(Image credit: Phil Bartle. Creative Commons Licence).

A conference featuring leading modernist academics and thinkers takes place at various locations across East Sussex today (Tuesday 19 July), marking one hundred years since the Bloomsbury group of artists, writers and intellectuals first decamped to Charleston House, Sussex.

First rented by the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in 1916, the former farmhouse became a country meeting place for such venerated thinkers as the writers Virginia Woolf and E.M Forster, the economist John Maynard Keynes and Vanessa’s husband, art critic Clive Bell.

The one day event begins at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts at The University of Sussex before attendees visit Berwick Church, home of the famous Bell and Grant murals. The day concludes with further talks and discussion at Charleston.

Following an introduction by Sussex lecturer in British Modernist Literature, Dr Hope Wolf, attendees will hear how Charleston and the Bloomsbury set in Sussex have been represented in exhibitions, literature and film.

They will also discuss what representations of the Bloomsbury set have been preserved by the heritage industry and hear explanations as to why the Bloomsbury version of modernism has remained so popular.

At Charleston, speakers have chosen a room of the house and each will be giving short talks in their chosen room, interpreting objects and art works, reading spaces biographically, and exploring how their research might link with stories told about inhabitants and visitors.

Speakers on the day include academics from the University of Sussex, other institutions such as Oxford, Yale and Brighton, and key members of the curatorial team at Charleston.

The event is latest in a series of events to celebrate the centenary of Charleston. Previous events include lectures at the Towner Gallery Eastbourne and at Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion in May.