Swedenborg’s Lusthus: Into the Garden, marks the second installment of the groundbreaking exhibition first showcased at Swedenborg House in January 2024.

Organized in conjunction with the publication of Swedenborg’s Lusthus, a full colour book—described by Tom Taylor in the Cambridge Review of Books as ‘a poignant reflection upon the interconnectedness of place and writing, realism and idealism, universalism and particularism’—the second installment showcases newly found super 8mm footage plus works by Chloe Aridjis, Anonymous Bosch, Mark Riley, Renchi Bicknell, Ben Wickey, John Christie, Daniel Birnbaum, Bridget Smith and Iain Sinclair. 

Drawing on previously unseen items from the Swedenborg Collection, this immersive and multi-media exhibition explores the unique spatial conditions of this enigmatic eighteenth-century building and the broader question of the relationship between place, dwelling and the conditions of our visionary states.

This second phase will not only present a reformulation of previous key exhibits, but will showcase new items exploring Swedenborg’s visionary experiences whilst also making reference to the abundant garden which surrounded Swedenborg’s summerhouse. A rich and varied new programme of events to accompany this second phase will additionally be announced shortly.

Curated by the Society’s Museum Director, Stephen McNeilly, the exhibition is part of a series of ongoing projects connecting artefacts held in the collection at Swedenborg House to the broader framework of contemporary art practices. Previous exhibitions include Concerning an Idea about Place.

The launch coincides with the publication of a new book of the same name. For more information please click on the thumbnail image here.

Contributors

CHLOE ARIDJIS is the author of three novels: Book of Clouds, which won the Prix du premier roman étranger in France; Asunder, set in London’s National Gallery; and Sea Monsters, awarded the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

RENCHI BICKNELL is an artist and writer, and has undertaken numerous projects uniting artistic and writerly practice, including his small-press publications Relations, Michael and Mary Dreaming and A Pilgrim’s Progress.

DANIEL BIRNBAUM is the artistic director of Acute Art, a laboratory for art and digital media in London. 2010-2018 he was the director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He is a contributing editor of Artforum. In 2009 he curated the Venice Biennale.

ANONYMOUS BOSCH is a photographer, cinematographer and filmmaker. He is known for his work on Sea Fever (2012), By Our Selves (2015) Aisling Sheòrais Mhicdhòmhnaill (George Macdonald’s Dreams) (2015) and The Whalebone Box (2019).

PETER CARTWRIGHT is one of the leading artists to emerge from the Royal College of Art, and is a contemporary of David Hockney and R B Kitaj. He has exhibited widely throughout the UK, and his work has been purchased by several major collections.

JOHN CHRISTIE is a visual artist, broadcast filmmaker, and maker of artists’ books. He has produced more than 20 limited editions for Circle Press and Objectif, and is a founding member of the award-winning East Anglian publisher Full Circle Editions. Alongside John Berger, he co-authored the award-winning book I Send You This Cadmium Red.

MARK RILEY is an artist, writer, and senior Lecturer in Photography at the University of Roehampton. He has exhibited installation projects at the Manchester Metropolitan University, The APT Gallery and the Oxford House Gallery. He has also written widely on Heidegger, Tarkovsky and place.

IAIN SINCLAIR has lived in and written about London since 1969. A renowned poet, essayist and writer of fiction, his novels include Downriver, for which he won the James Tait Black Prize and the Encore Prize, and Dining on Stones which was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize.

KEN WORPOLE is a writer and social historian whose distinctive work includes books on architecture, landscape and public policy. A new edition of his pioneering book, Modern Hospice Design: the architecture of palliative and social care, has just been published.

Curator

STEPHEN MCNEILLY is an editor, writer, artist, curator and museum director of Swedenborg House, and one of the leading scholars on Swedenborg in the UK. He has curated numerous exhibitions and events, the most recent being Concerning an Idea about Place (2023) and is the editor of numerous books including Swedenborg’s Lusthus.

Also including an audio recording by organist KARIN STRID.

Swedenborg House Team

Assistant Curator: Anya Reeve

Exhibition Manager: Jacob Cartwright

Gallery Technician: Adam Skipper

Social Media: Rebekka Cartwright

Archive and Research: Alex Murray and James Wilson

Marketing: Denise Prentise

Financial Planning: Anthony Finnigan

Gallery lighting: Jason Conroy

Head of Contractors: Bill Osment

Header and poster images by Anonymous Bosch. Poster designs by the Quinn Fizzlers. With special thanks to the Skansen Open-Air Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.