In transformation: a contemporary artist’s response to Sculpting the Renaissance

From October 2022 to July 2023 sculptor Rebecca Stevenson was an artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Her residency was dedicated to the theme of ‘shifting perspectives’ and developed in connection with the V&A exhibition Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance (11 February–11 June 2023). For this project, many sculptures by Donatello and his contemporaries left their permanent home in the V&A’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, first travelling to Florence and Berlin, and then returning to the V&A’s temporary exhibition space. As part of her residency, Stevenson was tasked with developing an artistic response to the absences created by these departures, and to conceptually and physically ‘shift perspectives’ in the gallery space. In conversation with Michaela Zöschg, Curator of Medieval Art and Design in the Decorative Art and Sculpture Department at the V&A, Stevenson reflects on the body of works that she developed during her time at the museum. Her pieces, which formally engage with Renaissance sculpture and expand on the themes of motherhood, death, grief and power central to Renaissance art, were shown in the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries’ ‘Donatello Room’ at various stages during their process of making, culminating in a display entitled In Transformation .