GRUNDY AT LIGHTPOOL: Neon, New Media and Natural Light

GRUNDY AT LIGHTPOOL: Neon, New Media and Natural Light. We are excited to announce details of Grundy Art Gallery’s contribution to the 2023 Lightpool Festival.

From 10am – 10pm each day, visitors will be able to experience artworks by five different artists whose works use light in a variety of ways.

GRUNDY AT LIGHTPOOL: Neon, New Media and Natural Light is part of Grundy’s ongoing commitment to commission, present and collect light-based artworks and is part of the gallery’s work to celebrate Blackpool’s identity as a town of light.

Cllr. Lynn Williams (Leader of Blackpool Council and Grundy Art Gallery steering group chair) said, “On top of the exciting exhibition, Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2023 currently on display at the Grundy - I am delighted to once again be celebrating the work of Blackpool’s art gallery, whose exciting programmes of activity have local, national and international reach. Neon, New Media and Natural light will provide a great contribution to Blackpool’s landmark Lightpool Festival.”

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THE STORM CONE by Laura Daly with music by Lucy Pankhurst.

Location: Blackpool Promenade opposite Blackpool Tower – Daylight hours.

Download the App at www.thestormcone.com to experience the Artwork.

The Storm Cone is an immersive artwork that unearths lost bandstands and their buried past. Originally commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection and Metal, the lost bandstands of Peel Park, Salford and Chalkwell Park, Southend were The Storm Cone’s starting point. Through newly commissioned music by composer Lucy Pankhurst, and eight interrelated sound works by Daly, The Storm Cone charts a story of loss, celebration, human strength and fragility. This autumn, The Storm Cone is transported to Blackpool as part of Grundy’s Lightpool presentation where it uncovers the site of one of the town’s own lost bandstands. The Storm Cone combines Augmented Reality technology with the real world in a breath-taking experience. To access the artwork, audiences are invited to download The Storm Cone app onto any compatible hand-held device (mobile phone/tablet). The app guides users to a location on Blackpool’s North Promenade, opposite Blackpool Tower where a bandstand once stood. There, The Storm Cone will begin!

The Storm Cone by Laura Daly with music by Lucy Pankhurst was, commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection and Metal, in partnership with Salford Culture and Place Partnership. Generously supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Also supported by Metal, PN Daly Ltd and Zinc and Copper Roofing.

It is presented in Blackpool supported by Lightpool Festival, Grundy Art Gallery and Blackpool Council.

ILLUMINATED FROM WITHIN by Fiona Grady

Location: Grundy Art Gallery Forecourt – Daylight hours.

To tie in with Blackpool’s season of light and the Lightpool Festival, Grundy has extended the display of Fiona Grady’s Illuminated from Within until 16 December. Through her use of light, colour, surface and scale, the artist’s colourful geometric artwork transforms the setting of Grundy’s forecourt. Activated by changes in the direction and intensity of daylight Illuminated from Within quietly marks the passing of time whilst also providing a dynamic contribution to the Grundy at Lightpool programme.

BLACKPOOL LIGHT OF MY LIFE, 2023 EDIT by Chila Kumari Singh Burman
Location: Front of Grundy Art Gallery Gallery building 6pm-10pm.

In 2021 Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool Illuminations and Lightpool Festival co-commissioned new work from the internationally recognised artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE. The resulting piece, Blackpool Light of My Life took the form of a riotous display of multi-coloured new light works that that were installed on the front of Grundy Art Gallery. Informed by the artist’s Indian Roots and her Liverpudlian upbringing the work was described as a love letter to the town. While a number of pieces from the original installation are now out on tour to Light Night Leeds for their 2023 festival, an edited version of Blackpool Light of My Life will be presented on the front of Grundy Art Gallery for this year’s Lightpool Festival. Elsewhere in the town, new work by Chila Kumari Singh Burman can be seen as part of this year’s Blackpool Illuminations who have commissioned a new large-scale feature by the artist called Lollies in Love with Life.

GRUNDY X LIGHTPOOL X HYBRID FUTURES: Shezad Dawood and RA Walden.

As part of GRUNDY AT LIGHTPOOL: Neon, New Media and Natural Light - the Grundy is also presenting work that has been developed as part of a partnership project called Hybrid Futures. Hybrid Futures is a multi-part collaboration focusing on climate, sustainability, collaborative learning and co-production between Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, Touchstones Rochdale, University of Salford Art Collection and Shezad Dawood Studio. See hybrid-futures.salford.ac.uk for more information on Hybrid Futures.

THE UNIVERSE IS A CLOCK(i) Schrödinger’s equation, time dependent by RA Walden

Location: Grundy Art Gallery, Visit during Grundy opening hours.

Co-commissioned as part of Hybrid Futures, in this work, the numerals of a clock are replaced with the different elements from an equation by the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist Schrödinger. Made from clear glass and helium gas, this work brings the physical world and the world of physics together to invite the viewer to consider their own understandings of time. As we occupy bodies in their varying states of health, on a planet careening toward sickness and at a time when the future is so unknown; this work also opens up questions of clock time, sick time, and normative time-keeping.

ISLAND PATTERN by Shezad Dawood.

Location: Grundy Art Gallery, Visit during Grundy opening hours.

Island Pattern (2017), has been co-acquired as part of Hybrid Futures. It is informed by studies of the wave patterns in the Venice Lagoon and tells the story of a city at increasing risk from climate change and rising seas levels. The ideas for Island Pattern evolved out of conversations with Marine Engineer Angela Pomero and the chief designer at Venice’s Fortuny textile factory, Pietro Lunetta who had created a textile print using the same wave pattern data. Adding his own family history of links to the textile trade in Pakistan and the North West of England to these discussions, Dawood’s research sought to understand how the seemingly disparate subjects of pattern, migration and climate change, intersect.

HYBRID FUTURES is supported by Arts Council England, Art Fund and Henry Moore Foundation.

It is supported in Blackpool by Lightpool Festival, Grundy Art Gallery and Blackpool Festival.

WORKSHOPS

Tues 24^th October 

10.30am -12.00pm  

LIGHT THEMED WORKSHOP inspired by Grundy at Lightpool.  

Suitable for Ages 10+ 

FREE and ALL MATERIALS PROVIDED. CHILDREN MUST BE ACCOMPANIED. Please book via 01253 478170.

ALSO AT GRUNDY ART GALLERY

Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2023

30 September – 16 December

Since 1949, New Contemporaries has presented an annual survey exhibition of emerging and early career artists from UK art schools and alternative peer-to-peer learning programmes. This year’s exhibition includes 55 artists selected by internationally renowned artists Helen Cammock, Sunil Gupta, and Heather Phillipson.

This is the first time that New Contemporaries has travelled to Blackpool. The exhibition presents a rich diversity of voices and approaches to making including painting, sculpture, moving image, drawing, performance and sound. The works are presented thematically and reflect some of the concerns and interests of this generation of emerging artists.

Laura Daly and Chila Kumari Singh Burman, who are exhibiting as part of GRUNDY AT LIGHTPOOL Neon, New Media and Natural Light, provide a bridge between Grundy’s autumn exhibitions, as both of these are artists have previously exhibited in New Contemporaries.

New Contemporaries is supported by Arts Council England, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Bridget Riley Art Foundation, and The Granada Foundation.

It is supported in Blackpool by Grundy Art Gallery and Blackpool Council.