Fragments of Five Fairground Females by Dr Amy Goodwin

An exhibition exploring the historical lives of five historical females, who all worked in the travelling steam fairgrounds of the West Country, mostly since forgotten, will open at Cecil Sharp House, the London home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, in June.

Through a series of visual installations, traditional signwriter, fairground artist and QEST Scholar Amy Goodwin reconstructs the identities of five fairground females, whose lives have previously appeared in archives only as fragments. Drawing on the artist’s own fairground heritage and research with both the National Fairground and Circus Archive (NFCA) and the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, this immersive and playful exhibition is informed by an insider’s appreciation of its rich history.

The exhibition opens on 23 June 2021 at Cecil Sharp House and runs until 1 September 2021.

Amy comments: ‘The opportunity to work with the English Folk Dance and Song Society is incredibly exciting. It offers a new context for both my research and visual practice. It also provides a new space for the stories of travelling fairground females, discovered in my research with the NFCA, to intermingle with those discovered during my research at EFDSS, such as the life of Vesta Tilley.’