King's College London

The Freud’s Antiquity: Idea, Object, Desire project saw Professor Daniel Orrells (Department of Classics), Professor Miriam Leonard (University College London), and Associate Professor Richard Armstrong (University of Houston) collaborate with Freud Museum London. Together, the academics and museum staff curated a unique hybrid exhibition that explored Sigmund Freud’s fascination with objects from classical antiquity. It sought to broach several pressing intellectual lines of enquiry, including the way Freud’s collection of archaeological objects influenced his perspectives on gender, sexuality, race, and the historical construction of personal identity.

From February to July 2023, the physical exhibition was held at the Museum’s London site. It showcased both well-known objects in Freud’s collection and artefacts that have only rarely or never been on display to the public. The exhibition received positive reviews from a range of media publications, including the New Yorker. Accompanying events, such as talks and a life drawing session, attracted a diverse range of visitors to the Museum. These included members of the LGBTQIA+ public, a specific audience that the project had sought to engage.

The digital exhibition, a permanent multi-media resource containing podcasts, photographs, and text focused on tracing the connections between Freud’s most important theoretical breakthroughs and his collection, attracted tens of thousands of online visitors. The creation of this rich resource ensures the project’s exploration of the relationship between classical antiquity and Freud’s psychotherapeutic theories will remain accessible for years to come.