Newcastle-based artist Kate Liston has been commissioned to create a new installation for the newly-reopened Hatton Gallery.
Feel After the New See will transform the most historic gallery space within the Hatton into an immersive installation, which will become the setting for a new film work taking shape throughout the exhibition.
Julie Milne, Chief Curator at the Hatton Gallery explains:
“This is the first in a series of annual, site-specific commissions which will see new artworks made especially for the Hatton Gallery, marking its important place in international innovations in installation art.”
“We are especially thrilled to work with Kate Liston as her work has such close synergies with the unique history of the Hatton Gallery and its place within the city of Newcastle.”
Kate Liston’s installation is inspired by the work of German artist Ella Bergmann-Michel whose work was exhibited in Newcastle in the 1960s and 70s, and who later donated a collage to the Hatton Gallery.
The film which will be developed during the exhibition features footage of Newcastle shot by the artist, reflecting the city’s past and future, combined with footage of miniature versions of the artist’s larger installation, and other references to Ella Bergmann-Michel’s own drawings, collages and film work. Kate Liston explains:
“As well as being drawn to Ella Bergmann-Michel’s work, I am also interested in the way she defines herself as an artist. She describes her role of being in the world as a mediator engaged in a form of ‘tracing’, in German ‘nachspüren’, a word that more accurately translates as ‘to feel after’.”
“The exhibition is a response to the sense of encounter that this term evokes, of a constant negotiation with the world that is revealed through Bergmann-Michel’s work.”
Events will include a group film screening event and a live action roleplay, through which the installation will become a game space and participants explore possibilities for the new film.
Feel After the New See is on show at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University, from Saturday 17 February until Saturday 19 May. Admission is free.