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AÌýprologue to ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº's Disrupters and InnovatorsÌýexhibition in the Octagon Gallery

This installation focused on an illustrated book wirtten in 1899 by Marion Wallace-Dunlop (1864-1942)Ìýwho studied at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº and whose story is featured in theÌýDisrupters and InnovatorsÌýexhibition that followed.

This project wasÌýpart of ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Art Museum's family of projects Curating EqualityÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýVote 100 at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº in 2018.

Quotes featured in the exhibition are from Marion Wallace-Dunlop, The Magic Fruit Garden (London: Ernest Nister, 1889).

AboutÌýMarion Wallace-Dunlop and The Magic Fruit Garden

Wallace-Dunlop was an artist, writer and lifelong campaigner for women’s rights. In 1909, she became the first suffragette to go on hunger strike, having been imprisoned for stencilling political graffiti on a wall in the House of Commons. Two decades earlier, she created aÌýfairy tale about a girl struggling to write an essay on ‘Perseverance’.Ìý In her quest for wisdom, Doc finds a magic fruit garden where knowledge-fruit grows on bushes and trees. Here she picks ‘geography-plums and history-apples and grammar-pears and all the time her knowledge of everything kept growing bigger and bigger’. In a glass conservatory, Doc encounters piles of sweets ‘made from mixtures of the various fruits in the garden boiled in a syrup called Research. There was botany-sugar, zoology-candy, geology-toffee, and sugar-plums of every kind and colour’. When she gets home,Ìýher brother tellsÌýDoc it was only a dream andÌýremarks that it’s ‘just like a girl to think that a dream is real.’ However, he then embarks on an adventure of his own which forces him to admit the magic garden is real.

The history of women at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº

This exhibition is part of ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº'sÌýyear-longÌýVote 100Ìýprogramme, which marks the centenary of the Representation of the People Act that granted the vote to some women over the age of 30 in the UK.

Beginning in the 1860s, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº experimented with providing classes for women. From 1878, women could study alongside men and receive University of London degrees: the first time this had happened in the UK. It was not until 1918 that new legislationÌýallowedÌýtheÌýfirst women to vote in the UK. This was part of wider electoral reforms accelerated by World War I. Ten years later, women received equal voting rights with men. This process was a backdrop to the lives of female students and researchers at ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº and beyond in the early 20th century. However, co-education was not adopted in all subjects and female students and staff continued to face many obstacles.

The ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Vote 100 programmeÌýrevealedÌýthe impact of the pioneering women who built the university, and imaginatively explore the battles still to be won. Find out more about ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Vote 100 here.

CollaborationÌýacross ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº

This ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Culture exhibition was curated by Dr Nina Pearlman, Head of ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Art Collections, who also managed the design concept.

It was produced in association with:
Angela Scott, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Digital Media -ÌýDesign realisation
Darren Stevens and Sam Wilkinson, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Culture -ÌýProduction

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