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London Institute of ’Pataphysics
Standing in the dim Dormitorium, peering into these illuminated decors, one recovers what Gaston Bachelard called " the enlarging gaze of a child." Not that these exquisite doll-scale film sets are mere toys. There’s nothing innocent or naive about them, bristling as they are with psycho-sexual and other destabilising potentialities. But they remind one that, as Bachelard says, "one must go beyond logic to discover what is large in what is small.” And, in these intricately crafted microcosms, discover it one does. Even if one is unfamiliar with the films they were made for, the sets are redolent of oneiric narratives, dreams of mystery and menace leavened by the Quay’s unique brand of humour noir. In ’The Poetics of Space’, in the chapter on ’Miniature’ Bachelard writes: "All small things must evolve slowly, and certainly a long period of leisure, in a quiet room, was needed to miniaturise the world." Certainly the brothers Quay needed long periods for their stop-motion worlds to evolve, periods not of leisure but of intense physical and mental labour. Displayed in Swedenborg Hall — "a space dedicated to metaphysical reverie" — the decors manifest the power Bachelard ascribes to the miniature: to detach us from our lives and transform us into imagining beings.
Dormitorium
Featuring the hand-crafted puppets and scenery of the Satraps for the first time in London.
Exhibition run: 24 Pédale - 13 Clinamen (vulgo 18 March 8– 4 April 2025). Open daily Mondays to Fridays 10.00 am – 5.00 pm. Open 28 Pedale and 7 Clinamen (Saturdays vulgo 22 and 29 March) 12.00 – 5.00 pm. Free admission.
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