the secrets we keep from ourselves…

Woven Anti-Form Installation Installation view - ‘the secrets we keep from ourselves…’ installed in Byron’s Dressing Room. Newstead Abbey. Nottinghamshire. Lace Unveiled exhibition. 10 March – 22 April 2018 Photo credits – Freddy Griffiths 2018© | Nottingham City Museums & Galleries ‘the secrets we keep from ourselves…’ was developed and made in response to historical lace from the Nottingham City Museums and Galleries Heritage Collection (UK) and Nottinghams’ Machine-Made Lace history. Historical pieces which inspired the work included early machine-made lace samples dating 1869-72, early 19th Century lace Jabots and 1920’s lace camisoles made of Nottingham Leavers Lace. While researching into Nottingham’s Lace History Brown also became interested in the photographs of factory women lace workers, which typically show women sitting close together, each checking and mending flaws in the lace. Brown was struck by how this activity remained virtually the same over the years, even though the style of the women’s’ clothes changed. From this point onwards Brown began to see the lace as a physical point of connection between generations of women lace workers. Lace teasingly holds semi-transparent qualities; It conceals and reveals at the same time. ‘the secrets we keep from ourselves…’ was commissioned by Nottingham Castles Museum & Art Gallery, with funding from the Arts Council England through The National Lottery, for ‘ Lace Works – Contemporary Art & Nottingham Lace’. This large group exhibition took place at Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery, England, UK 10th November 2012 – 10th February 2013. In 2016 ‘the secrets we keep from ourselves….’ became part of Nottingham Citys Contemporary Textile Art Collection based at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, Lord Bryon’s Ancestry home.