Project Art Works: Residential

This September, Project Art Works will present Residential, an exhibition developed in collaboration with Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, in Gateshead.

Following a year-long project of awareness raising and relationship building in the North East of England with Baltic, neurodiverse communities, artists and caregivers, Residential will culminate in an installation of artworks and film in Baltic’s Ground Floor gallery, opening 23 September. Bringing together research and learning from the collaboration, the exhibition will include a programme of workshops and events for audiences, collaborators, individuals, families and caregivers.

Residential forms part of Explorers, a national programme which increases the visibility and presence of neurodivergent artists in contemporary art. Explorers creates pathways for cultural organisations to deepen their understanding and commit to inviting artists and their carers into their spaces as producers and collaborators. Explorers is supported by Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Residential will be a vibrant, powerful and celebratory installation of large-scale paintings and spaces for making and verbal and nonverbal conversations. The Project Art Works archive of over five thousand works provides a rich resource, and this exhibition will present over fifty works across Baltic’s generous Ground Floor gallery space. A new film by Project Art Works reveals the subtle and expansive nature of speaking and non-speaking communication. Alongside the exhibition, a studio and making area will be used for a series of collaborative interactions that bring different people, audiences and artists together in creative production.

Artists: Kate Adams, Liam Ash, Aida Ashall, Alison, Connor Ashley, Emily Baines, El Bass, Luke Bebb, Michael Bounds, Sammy Brooks, Paul Colley, Andrew Cooper, Tim Corrigan, Edward Cox-Smith, Oliver Crowther, Natalie Dance, Mark Daniels, Sara Dare, Jack Denness, Dion Downes, Sarah Dunne, Stanley Ellis, Gemma Evans, Amy Fenton, Byron Filnie, Patricia Finnegan, Siddharth Gadiyar, David Geall, Albert Geere, Jo Goldman, Jack Goldsmith, Charlotte Hanlon, Peter Hersey, Toby Hewson, Rachel Hine, Cherry Lane, Lucy Jenion, Neville Jermyn, Annis Joslin, Eden Kötting, Aisha al-Kurd, Thomas Lepora, Lucy, Claire Matthews, Fred Mazzio, David Marriot, Amy McDonald, Leila McMillan, Heidi Nice, Louise Newham, Sean Ormonde, India O’Sullivan, Magda Patza, Johnny Pell, Sharif Persaud, Phoebe, Ellen Prebble, Peter Quinell, Gabby R, Michelle Roberts, Georgie Scott, Carl Sexton, Maya Shapiro Steen, Will Shepherd, Brian Simpkin, George Smith, Sam Smith, Darryl Spencer, Charlotte Stephens, Daniel Wells, Jakob Wright, Sarah T, Katie Taylor, Charlie Thomas, Christopher Tite, Christina Watson, Marion Willis.

Kate Adams, CEO/Artist Director, Project Art Works said:

The immense proportions of the Baltic building and its place on the River Tyne, resonate powerfully with the macro and micro histories of Newcastle and Gateshead. It is a privilege to be working alongside this innovative institution, its communities and neurominorities in the North East. We look forward to realising this long planned collaboration and a new exhibition that further mines our continually evolving archive of powerful works by neurodivergent artists.

Sarah Munro, Director, Baltic commented:

We are delighted to be collaborating on this exhibition with Project Art Works. Their important work with neurodivergent communities and individuals resonates very strongly with Baltic’s vision, to deeply root inclusivity and diversity in all our practices and projects. We have enjoyed working with Project Art Works over the past year and look forward to celebrating the extraordinary contribution neurodiverse communities make to art and culture within the exhibition.

Residential at Baltic will be open Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00–18:00 and runs from 23 September 2023 to 25 February 2024. www.baltic.art

Events Programme

Residencies as Exhibition
26–29 September 2023, 17–22 October, 28 November–1 December 2023, 16–19 January 2024, 20–23 February 2024 Further information: www.projectartworks.org

Taking place within a temporary studio installation at Baltic, these residencies as exhibition will include a series of group and individual art actions that are personalised to individual needs, including large-scale drawings, painting and solar printing. The residencies will have invited guests participating each day, including groups and individuals from the social care sector in Newcastle and Gateshead, the staff team from Baltic and PAW artist-facilitators.

These workshops will focus on sharing art practice and ‘play’ as the starting point for greater understanding between people, with the long-term vision being the development of sustainable relationships between Baltic and local social care communities.

Terrains of Care: Speaking and non-speaking with Reina Sofia
Wednesday 18 October 2023
Booking information: www.projectartworks.org

Terrains of Care responds to an invitation by Project Art Works to explore the intersections between art and care in Spain through artistic practices that operate in the converging terrains of complex care needs, disability and neurodivergence. The event will examine and challenge conventional notions of care by looking at the intersections between communities and social systems of care, which simultaneously enable and disable people. The programme will be part of a site-specific sector-wide international learning event, which is the culmination of the two-year Explorers programme.

Explorers Final Event 2023
How can Cultural Institutions evolve into more caring and inclusive spaces?
28 – 29 November 2023
This event will celebrate the culmination of five years of the Explorers project and the transformation in the representation of neurominorities in art and culture generated through its partnerships and actions.

Residential Review
Wednesday 21 February 2024 Further information: www.baltic.art

Social care processes place value on people and their abilities, through complex and sometimes adversarial systems of assement and review. These then determine the care that people receive through local or national frameworks of support. This event takes a similar approach to looking at the cultural and social value of exhibitions for and by neurominorities.

Project Art Works will facilitate a reflective session and in conversation with the audience assess the impact of the exhibition, workshops and experiences over this eighteen-month collaboration. This will be a moment to contribute and commit to a plan for the future ensuring that the inclusive paradigms that have been conceived and tested through the project endure and evolve into the future.The event will have an inclusive environment and structure that facilitates the widest possible contribution from contributors supported by film and recorded documentation and feedback from audiences, participants and collaborators in the project.

ENDS

Press Contacts

Jessica Courtney Bennett
Communication and Projects Manager, Project Art Works [email protected], +44 (0)1424 423555

Craig Astley
Head of Communications, Baltic [email protected] +44 (0)191 440 4913