Join us on 25 March at 6.30pm for an online talk with Akshi Singh exploring the work of psychoanalyst Marion Milner and her many descriptions of clothes.

About this event

Void is delighted to welcome writer and psychoanalyst Akshi Singh for an online talk about psychoanalyst Marion Milner in conjuction with our current exhibition Sampler, Aleana Egan.

In her first book, A Life of One’s Own, Marion Milner made a list with the heading ‘Things I Hate’. In that list, along with ‘Lace curtains’ and ‘Being ignored’, Milner includes ‘Fussy dresses’ and ‘Being conspicuous, having arguments in public places or being unsuitably dressed.’

Inspired by Aleana Egan’s Dress for Marion, this talk considers the work of Marion Milner (1900-1998)—writer, psychoanalyst, and artist, through her many descriptions of clothes.

Akshi Singh is a writer and trainee psychoanalyst. She is working on a book on Marion Milner, titled Weather in the Soul: Experiments with Solitude.

Quotes shared by Akshi Singh

So, in the midst of watching a play I had longed to see, or talking to a person I had longed to meet, I would be outraged to discover that I had missed unrecoverable moments in idle reverie about a new dress, and what So-and-so would say when they saw it.

Marion Milner, A Life of One’s Own, 1934.

I had kept a spare coat of mine for Susan to borrow on occasions, since she was so little in touch with what the weather was likely to do that she would often turn up quite inadequately clothed.

Marion Milner, The Hands of the Living God, 1969.

But it was coming back in the bus, the fierce heat of midday becoming gentle that, sitting by the open window with my hat on my lap, it was suddenly not there, a long arm of the mountain wind had whisked it out and landed it on the road behind us.

Marion Milner, Eternity’s Sunrise, 1987