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A Hard Choice Exhibition at Portsmouth City Museum...

A Hard Choice Exhibition at Portsmouth City Museum Opens Tomorrow

Tomorrow sees the opening of A Hard Choice exhibition at Portsmouth City Museum, this year’s main exhibition for the city’s museum service. The exhibition has been personally curated by Rosalinda Hardiman, the inspirational museum collections manager, and draws on her many years of expertise as a curator and her detailed knowledge of the Portsmouth City Collection.

The exhibition features around 120 favourite objects from all the different aspects of the city collection and range from an 800-year-old cosmetic jar to a Second World War bomb found in Guildhall Walk. Other items are a mirror believed to have been owned by royal mistress Lily Langtry, seaside postcards, and a Turner painting of Portsmouth Harbour. Other treasures include visiting cards used by Mr and Mrs Charles Dickens, and works by Stanley Spencer, Walter Sickert and Jacob Epstein.

The 250kg bomb, from 1941, was discovered in Guildhall Walk in 1984. Rosalinda, hoping to retrieve tiles from a building site, clambered over it without knowing it was there. It was later safely detonated.

Items from Rosalinda’s fascinating life will also be on display – including medals and mementoes from her days as a top international swimmer. She competed in the Atlanta and Sydney Paralympic Games, took five world records and swam the Channel.

Rosalinda, who has been with Portsmouth City Council’s museums service for 35 years, said: “If you count every insect in our natural history cabinets and all the prehistoric pieces of flint in the archaeology collection, then we have half a million objects. It’s a mammoth task looking after all those items – and yes, we have parts of mammoths too. I’m so enthusiastic about our collections and wanted to share my sheer joy in being able to work with such inspiring things. As well as the ‘official’ information about the objects I wanted to reveal some of the personal stories attached to them.”

The exhibition opens tomorrow from 10am and will run through to September, with many different activities, events, talks and more happening over the coming weeks and months.

A Hard Choice

Rosalinda Hardiman
Photo from a photo shoot Strong Island had with Rosalinda in her incredible office at Portsmouth City Museum.


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