Nostalgia: An evening of talks exploring artists’ and writers’ responses to London and the place of memory in the city

Nostalgia for the changing countryside is a well-worn groove, but how does the concept translate to representations of the city?

Do images of loss and change, and ideas of homesickness take on a different tone in the modern metropolis?

This evening, organised by Thomas Marks Editor of Apollo Magazine and Christopher Woodward, Garden Museum Director, will give five perspectives.

Programme for the evening

‘Is There Anybody There?’

Spirits Of The Dead In The Victorian Home

Did the dead rub shoulders with the living in Victorian parlours? And was the camera able to detect their ghostly presence? Dr Susan Owens, author of The Ghost: A Cultural History (Tate Publishing, 2017), investigates early spirit photography.

‘The Silver Streets of our Youth’

Why do we picture the past in black and white?

Christopher Woodward, Director of the Garden Museum and author of In Ruins.

Painting in the City

Acclaimed artist Caroline Walker discusses her paintings of nail bars in north London. What does it mean to represent these sometimes neglected spaces and their customers?

Homing

Jon Day, author of Cyclogeography: Journeys of a London Bicycle Courier (Notting Hill Editions, 2015) and Lecturer in English at King’s College London, looks back at a year of training homing pigeons in his garden in East London.

‘The Dead Are Not Dead But Alive’

Thomas Marks, editor of Apollo, on the powerful hold that London’s Victorian cemeteries continue to exert on the imaginations of the city’s inhabitants.