Sabina Sallis: Multispecies Visionary Institute – (S)Low Disturbance Exhibition Model programme
A weekly evolving programme of exhibitions within the gallery from regional and international artists responding the themes within the Multispecies Visionary Institute exhibition.
You can book timed tickets for the exhibition here or you can walk up in the day, no booking necesarry.
17 – 24 July
Allicin (Ponytail) and Rita’s Sampler
Hannah Christy and Madeline Wynne
Working with food, text, clothing, photography, and sculpture Hannah Christy responds to the context of ART through the relationship between things and sensations, ponytails and ribbons, appendages and bee stings.
Madeline Wynne’s Rita’s Sampler is a crafted act and product of idolatry that speaks to the figure of Rita Hayworth and the metamorphic stages of womanhood. It features hand-stitched extracts of Rita’s diary in the artists ‘made-up’ language, ‘reflecting a long history of female iconography and gendered spiritual manifestations of celestial, discarnate forces from ancient goddess worship to anthropomorphised representations of natural worlds.
24 July – 7 August
Telling the Bees
Rosalind McLachlan
The close link between bees and the household or family of their owners is a feature of northern mythology; the custom of ‘telling the bees’ was a common practice in rural communities of many north European countries, including Great Britain.
Using the custom of ‘telling the bees’ as a starting point, McLachlan re-visions the role of the (non-human) bee in rituals for the (human) dead.
3 – 8 August
Bee Communications
A durational choreographic performance by Alex Borys taking place in the gallery throughout the week
Alex will invite visitors to join her in movement and contemplation and embody ways to communicate with bees and wider multispecies worlds
that support any swarm.
7 – 14 August
The One Sun & For the Bridled and the Groomed
Alicja Swiatlon & Lois Robins
Alicja Swiatlon’s artworks grow from close observation and immersion in the natural world. The One Sun (The South African version) is inspired by the experience of the warmth of the South African sun, but inevitably such a memory contains the accumulated experiences of all other sunshine, be it in Poland or Canada. Like bees, we are all creatures of the sun, orienting ourself to it for general life sustenance.
For the Bridled and the Groomed are a selection of artworks by Lois Robins, that are a reflection on one individual’s response to an event that overturned their world, represented here as votive offerings to petition nature on their behalf.
14 – 28 August
Active Specimens and Hearts with Lines
Naomi Bailey-Cooper and Catherine Sarah Young
Naomi Bailey-Cooper’s Active Specimens is a textile work inspired by the way in which scientists record exotic animal life in rainforests that often includes the use of a euthanized specimen.
Catherine Sarah Young exhibits The Weighing of the Heart and Burned Lines artworks that speak to the climate crisis and are made from ashes and other organic remains from the Australian bushfires.
28 August – 5 September
The Threads of Venus
Bridget Kennedy
The Threads of Venus is a set of textile samples showing the processes that two very different materials go through in order to be used as a fibre for weaving: one is nettle, on the other discarded electrical cable. In a future when resources are dwindling might the humble nettle become as valuable a commodity as copper?
Multispecies Visionary Institute was commissioned by Berwick Visual Arts and has been supported using public funding by Arts Council England, Newcastle University’s Institute for Creative Arts Practice and the Polish Cultural Institute.