- Fortune Telling Fan
The Fortune Telling Fan by artist Karen David is a work made in response to the 'Oracle' fan, a Victorian fan from Worcestershire County Collection funded by Arts Council England. Objects of Vertu such as this were made for multiple purposes. In this instance readers would be invited to follow a complex set of directions written on the fan and an answer would be given from one of the ten Roman deities listed on the reverse side. The answers on this fan were divined by piercing a pin through the front of centre section, where it would land on a number on the back which corresponded with a deity, and if studied closely, we can see the pinhole as evidence of it being ‘played’.
David reinterprets this object by creating a graphic poster so that the fan might be read in an accessible way allowing visitors to easily read the text and engage with the fortune telling therein. Here she has transcribed the text from the fan choosing to keep the grammar and punctuation exactly as it is on the original layout. An audio piece accompanies the artwork recording the artist's voice quietly reading out the fan's text, pausing and correcting as she reads the small font. Listen to Audio Extract here
David's work highlights a dialogue with the history of coded communication such as Victorian folded fans where secret messages were conveyed by gestures of operation, in parlour games or in fortune telling rituals. In moments of uncertainty, we may turn to oracles for answers and, as with all fortune telling devices, the answers given are open to interpretation and can offer potential futures that may not have been previously considered.