Everything We Love We Will Lose is a thoughtful new exhibition by Artist duo YARA + DAVINA, commissioned by the National Trust Clandon Park and Lightbox Gallery and Museum.
This exhibition responds to shared narratives of loss and explores the contemporary and historic art of grieving. Working closely with women who have experienced pregnancy and baby loss, experiences the artists have had themselves, YARA + DAVINA are shaping the exhibition through embroidery, conversation and the healing power of shared making. The artists and participants are drawing inspiration from local stories and objects from the Lightbox and Clandon collections, including mourning lace, and ceramic fragments that serve as poetic reminders of breakage, resilience and what it means to be remade.
The exhibition will feature newly made artworks, including a contemporary take on mourning-lace inspired by working with the participants. A floral tribute collectively made by YARA + DAVINA and local florists will represent the tools we use to grieve and support ourselves and each other through loss.
The commission also includes two new epitaph benches, each engraved with participants’ reflections on how they wish to be remembered, revealing how we want to live now. The benches will be installed at Lightbox Gallery & Museum and in the garden at Clandon Park.
A programme of workshops, conversations and a family-friendly bulb-planting event, inspired by Clandon Park’s historic daffodil meadow, invites visitors to reflect on how creativity, moments of beauty, nature and community can support us as we navigate experiences of love and loss.
The title of the exhibition pays homage to Francis Weller’s gateways to grief and poignantly highlights the relationship between gratitude and grief.
Everything We Love We Will Lose is the second commission by the W for Woking partnership, a collaboration between National Trust Clandon Park and Lightbox Gallery & Museum. The partnership brings artists and communities together to explore the histories, experiences and stories that shape Woking and Clandon Park today.
W for Woking has received funding from the Museums Association’s Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund (formerly Museums Association’s Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund), National Lottery Heritage Fund, National Trust, Arts Council England and Lightbox Gallery & Museum.
