Threads of Feeling

A new exhibition opening on 14 October in London aims to explore the poignant moment of separation between mother and child at the original Foundling Hospital.

The Foundling Museum (www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk), London, is celebrating the opening of a new and highly emotive exhibition called Threads of Feeling. The exhibition will showcase fabrics never shown before which illustrate the moment of parting as mothers left their babies at the Foundling Hospital, which continues today as the children’s charity Coram.

In the cases of more than 4,000 babies left between 1741 and 1760, a small object or token, usually a piece of fabric, was kept as an identifying record. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the child’s clothing by the hospital’s nurses. Attached to registration forms and bound up into ledgers, these pieces of fabric form the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving in Britain from the 18th century.

A selection of the textiles forms the focus of the Threads of Feeling exhibition, along with examples of the kinds of garments made from them, and the stories they tell us about individual babies, their mothers and their lives. The exhibition will include representations, curated by Renuka, from children, young people and families Coram works with today. The exhibition runs until 6 March 2011.

For more details visit http://www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk/future_exhibitions.php or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Threads-of-Feeling/142916505743501

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