Orlando in Lockdown

Holly James Johnston who performs as alter ago Orlando commissioned me to create a photo series for the Rethinking Sexology project, a University of Exeter initiative funded by the Wellcome Collection. This project takes inspiration from the portraits of Orlando that feature throughout Virginia Woolf’s ‘Orlando’ (1928), imagining how Woolf’s hero/heroine would have spent lockdown. See the full series on the @transthrutime website, which explores whether twenty-first century trans, non-binary, and gender variant identities can be mapped onto history. Holly writes: In the months before the publication of ‘Orlando’, Woolf commissioned a photo of Vita Sackville-West - her lover, loving friend, and the inspiration for Orlando - for the end of the book. She writes to Sackville-West that ‘It has now become essential to have a photograph of Orlando in country clothes in a wood, to end with. If you have films and a camera I thought Leonard [Woolf] might take you’. When approaching this project, I really loved the idea that Virginia and Vita built the fantasy of Orlando, in part, through photography. In turn, this photo series envisages a fantasy lockdown. Reflecting lockdown trends, the portraits are playful, performative, aspirational, and idealised. Indeed, did Orlando really grow those vegetables, or was it the gardener? October 2020, Creative Director/Producer: Holly Johnston, Photography/Art Direction: Henri T, Styling/Set Dressing: Shanti Freed, Floral Stylist: Jo Frost, Runner: Franky Sissons