22/07/25
It Takes a Village
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex
5 July 2025 – 1 February 2026
To mark its 40th birthday, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft is hosting an exhibition all about reaching out: reaching out and exploring the breadth of the collection, its many (inter-)connections and peripheral figures and bringing them and lesser seen objects to the fore; reaching out and connecting to present-day villagers and erstwhile members of the former Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic;1 reaching out to those with access or other needs, including neurodivergent visitors, to make the exhibition and museum an easier place for them to come to; and, last but absolutely not least, reaching out to survivors of abuse, through a project carried out together with the Methodist Survivors’ Advisory Group, to learn how to sensitively show works by Eric Gill, one of the key artists in village history, but who is known for his abuse of two of his young daughters, Elizabeth (Betty) and Petra.
Read my full review here