Ignite: The Great Bed of Ware  Catrin Morgan / Grey Coat
Hospital school  Ignite is a collaborative project with the
RCA’s Research department. It offers opportunities to MPhil and
PhD students to extend and disseminate their research practice
through participatory projects and relationships with other
institutions such as galleries and museums. Catrin Morgan’s
workshop took an object in the V&A’s collection as its starting
point. She invited students from Grey Coat Hospital to build up
a textual version of the Great Bed of Ware. Each of their
descriptions corresponded to a layer of the bedding, from frame
to coverlet, in terms of both the stylistic and visual
constraints used to produce it.  Student from Grey Coat Hospital
Student from Grey Coat Hospital The day began with a visit to
the bed, a giant four-poster built in 1580 and rumoured to sleep
15 people at once. There the students wrote short descriptions
of what they could see. When the group returned to the workroom,
their sentences were gathered up an