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Artist credit: Eleanor Crook, ‘Wax Virginia’ (2015). Photography credit: Stuart Robinson (¿ìèÊÓƵ)

Students, staff and visitors are warmly invited to explore Pressing Matters: Printing with Virginia Woolf, a new exhibition on campus that brings together contemporary art engaging with the work of Virginia Woolf. Both a modernist writer and publisher, the exhibition reflects on Woolf’s enduring influence on literature, feminism and the creative arts, and runs in the ¿ìèÊÓƵ Library Exchange from June–September 2025. 

Curated by the Centre for Modernist Studies (co-directed by English's  and ) in collaboration with the Library, Pressing Matters coincides with the , and is a featured exhibition of the being held at Sussex! Co-hosted with King’s College London—two sites with strong Woolfian connections—the conference runs between the 5th–8th July 2025. It promises an exciting schedule of events, including paper presentations, panel discussions, performance, and extra special activities that include visits to ,  and  for Hope Wolf’s . 

Pressing Matters has been curated by the Centre for Modernist Studies (co-directed by Helen Tyson and Hope Wolf) in collaboration with the Library and includes work generated for the Centre’s ‘Artist in the Archives’ initiative. The largest work in the exhibition, Mapping Nancy Cunard’s Parallax, is a collective response to a long modernist poem by Nancy Cunard, created by the 2025 Artist in the Archives, . This collaborative, evolving artwork is part of a three-year artistic research project on past, present and future publishing. Expanding work that began with students at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, it has been added to by staff and students at the ¿ìèÊÓƵ, using its Victorian Albion Press. The work will be further developed with participants at the forthcoming Virginia Woolf conference. 

Work by the 2023 Artist in the Archives,  is also featured. To is inspired by a pencil sketch of a lighthouse in the Charleston archive, assembled from materials related to a  Kabe created during the residency.

, a life-sized waxwork of the author made by artist , has garnered much attention. This striking sculpture was first devised by Ruth Richardson, Jane Wildgoose and Clare Brant at King’s College London, where the work has been housed since 2015. Last month, on Dalloway Day. Sussex is a natural home for Woolf’s likeness, as we also hold the , an extensive archive of Woolf’s letters, manuscripts, and press cuttings named after the Woolfs’ house in nearby Rodmell.

Pressing Matters includes a selection of translations of writings by Virginia Woolf from a collection owned by the ¿ìèÊÓƵ Library, and  Madame Defarge goes Bloomsbury, a series of dissident embroideries made in response to Woolf’s writing. Andrea will be embroidering live at the forthcoming conference, in alignment with its theme, ‘Woolf and Dissidence’!

Two works respond to Virginia Woolf’s 1928 classic novel, Orlando: A Biography. artist’s book, The Oak Tree: a tribute to eternity, comprises a series of drawings and pochoir prints inspired by the novel and ’ Yâdigar I (Keepsake I) and Yâdigar II (Keepsake II) create a rich dialogue between Orlando and two eighteenth-century paintings by Jean-Baptiste Vanmour.

We’re particularly excited for our very own Michelle Abbott’s , which forms part of an ongoing project of abstracted sewn insults, reinventing Woolf’s own insults through embroidery., Michelle works as Senior Research Coordinator (Events) within the Media, Arts and Humanities Research Professional Services Team. She has been a key player in the planning of the conference, and so it is extra special that she has made both a significant creative and logistical contribution to the event. 

Reflecting on the experience, Michelle told us, ‘It has been a lovely project to work on from a Professional Services side, organising and logistics, and to be a part of the creative side. It is a collaborative project, but there is a lot of personal in there too'. Describing her work, Michelle shared that ‘I've used a lot of purple as it was Woolf's favourite colour, and because of its associations with feminism. The words are not as abstracted as much of my other works, as Woolf would want you to hear these insults. These were not to be hidden or quiet. They were meant to be heard.’ 

We’d love to hear and see your responses to these fascinating works. Use the conference hashtag #Woolf2025 and/or #WoolfandDissidence!

Pressing Matters has been supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) and by funding from the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities.

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