The Magic Of Middle-earth exhibit is on at the Atkinson, and will be there until the 27th of September. It’s a curation of Matt Fox’s personal collection, and it has some great highlights spanning several types of media: Legos, figurines, first-editions, sculptures and an interactive small area specially designed for children to feel as if they were sat in the Shire are some of these different media, but the highlight, to me, were the illustrations created from Tolkien’s imaginarium– though hearing Mr. Spock singing about Bilbo Baggins was pretty other-worldly, too.
 |
| «Host of Chaos», by Chris Achilleos |
As any decent, self-respecting human being, I’m a fan of The Lord of The Rings, and I look forward to reading The Hobbit to my son. I enjoyed the different renditions of Smaug –my favourite character– and seeing a Super Nintendo box as part of the exhibit. The other thing I enjoy about Tolkien’s world are the maps, of which, unfortunately, I thought there weren’t enough, but that is not even a blemish on what is otherwise an outstanding exhibit.
Reading the curatorial text and the tombstones I came to realise not enough works of literature or videogames have been set in Middle-earth. Sure, plenty of Tolkin’s creations have transcended his lore, but, with some an extensive history and such a vast setting, one would think there’d be more adventures taking place there; Tolkien’s Estate must be quite tight-fisted with its licenses. At least we’ve had a couple of nice video-games set in Middle Earth, the Shadow games by
Image from https://posterplus.com.au/product/chris-achilleos-host-of-chaos/ ; there’s a signed version exhibited.