Penelope Haralambidou's project 'City of Ladies' studies 'The Book of the City of Ladies', 1405, by Italian/French medieval author Christine de Pizan (1364 – c.1430). The text is part of a compilation assembled for Queen Isabeau of Bavaria between 1410 – 1414 (Harley MS 4431) the largest surviving collected manuscript of her works and one of the foundation manuscripts at the British Library. In the book, de Pizan describes her visitation by three female Virtues, Reason, Rectitude and Justice, who commission her with the construction of an imaginary city inhabited solely by women. Conflating the act of writing a book and the construction of an imaginary city with building a thesis against misogyny, her work has been seen as a proto–feminist manifesto.
'City of Ladies' focuses on the under–researched significance of the architectural and urban allegory portrayed in Pizan's text, as well as in the accompanying illuminations – miniature illustrations – which display different stages of the construction of the city. Alongside historical research, Haralambidou explores de Pizan's allegorical spatial scheme through an embodied act of design that combines medieval illumination drawing techniques on vellum with digital craft and film. This exhibition of drawings, models, objects and films aims to reframe de Pizan's message in an architectural context, but also to project her allegorical 'City of Ladies' into the future. Although her work was popular and influential at her time, it remained overlooked until being rediscovered in modern times, referenced and revered by Simone de Beauvoir, Judy Chicago and Tai Shani, amongst others.
