Linda Florence at Millennium Gallery
Linda Florence, Meta Table Setting. (courtesy Museums Sheffield)
Meta Table Setting, a new installation inspired by Museums Sheffields’ metalwork collection, is on show at the Millennium Gallery until the end of June
This installation, a quirky marriage of metalwork and textiles, is by designer Linda Florence with a series of enormous flocked vinyl floor prints. The individual prints are based on the museum’s world famous metalwork collection, but gradually the images of historic cutlery morph into bizarre cutlery hybrids, becoming more and more eccentric in the process and turning into pieces more suited for the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party than a traditional dinner party. It makes for a nicely irreverent introduction to the collections in the galleries beyond at the same time as showing how historic collections can be used by contemporary designers as a great design resource.
Florence has also been let loose inside the gallery lift. She’s papered it with the silver material used on scratch cards. Three of the walls are already decorated with patterns – two echoing the floor prints outside and a third depicting hallmarks and makers’ stamps. But the last wall has been left for budding graffiti artists to get to work as visitors are invited to add their own marks to those made by past Sheffield metalsmiths.
www.museums-sheffield.org.uk
