I take photographs to dance away sadness

I finally got to see Tim Walker: Wonderful Things at the Victoria and Albert Museum last week. To be honest, it’s the whole reason we were in London, and something I’ve been looking forward to for months.

Walking through the exhibition, I had a very real emotional reaction. Entering the different rooms, one steps straight into his photographs rather than looking at them from the outside, leaving the familiar world behind. The world he takes you to is so peculiar, otherworldly, and disparate that it’s incredibly easy to lose oneself in the mood and feeling entirely. Despite having seen pictures of the exhibition beforehand, I was astonished by the work and craftsmanship that had gone into the photographs. And the set designer, Shona Heath, made everything come alive.

After having seen Tim’s portrait of Alexander McQueen earlier in the exhibition, my heart almost stopped when I entered the room displaying the collection Handle With Care. There was the evening gown from McQueen’s Horn of Plenty collection, spilling out from beneath its protective fabric. Tim describes Handle With Care as a love letter to the curators at the museum. However, it’s hard not to imagine that it’s also a tribute to Alexander McQueen. He writes, ‘seeing the dress by Alexander McQueen exquisitely wrapped up at the V&A Clothworkers’ Centre, it became a beautiful ghost’.

Perhaps the most revealing and meaningful part of the exhibition was experiencing his work process. Being guided through the rooms in his own words and seeing some of his scrapbooks and the items that inspired each set of photos was fascinating. I found it intriguing to see how he used artefacts from the museum and transformed them into something entirely his own. Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to fathom how he achieves what he does without resorting to Photoshop.

It was a well-needed break from life and the real world, as my imagination toured the imagination of Tim Walker and his collaborators. Perhaps culture is the last safe place. The last refuge where you can escape for a couple of hours before returning to reality. A place to be yourself.