'Performance' at Abbey House

At ten o clock this morning I found myself in the slightly bizarre situation of being part of a large group of people pouring cups of tea and nibbling on biscuits, in the middle of a Victorian high street. There was a big table laden with coffee cups and milk jugs, just outside the greengrocers and the pub! I was at the Abbey House museum in Kirkstall, just across the road from Kirkstall Abbey, for a private view of their new exhibition for 2012.

An unusual setting for a mid morning brew!

Entitled ‘Performance’, the exhibition covers many diverse aspects of this theme and includes cases on local sporting heroes and some rather scary Punch and Judy puppets, as well as there more obvious theatre and dance. There is a collection of fascinating local theatre posters, the oldest of which dates from 1789 – the year of the French Revolution! These were, I was told by curator Kitty Ross, in a sorry state – stained orange, stuck onto acidic boards and even covered in sticky back plastic – but have been expertly restored for this exhibition thanks to funds from the Friends of Leeds Museums. The posters, showing prices, performance times and detailed descriptions of the plays being advertised, give an insight into the theatre going habits of the people of Leeds over the years. Strangely, in an exhibition on performance in Leeds, there is no mention of Opera North which has its headquarters in the city.

Abbey House benefits from working collaboration with design students from Leeds Met University, who have assisted with elements of this exhibition. Visitors are welcomed with an art deco style banner which proclaims the exhibition title ‘Performance’ in flashing lights, and twinkling lights and mirrors in the cases create a sense of space and theatre in this quite narrow, restricted gallery. A recurring motif is the strip of tickets which appear in many of the cases, and also on the invites to this morning’s private view. This helps tie together all the disparate cases, reminding us that even when going to a rugby match we are paying to watch a performance. The only negative aspect of the exhibition design that I noticed were the translucent text panels on the glass of the cases themselves. These panels gave simple information on each of the items in the case, which is of course necessary in any exhibition, but were difficult for some people to read and in the smaller cases they obscured the view of the objects themselves.

All in all, an interesting exhibition about an aspect of local social and cultural history. Now I can’t wait to start my placement at Abbey House next month, and start working with Kitty to think about next year’s exhibition, ‘Fate and Fortune’. Watch this space!