Mirrors of Loneliness

Have you ever had a moment of loneliness suddenly strike, even when you were in a crowd of people? How does it feel?

Curated by a group of four MA students from the University of Leeds, Mirrors of Loneliness does not try to explain what the idea of loneliness is. Instead, we use the artworks from the Art Institute of Chicago to zoom in on everyday scenes, allowing you to reflect on your own feelings through the stories of loneliness told by different artists.

Many experience the unfamiliarity of being in a foreign land or a completely new environment, the silence in the crowd and the process of relearning how to get to know others. This exhibition aims to convey this genuine feeling to you in the gentlest way.

We hope that this exhibition will not make you feel distant, but rather bring people together. When you re-examine the concepts of loneliness and sense of belonging, you might be more willing to extend a greeting, make a brief gaze, or show a bit of attentive listening in your daily life.

These small but genuine actions are precisely what we hope to convey to the audience through this exhibition. We hope you can jointly explore and create the possibility of connection after paying a visit to our online exhibition.

Visit the exhibition

Mirror of Loneliness is one of eight online exhibitions curated by Art Gallery and Museum Studies and Arts Management and Heritage MA students from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, as part of the Interpretations course module.

A link to the exhibition will be made available here from 11 December.

Image

Walter Richard Sickert, The Acting Manager, Honoré Daumier, 1842 (detail). Lithograph on newsprint, h 24.8 cm × w 20.8 cm. The Acting Manager | The Art Institute of Chicago. CC0. 1.0 Universal license.