The Hidden Museum comprises nine minituarized installations — curious spaces that take the visitor on a Lilliputian journey. It forms part of Andrea Gregson’s investigation into the evolution and form of man-made objects, and the significance of how we choose to display them. Drawn from numerous visits to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Museum Collection, the work evolved during Andrea’s time as artist-in-residence at the Windsor Arts Centre.

The collection of over 6000 artefacts is an eclectic mix of treasured possessions, passed down in families from generation to generation, and finally donated to the museum. However, there is no extant museum building. The collection is held in a storage space where it is maintained by the curator and “Friends” of the collection. It is this lack of a proper home which has led Andrea to her new work. The vast number of artefacts, representing the people who have lived in Windsor, has been a very fertile ground from which to create the Hidden Museum.

That the collection is not representative of a particular theme or slice of history has left much open to the imagination and to interpretation. In this Museum, the visitor must imagine travelling by boat, along a river not unlike the Thames, as it flows through Windsor. The river meanders through nine different rooms of curious ephemera..

On the journey, the visitor is taken through a series of different experiences to explore personal histories, sail through maps, find and resolve stories about lost objects, wander through a strange forest (the photograph here is of the Arboretum — The Garden of Great Delights), see the aftermath of a night of excess, experience the development of flight, create new art, and browse through a floating library. Finally, the visitors can take time to find out more about the things they’ve seen.

© Straight Words, 2004