Sara Crangle, photographed by University Photographer, Stuart Robinson

Professor of Modernism and the Avant-Garde (English) Sara Crangle will act as curatorial consultant for a new exhibition of British writer, poet and activist Anna Mendelssohn's work, Anna Mendelssohn: Speak Poetess.

The first institutional display of works by Mendelssohn, also known as Grace Lake, this archival exhibition presents a selection of Mendelssohn’s poetry and works on paper. Through the confluence of poetry and visual art, Mendelssohn's work explores—amongst other things—the socio-historical mechanisms that influence the creation and destruction of language in public and private spheres. Anna Mendelssohn: Speak, Poetess brings together works which examine how iniquities such as war, fascism, and incarceration influence the ways we express and give form to history and social experience. The exhibition is free to enter and will run for four months with up to 80,000 visitors anticipated!

Sara’s contribution to the exhibition, and her continuing research into the work of Mendelssohn, follows her recent book, I'm Working Here: The Collected Poems of Anna Mendelssohn (2021), the first replete collection of Mendelssohn’s poems published or prepared for circulation. Sara was instrumental in bringing the Anna Mendelssohn archive into the University's Special Collections, currently housed at The Keep and generously donated by Anna's three children in 2010 following her death.

Anna Mendelssohn: Speak Poetess opens at Whitechapel Gallery, London, on 10 October 2023 and will run until 14 January 2024.