A museum of remarkable stones - each artefact may seem 'ordinary' at first, but in fact they possess a variety of fascinating qualities!
The Stone Museum was created by Lizzie Kendal in 2016 and since then, the collection has grown and grown due to participatory workshops and kind donations from strangers.
Collecting is part of the human experience, whether it is likes, recipes or novelty teapots. Stones are often one of the first things we take home in our pockets as children, pebbles from the beach or a walk in the park. In a way they are the archetypal collector's item. The Stone Museum asks us to reconsider the subjective processes of 'meaning-making' at play in an institutional environment.
Lizzie's practice engages with the 'Cabinets of Curiosities' of 16th-18th Century Europe; precursors to what we recognise as a museum today, especially those containing natural history specimens, and/or material culture and ethnographic knowledge. Her museum re-enacts an instability of factual knowledge, coupled with the possibility of creating alternatives to given taxonomies. She is interested in the process of learning through imagination, creativity and wonder rather than through the receipt of empirical ‘facts’ about objects, provided by an anonymous ‘expert’ voice.
The collection is growing all the time through ongoing workshops, discussions and acquisitions.
