City Gallery comes to life with new art form

The artists have taken over the three gallery spaces (Tuesday to Saturday) for the duration of the exhibition, with a special performance weekend happening on February 19/20.

Charlotte, Penelope and Gaganpreet have been busy transforming the three gallery spaces into something never seen before by Peterborough audiences in a gallery setting. Their aim to question modern life to expose what is considered by ‘everyday’.

City Gallery, situated in Peterborough Museum, will become an ever-changing space of people, chutney, sanitary products and washing powder, and the artists will be performing their work to a live audience.

The young artists are all recent arts graduates, and are very excited to showcase their work on home soil. Charlotte said: ‘Most people will have seen examples of live art online from internationally renowned artists like Marina Abramović. With live art, the artist becomes part of the work, the smells and sounds and textures become part of the work. The space is never constant, which makes it thrilling for an audience. We are so excited to share our passion with Peterborough.’

Inspired by the domestic history of the building, the artists will explore themes of domestic living, and their performances will incorporate cooking, cleaning, and sewing.

The special performances on February 19, 6:30pm – 9pm, and on February 20, 9am – 5pm will see the artists collaborating on a surprise piece live in the space. They have also invited Peterborough Poet Laureate, Charley Genever (24) to write poems in response to their pieces, which she will read at the Friday event.

The artists will also be hosting artist talks and workshops on February 27 where they will discuss the themes presented in their work, and offer hands-on taster sessions of creating art from every day products.

Sheena Carman, Vivacity’s arts programme manager said: “Penelope, Gaganpreet and Charlotte have done an exceptional job in putting together their exhibition, and it undoubtedly has been a huge learning curve. It’s such a refreshing change to follow on from our fantastic Ealand & Warwick exhibition, ‘Friends through Art’, with something new, cutting-edge, and exciting.”

Charlotte, Penelope, and Gaganpreet have been given the opportunity to curate and perform their exhibition in City Gallery by Vivacity and Peterborough Presents. The three artists have spent the last six months leading up to the exhibition on Peterborough Presents’ Young Artist Training Programme called ‘Emerge’. The Emerge Training Programme aims to develop artists, aged 16-25 living in the Greater Peterborough area, working in any creative medium. The programme is designed to equip participants with the skills, experience and contacts that they need to build their own creative career, and contributed to Peterborough’s growing creative sector.

‘Wash Your Dirty Linen in Public’ runs until March 2, Tuesday – Saturday, 9am – 5pm.