and forgotten Bloomsbury histories. Bringing together art, objects and never-before-exhibited works from Charleston’s collection, the exhibition explores how the Bloomsbury group engaged with changing ideas about madness in 20th-century Britain. The exhibition coincides with the centenary of Virginia Woolf’s essay ‘On Being Ill’ (1926) and includes a rare public display of works by Helen Coombe. Coombe was married to the painter and critic Roger Fry, a central figure in the Bloomsbury group, and spent much of her adult life in a psychiatric institution. This exhibition reflects a wider shift in how Charleston tells its own history and acts as a sector-leading approach to telling these histories. Curator Hazel McMichael looks at these histories through the social model of disability and neurodiversity, and traces where they meet queer and feminist histories as well as questions of class. The exhibition features art and interpretation by members of the Mad Heritage Collective, our co-production partner. It is curated by Hazel McMichael, Charleston’s Curating Visibility Fellow and creative mind behind the ‘Cracked’ installation at Charleston in Firle last season.
