Transcendent space: Earthbound at The New Art Gallery Walsall

Raphael Roy Taylor

The New Art Gallery, Walsall (c. Caruso St John Architects)

One of the UK’s largest, most interesting and dynamic contemporary art spaces can be found in Walsall. Previously housed in a 19th-century building and 1970s extension, the gallery was transformed with an incredible new building at the turn of the millennium. Amidst the many large-scale capital projects from the National Lottery at the time, The New Art Gallery is unique. Its scale is extraordinary, at 53,000 square feet, and in the context of Walsall, a characterful medium-sized town on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation, it feels a little of an oddity, though a very welcome one.

I had the opportunity to speak with Deborah Robinson, Head of Exhibitions, beginning by taking a futuristic-feeling lift up to the third floor, which houses temporary galleries. These huge, cathedralesque spaces feature a "beautiful black power floated concrete floor", with high mounted windows featuring a "blackout system" allowing flexible control over lighting. In this space is the Earthbound exhibition, presented as a hopeful and positively engaged response to the climate crisis, aiming for a gentler approach rather than being "alarmist" as many approaches to tackling the climate crisis have been.

Across four spaces, 9 artists use different mediums to evoke the idea of how humanity’s connection with our natural landscape has withered away and of the pressing need for us to rediscover it.

For example, in the first space depicted above, Otobong Nkanga’s We Come from Fire and Return to Fire contrasts destruction with hope, using restorative minerals like "pyrargyrite, tourmaline and shungite" in a work suggesting a "parched landscape" with a "possibility for renewal". This piece, stretching from floor to ceiling is the focal point for the exhibition’s first room, complementing Tania Kovats’ sequence of 30 crushed dahlias, called Last of My Summer Blooms. Instead of displaying them as a grid, they are hung side-by-side along a 26-metre wall, giving the viewer no choice but to examine each unique bloom of colour created by the crushing process.

Charmaine Watkiss’ series Plant Warriors explores "plant knowledge passed down through generations in the Caribbean", linking plants to "spiritual themes, histories and cultures associated with plants". Works feature the ‘warriors” protecting "endangered plants" by carrying "seeds for the future" in their pockets. The works, which are modelled on Watkiss herself, envision a positive relationship between women, land and nature.

Jody Carey’s Guard

Jody Carey’s work takes up an entire gallery, with "130 sculptures" created by "burying plants in the surface of the soil” then pouring jesmonite into their imprints. The work views "the soil being the skin of the Earth" associated with "life, death and cyclical regeneration", while plants often carry "associations with commemoration and memorialisation" -sunflowers and poppies spring to mind. The installation is designed to be "walked through", giving one the feeling of being scaled down, gazing up at giant blades of grass.

General Public (foreground) and Grace Emily Manning

General Public and Grace Emily Manning’s work is perhaps the most grand-scale of the exhibition. The Sanctum of the One-Eyed Toad (& other Spirit Animals of Walsall) is an earthwork structure from Chris Poolman constructed entirely from "natural building materials", using cob techniques. This work, which the gallery commissioned, involved significant community outreach to the Tuesday Women’s Group from Caldmore Community Garden, or Mud Club, in which the panels on the hut representing significant animals and themes relevant to Walsall. It results in a beautiful structure that represents Walsall’s community in a way that feels genuine rather than a potentially more paternalistic central government project.

The hut is flanked by two temple cloths from Grace Emily Manning, constructed using natural dyes and organic fabrics. The motif of the camel was created by the Mud Club and makes up the significant part of the cloths’ design, as well as the huge cloth that hangs in the window box as one enters the Gallery. This camel, with its enduring stamina, can represent the earth’s resilience in the face of humanity’s attack or our collective resilience in this time of crisis, depending on one’s perspective.

This uplifting, positive theme could not have been possible unless it were hung in the New Art Gallery’s temporary exhibition galleries. The 6m high ceilings and high-mounted windows (or lights depending which space you are in) create an incredible ambience which fits to an almost reverential silence that falls upon you as you progress: you hesitate from speaking too loudly from fear of creating an echo in the cavernous galleries. This allows for the perfect viewing conditions for such powerful and thoughtful work.