6 days ago
National Trust in row over artwork that references JK Rowling
The National Trust has become embroiled in a row over JK Rowling.
Last year, the Trust property of Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire installed an interactive artwork titled A Virtuous Woman, which has since become the focus of a gender dispute.
The large embroidery at the stately home allowed visitors to stitch onto it the names of inspirational women, with Marie Curie and Margaret Thatcher among the names stitched into the artwork.
One visitor added the name of Rowling, who has become a vocal opponent of gender ideology and transgender access to women's spaces.
Rowling's name was subsequently struck out with a series of new stitches in the colours of the transgender flag, while other names were left untouched.
The writer Jean Hatchet, a supporter of Rowling, visited Hardwick in May and unpicked the stitches in protest.
The National Trust has now responded to this protest by removing the contested artwork entirely while assessing what it called the 'damage' to the piece.
Women's Rights Network for Derbyshire and Staffordshire, which supports the sex-based rights for women and girls, has branded the Trust's actions 'shameful'. The group urged the Trust to avoid 'complicity in enabling the disrespecting of a courageous woman's name'.
The Trust said that it had no involvement with the artwork itself other than allowing it to be displayed at Hardwick.
The piece was created by Layla Khoo, an artist at the University of Leeds. A disclaimer accompanying the piece stated that the names of women added to the artwork did not represent the values of either the artist or the National Trust.
The Trust said that the artwork was open to be altered until November last year, after which it was not to be tampered with.
This means that Ms Hatchet's intervention to remove the stitches in Rowling's name constitutes damage to the finished piece.
A National Trust spokesman said: 'The artwork was open to contributions for eight months and closed in November when the piece was finished and put on public display. We ask visitors not to tamper with any art on display.'
The Trust is now considering what to do with the artwork.
The row over Rowling's name follows the Harry Potter author's increasing involvement in gender-critical causes.
Her opposition to the belief that people can self-identify as men or women, and enter sex-based spaces, has led critics to brand her ' transphobic '.
She was recently attacked in a new single by the singer Kate Nash. The spoken-word track, titled Germ, levelled accusations of gender-critical views being 'exclusionary, regressive, misogynist '.
