Nottingham Contemporary

This season's Study Sessions 'A Darkened Room: On Feminism, Rituals, Death and the Occult' touch upon Linder’s wide constellation of artistic influences and further explores the subjects presented in the exhibition. The topics discussed by guest speakers span from feminism, surrealism, death and the occult, as well as rituals, ancient cultures and magic.

‘This House is Full of Unruly Ghosts: Spiritualism and Domestic Enchantment’ by Elsa Richardson, University of Strathclyde

Victorian spiritualism was a domestic pursuit. Forming ‘home circles’ in parlours around the country, believers uncovered talented mediums in their own families, messages from the other side were rapped out on polished dining room tables, ghostly faces appeared in the patterns of soft furnishings, pianos played unattended and teacups levitated. The spiritualist movement called on the elevated morality of the middle-class home to legitimise their unorthodox religious practice, but the experience of the séance refused as well as colluded in this valorisation. For though spiritualist practice allowed for an understanding of home as a sequestered space, removed from the amorality and bustle of the public world, the affective links established by the spirit circle also produced the domestic as a radically unbound site, open to otherworldly intervention and transformation. The affinities drawn with ghostly visitors authorised lines of connection that stretched far beyond the spatial and temporal confines of the traditional family home, and this Study Session will explore the everyday enchantments of spiritualism in nineteenth-century Britain. Particular attention will be paid to the role of women as conduits for otherworldly communication and their muddling of mundane domestic activities --cooking, drinking, sewing, reading— with occult activities.