ABOUT THE LIBRARY

THE WILDGOOSE MEMORIAL LIBRARY (WML) is an ongoing accumulation of reference material that informs Jane Wildgoose’s work as an artist and writer. It is a constantly evolving work in progress: a place for meditation and consultation on universal themes of life and death.

The WML began as an informal collection of objects and books relating to Wildgoose's enduring fascination with the interest of the dead to the living. Over the years, numerous items have been donated - others have simply found their way to the Library after being discarded by previous owners.

As Keeper of the WML, Wildgoose places an emphasis on collecting, contemplation, and the nature of remains - an extension, perhaps, of her preoccupation with beachcombing during her childhood on the South Coast of England.

Informed by her research as a designer for projects for theatre and film, the WML has become an exploration of the relationship between object and subject, body and psyche, life and death - themes also brought together in Wildgoose's output as an artist and writer.

Taking inspiration from the histories of collecting and of still-life painting - but particularly inspired by Vanitas paintings and the concept of 'memory theatres' - the WML is arranged in a domestic setting that is part cabinet of curiosity, part reliquary. It includes found & made objects - which may be "read" - as well as books, and is designed to facilitate meditation and free association on subjects pertaining to the mysteries of the living in relation to the dead, transience, memory and immortality.

Outside the Library's window city traffic hurtles noisily to and fro. Inside the Library a little dust settles, a moth hovers; sand falls, discreetly, within the hour glass.

• Lines Composed upon the Occasion of a Gathering at the Wildgoose Memorial Library
• The Collections
• Site credits