Just as the bronze memorial statue outside Newlyn Art Gallery makes a connection between the land and those that go down to the sea so Magda Stawarska-Beavan, Rebecca Chesney and Lubaina Himid have created three very different works for their current exhibition titled, Conversations about time and place.
“A rural ecologist, an urban drifter and a diasporic optimist examine the invisible layers underneath, the lost spaces on the edge and the forgotten places in between.” Lubaina Himid.
The exhibition explores the work of three artists, Magda Stawarska-Beavan, Rebecca Chesney and Lubaina Himid, who consider the poetic investigation of place, space and time, through painting, sound installation and place-based research.
All three artists use their work to uncover the hidden, understand a place as it is experienced by those who know it well, and remember apparently unknown histories.
Each artist has made new work for the show. See here for details.
Invisible Narratives is curated by Lubaina Himid CBE, winner of the 2017 Turner Prize.
The show runs until May 29th.
Also part of the current show is a piece by Rebecca Cheney that draws inspiration from the historic Tidal Observatory at the end of the South pier in Newlyn. For nearly 100 years navigational charts cited sea levels as being taken from the tidal observatory in Newlyn. Newlyn Tidal Observatory was established to determine mean sea level as a starting point for measuring height and levelling throughout the UK, and provides some of the longest sea level records ever kept. The length and consistency of the observatory workings give the data collected huge historical significance - especially so with regard to global warming and climate change.
Yesterday afternoon the gallery was treated to a talk...
from Richard Cockram, the vice-chairman of the Newlyn Archive, on the history and importance of the observatory...
and from artist Rebecca Chesney on how a visit to the observatory inspired new work for her show, Invisible Narratives...
Rebecca's work uses the data from the observatory...
starting in 1916 up to 2018...
in a longitudinal piece...
on paper strips reminiscent of the paper roll used by the original Munro gauge recorder...
since the recordings taken in the first few years...
moving to the last few, it is easy to see how sea levels are continually moving upwards. It is possible to view see the live data streamed from the observatory's bubbler gauge along with hundreds of other stations that form a global network.
Also included in the exhibition is Rebecca's Forewarning, a three-screen video and sound installation filmed in 2018 on South Walney Island off the coast of Cumbria.
Local photographer Greg Martin produced a series of images on the day of a visit organised by Richard Cockram on behalf of the Newlyn Archive - the visit was also recorded by for Through the Gaps here.
For June, the gallery is planning a walk & talk tour in the harbour - which will necessitate a 6am start and appropriate footwear in order to see and hear the fish auction in full swing!