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Tim Walker, Wonderful Things, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Tim Walker, the most renowned photographer for his association with fashion, presents his dream world to us at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, through the Wonderful Things exhibition.

As we open its door, we can read in transparent and floating balloons the title Wonderful Things, illuminated by a rainbow. We are introduced to Tim Walker’s world of “wonderful things” in an immersive, fortunately long, well-prepared and high-quality exhibition.

Photography, for Tim Walker, is a dream state, which reflects his imagination. We can only get to it if we believe deeply in such. Photography can become a souvenir of this dream world that lives inside him (or all of us).

In the beginning, it shows some of his muses, in more enlightened rooms, then we move on to other darker rooms. In them, together with the photographs, we see some of the pieces of the scenery that accompanied them. We have the privilege of being part of those, many of them exotic and inhospitable.

We also have access to films and special installations, including a new series of photographs influenced by the Victoria & Albert Museum collection.

And, among these works, we have access to their delicious sketchbooks and ideas, with images, phrases or poems that inspired and continue to inspire Tim Walker. At the end of the exhibition, we get to know his literature, all connected to his dream world or the gay subculture, of which Tim Walker is part.

As we can read in inspiring quotes in one of the artist’s notebooks, at the end of the exhibition, enlarged to about two meters high: “Ends are always followed by beginnings. Something new could start now, right here. There really are so many wonderful things”. The visitor is invited to enter new worlds and new dreams, which only start after the exhibition, and which serve as inspiration for new and wonderful things to discover.

Wonderful Things, by Tim Walker. Until March 22, 2020, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Joana Carmo graduated in Languages, Literatures and Cultures, having subsequently attended a postgraduate course in Art Markets and Collecting. Currently, she is a senior technician at Museu Zer0 (a digital art museum that is being installed in the interior of the municipality of Tavira) where she coordinates the Educational Service and Publics.

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