Hard on the heels of its blockbuster Grayson Perry exhibition, which has attracted 50,000 visitors, Firstsite, Colchester has announced three new exhibitions for its Spring programme…
BRONZE AGE c. 3500 BC – AD 2018
17 March – 28 October 2018
BRONZE AGE c. 3500 BC – AD 2018 is a fictional presentation from a forgotten museum. Originally realised in collaboration with Mary Beard, the broadcaster and Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, the show focuses solely on works made of bronze or from the Bronze Age period. These include artefacts on loan from regional museums, and private collections nationwide, sculptures by artists including modern masters Hans Arp, Louise Bourgeois, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, and Fausto Melotti, along with Phyllida Barlow’s bronze cast paint sticks, Subodh Gupta’s bronze Mona Lisa, a cast bronze fist by Martin Creed, and Mark Wallinger’s spectacles.
An iteration of Hauser & Wirth’s satirical museological presentation at Frieze London 2017, the show has been curated specifically for Colchester – the earliest recorded Roman town in Great Britain – and also features objects from the collections of Colchester and Ipswich Museums.
The exhibition has been made possible through the generous support of Hauser & Wirth, AB Fine Art Foundry, the Coode-Adams Firstsite Trust, Firstsite Collectors’ Group, the Finnis Scott Foundation and the Hervey Benham Charitable Trust.
The Britishness Project
17 March – 17 June 2018
The Britishness Project is a groundbreaking exhibition that investigates notions of Britishness through art making.
The show, which was initiated by the gallery, is the result of a collaboration between Essex schoolchildren and eight professional artists, each of whom undertook residencies in schools and education organisations in Colchester, Harlow and Harwich between September and December 2017.
By inviting young people – the pupils’ ages range from eight to seventeen – the exhibition aims to generate wide-ranging conversations about the shifting social, geographic and political identity of Britain, revealing issues that affect young people, especially in the context of the 2016 European Referendum.
The assembled works include collage, stop-motion animation, sculpture and photography, and engage with ideas of identity, landscape, sub-culture, democracy and political voice.
The exhibition has been made possible through the generous support of the Garfield Weston Foundation.
Chip Night
10 March – 3 June 2018
Chip Night is an exhibition of artwork, writing and music from people in prisons, secure hospitals and on community sentences in the East of England. Curated by Firstsite’s Young Art Kommunity (YAK), the exhibition is drawn from works submitted to the 2017 Koestler Awards – an annual awards programme spanning 52 artforms.
The Koestler Trust was set up in 1962 to help offenders, secure patients and detainees lead more positive lives by motivating them to participate and achieve in the arts. Each year, the awards attract thousands of entries from across the UK’s criminal justice and secure sectors. Last year’s judges included the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux, celebrity hairstylist Louise Galvin and musicians Ghetts and Hot Chip.
Chip Night is comprised of writing, music, and works of visual arts across the disciplines of painting, needlecraft, sculpture, woodcraft, mixed media, drawing, textiles, and digital art. The show’s title derives from an essay about chips and the important role that they play in the author’s life in prison. For YAK, the essay acts as a vehicle to narrate personal stories and explore the emotions and nostalgia that food can invoke.
The exhibition has been made in partnership with the Koestler Trust.
