Philomela

Today on its very last day I caught the ‘Fabric of Myth’ exhibition at Compton Verney. There was some great stuff there, but one piece knocked me out: the mixed media installation Gynaikonitides, by Delaine Le Bas. The name is a transliteration of a classical Greek word that means ‘Women’s Quarters’. The interpretation panel on the wall briefly mentioned Philomela, without giving many details of the story. That was a mistake, I think, since a lot of people don’t know it. It is not one of the ‘Greek Myths’ that they retell (often in sanitized versions) in children’s books. Nothing could sanitize the story of Philomela and her sister Procne.

Ovid goes to town on it (he liked the gruesome ones), and I can’t include all of his text here. Briefly, Procne daughter of Pandion marries Tereus, King of Thrace and they have a son, Itys. Five years after the marriage, Procne longs to see her little sister, Philomela, and Tereus goes and fetches her for a visit. He promises her father to take great care of her. But in fact, the moment he saw her he was overcome with lust. Tereus sails back to Thrace, bringing Philomela.

( This is what happens next )

And the installation? Some people looked at it blankly and wandered on. Some people paused, looked troubled, and left quite soon. Some people spent more time there. I went back five times. ‘Disturbing’ was a word I heard some people mutter. It was disturbing: dolls with bleeding mouths, tiny severed doll limbs, suspended on strings from the ceiling, a web of strings that entangled anyone who entered: especially when you tried to leave. The disquieting sound-track combined sounds of bird-song, a nightingale, and I think a swallow's twittering, and a hoarser cry that may have been a hoopoe, with the cries of women and children. There were peepholes into peepshows on either side: child-sized figures with the heads of lambs, bigger figures with leopard masks, and dark distorted human shapes painted on the walls. 'Like lambs to the slaughter' read one inscription. The White Rabbit, who leads the way into the world of a child's nightmares, was a motif that recurred a couple of times. At the far end of the installation was a broken spinning wheel and a cot with a child-sized figure in it.

It was a harrowing place to be. But I stayed because there was so much detail, and every detail contributed something more. Also, because I wanted to fathom the whole of it, take it in, come to terms with it. It was harrowing, but it was not gratuitously horrible, and not, I thought, despairing. In spite of everything, Philomela told her story, made her art, resisted and escaped. On the wall above the cot was a painting of a moth: symbol of metamorphosis.

I was moved, and very impressed.


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