Gold: spectacular manuscripts from around the world
British Library, 2022

Dazzling beauty, striking resilience. Gold has long held the power to ignite feelings of awe and wonder across cultures.

This exhibition examined fifty objects from around the globe to learn how gold elevated art in manuscripts and books. From Qur’ans written in gold, to diplomatic treaties inscribed on gold plates. It also examined the masterful techniques used to handle such a precious metal including gold ink and gold leaf.

To allow visitors including wheelchair users to examine the objects closely we developed a system of temporary display cases. Taking the idea of gold deposits within the Earth’s crust, the showcases lined faceted walls covered with rough hessian giving way to blue ‘voids’ inside which held the glistening objects. The walls formed a meandering route through the gallery and formed a long canyon with a vista of projected close ups of the objects.

The exhibition title was a sculpted metal letters with gold leaf set in an illuminated blue void.