Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Globe City Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
2 June – 1 July
Reviewed by: Davy Smith
‘Climate Change: Cultural Change’ is a series of exhibitions and events taking place in various venues around Newcastle and Gateshead. The exhibition at the Globe City Gallery is a presentation of video and interactive works by Michael Pinsky, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison and Peter Rogers.
The main exhibition space contains a five-screen video projection, Moving On, by Michael Pinsky. In fact, Pinsky’s work, comprising of two separate video installations and an interactive piece, make up the majority of the exhibition. Moving On depicts a constantly looping procession of people. As we move from screen to screen, the transport that is utilised advances from walking, to cycling, and finally motor vehicles. The effect that is produced by this zoetrope-like series is powerfully hypnotic. However, the work cannot be read in a cyclical manner. As its title playfully suggests, Moving On forces the viewer to consider the implications of technological development. The individuality displayed in the dress and features of the women on the left-hand screen, is placed in comparison to the right-hand screen, in which there are no people; the only individualism on display is in the different models of the vehicles, alluding to the homogenisation of cultures through the adoption of Western technological advancements in developing countries.
Peter Rogers’ interactive piece, Climate Change Explorer, is the result of a project based at Dowdales School in Cumbria. The students involved considered how their local area might become affected by climate change. Unlike Pinsky’s work, Climate Change Explorer addresses our immediate surroundings, showing that climate change does not just affect the remote reaches of the globe.
One of the more interesting successes of this exhibition is in its ability to show that socially engaged practice can be aesthetically resolved without comprising the importance of its ideological content. However, I left this exhibition with a feeling that something seemed to be missing. What became apparent was that in order to fully engage with ‘Climate Change: Cultural Change’ there is a requirement for the viewer to take part in the wider programme surrounding it. Without the addition of these seminars and events, the issues explored in this exhibition remain slightly unresolved.
Writer detail:
Davy Smith
Venue detail:
Globe Gallery (City)
Curtis Mayfield House, Carliol Square, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
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