These Windows: Online Collection

Image credit: Hannah Whaley 2019

I am thrilled to present an online collection of writing and art as the first instalment of These Windows, a collaborative publishing project between the University of Dundee and the V&A Dundee. The online gallery, gathered here on DURA, pairs with a forthcoming printed publication to showcase the creative dexterity of DJCAD Illustration BDes students and School of Humanities Creative Writing & Practice MLitt students.

This first collection begins with a co-written essay that draws together the real and imagined spaces experienced during a group visit to the V&A Dundee. On that day in January, writers and artists handled objects from the Scottish Design Galleries before applying their creative practices, jointly inspiring new works where words and images amplify each other. This spirit of collaboration also extended beyond Dundee, to students at Merton College Oxford, whose narrative accounts of interactions within the V&A Museum London add a further wondrous layer to complete this series.

Exploring these works provides a rare glimpse into the creativity involved in reimagining past designs into new forms, and affirms the inherent cultural value that treasured museum collections offer to us all. Later this year, different pieces from the project will be published by The Voyage Out Press as a fine art word-and-image chapbook called These Windows, to be launched at an event at the V&A Dundee and sold in the V&A Museum Shop.

Hannah Whaley