RETREAT: This is not a holiday
Symposium and launch: Saturday 6th October, 12:30 – 5:00pm
Exhibition open: Monday 8th – Friday 26th October, 10am-4pm, Mon-Fri
RETREAT is an annual week-long residential workshop that has taken place in remote areas across Britain. It is not a holiday: it is an opportunity to enjoy communal living and intensely debate artistic practices. Michael Whitby has organised RETREAT since its beginnings in 2008. The act of generosity – of time, energy and ideas – from all involved, and a commitment to the group’s self-organisation, informs the project. As an evolving, experimental space RETREAT functions as a temporary autonomous zone, a model for existing inside a system that allows no outside.
Originally a gathering of students from Wimbledon College of Art, the project has produced a unique and extensive network of friendships and working relationships, and the exhibition at Hardwick Gallery presents the work of 13 participants at the 2018 workshop in Northumbria.
The exhibition will also present a collection of RETREAT posters, alongside an archive of publications and films: a rich resource that are not just a record of activities and discussions that took place, but artworks in themselves.
Participating artists: Flora Wellesley Wesley, Hannah Clark, Indianna Solnick-Farrell, Alice Gale-Feeny, Kevin Hunt, Sam Mercer, Rachel Busby, Eleanor Sikorski, Sooyon Kim, Polly Elizabeth Baker, James Hankey, Rowan Lear, Alex Noble.