Leaves from Dolly Parton’s front garden, a branch from the tree that killed Marc Bolan, and a George Michael shrine featuring a ‘fuck tree’ photo are among the artefacts on display at Holy Pop, a new exhibition at London’s Somerset House. The show, curated by Tory Turk, aims to reframe obsessive fandom as a form of spiritual practice, elevating collectors and superfans to the status of ‘citizen curators’.
Photographer Alice Hawkins, whose Dolly Parton shrine is featured, describes visiting Dollywood after a friend’s suicide as finding ‘some kind of spiritual home, like my mecca’. She collected leaves from Parton’s garden and keeps them in her shrine, along with hair extensions worn while dressing as the singer. ‘They’re dry and disintegrating now, but they’re in my shrine,’ she says.
Other exhibits include a Spice Girls collection with endorsed soft drink cans, a Prince cabinet, and a resin reproduction of Jim Morrison’s graffiti-covered headstone. A Marc Bolan fan contributed a branch from the sycamore tree the singer’s car hit in 1977, killing him instantly. The exhibition also features films of fans visiting graves and impromptu memorials for figures from Nelson Mandela to Liam Payne.
Curator Tory Turk says museums have not collected such ephemera, leaving fans as the experts. ‘The curators are no longer experts: the fans are citizen curators. They’ve done us a service by keeping things and being encyclopaedic,’ she explains. Turk hopes the show disrupts negative narratives about collectors, particularly in an era of toxic online fandom.
Walking through Holy Pop is ‘funny, moving and occasionally disconcerting’, according to the writer, and offers validation for those whose obsessive interests have been mocked. The exhibition runs at Somerset House, celebrating the sacred objects of pop devotion.
