The Wunderkammer is a curious concept. It speaks to humanity’s enduring desire to bring order to chaos—to curate, classify, and create meaning in a world that so often resists it. Originating in the 16th-century Renaissance, these so-called "cabinets of wonder" were eclectic gatherings of the strange and the macabre: natural oddities, relics of the ancient world, and artefacts of human ingenuity and error. From these early, eccentric collections, one can trace many of the fundamental structures inherent to modern science and philosophy.

Floria Tosca’s exhibition, My Littoral Zone, reimagines the Wunderkammer not as a physical space, but as a psychological one. Her practice—steeped in precise draughtsmanship and expressive mark-making—charts the vast terrain of the self. A gifted artist and medical doctor, Tosca lays bare the delicate architecture of the mind: its dark corners, its frailties, its wonders. This exhibition is a deeply personal tribute to her late therapist, Dr Thomas Stanley—the one who, over many years, helped her curate and navigate the complex interior of her mind. The title refers to the zone where the conscious and the unconscious overlap—a place where the intentions of the subconscious mind become actionable in our awakened consciousness.

Beautiful handblown glass—transparent, yet solid—is juxtaposed throughout the exhibition with paintings and found curiosities. They mimic the building blocks of a mind that seeks the connection we, as humans, inherently crave. In Tosca’s hands, the Wunderkammer becomes something else entirely—it is not a shrine to objects, but rather a celebration of memory, human frailty, and ultimately, the hope that healing brings.

Ralph Hobbs
June 2025