Exhibition: For Your Convenience

For Your Convenience : Exploring Convenience Culture through an Artistic Lens. 27th November – 13th December 2024. Norman Rea Gallery University of York

I’m pleased to be showing a new piece in this exhibition. Make Gardens Green Again was part of my Land Shapes exhibition in my garden studio earlier this year. It is part of a series of works exploring the loss of front gardens. I’m sharing the rest of this project in Making Meaning Journal Issue 2 which will be out very soon.

Make Gardens Green Again Banner

Thinking about front gardens and their loss prompted me to
make a protest banner calling for re-wilding front gardens. Made
from a vintage tablecloth with the poppies and wheat
embroidery by another, unknown maker. Text added by me
using appliqué and hand embroidery. 2023

Press release from the gallery about the exhibition.

https://www.normanrea.com

Norman Rea Gallery is excited to announce the second exhibition of our 2024/25 programme “For your Convenience.” ‘Convenience culture’ is an often overlooked subsect of twenty-first-century consumerism. It is defined as a societal shift towards a convenient lifestyle, which prioritises a lack of personal exertion over the consequential impacts this choice will have. This manifests in every aspect of modern life, often by no fault of the consumers, impacting everything from the purchases we make, to the food we consume. Through this exhibition, we seek to question the motivation behind these choices, and raise questions about the impact that ‘Convenience culture’ is having on the world around us.

Through the curation of the gallery space “For your Convenience” aims to position the viewer in an ‘at home’ environment in an attempt to highlight the way that convenience culture has seeped into our spaces. We invite viewers to consider how this culture manifests in their own home, as well as their wider exploration of the world. By doing so we seek to remove the blame so often placed on the everyday person, instead looking to expose the way we are made unknowingly complicit in the perpetuation of this social shift.

Additionally, we aim to draw attention to both the widely acknowledged impacts of ‘convenience culture’, such as the current climate crisis, and those which are often overlooked due to their lack of visibility, such as the decline of traditional making techniques in favour of mass produced, new or convenient alternatives. By platforming traditional artisans, alongside the context that is fuelling their dwindling numbers, we hope to enable our visitors to reconsider the choices they make out of convenience.

“For your convenience” was conceived with inspiration from national and international exhibitions alongside wider societal criticism, including ‘Shopping: A century of art and consumer culture’ (2002) at Tate Liverpool + RIBA North; ‘The [Not-So] Convenience Store’ (2021) at the National Design centre Singapore; and Pallant House Galleries’ 2024 talk “Consumer Culture and Still Life: British Pop Art” – which all explored the impact of consumerism and convenience culture, either through art, or via its direct impact on artistic practise. Environmentalist movements, such as the ‘Zero-waste movement’ have also provided an inspiration to the exhibition, asking us to question the avoidable and unavoidable waste we consume daily.  Dr Chris Van Tulleken’s 2023 book ‘Ultra-processed people’, in which he draws into question the impact of convenience culture on foods we buy, often without our knowledge, additionally provided an interest in the non-material impacts that this culture is having on us.

The opening night for For Your Convenience will take place on Wednesday 27th November from 18:30 – 21:00. In addition to the exhibition, the Norman Rea will run a rich programme of events and workshops, further drawing upon the themes raised within the artworks displayed. 

This exhibition is curated by Rowan Hill and Maddie Gilbert, with special thanks to the work of the Norman Rea Gallery’s dedicated committee: Evie Brett, Iris Beck, Julianna Ilnicka, Madeleine McClean, Elspeth French, Joy Moore-Smith, Belle Edwards, Lizzy Jones, Ev Hughes, Maddie Foster, Joshua Doney, Emily Kirk, and Charlotte Whitehill. Thank you also to our wonderful members who curated this alongside us.