the groundwork residency 2024

Ground Up is the title of GroundWork Gallery’s fourth annual artist residency and summer exhibition programme for 2024. Continuing our focus on issues surrounding the topic of Extraction this year we are asking artists to consider:

• What is removed from the earth via extraction, excavation, dredging, mining, foraging, etc. and why?
• The effects of extraction on any ecological system.
• The best means to draw attention to extraction.

GroundWork Gallery is dedicated to art and environment. In every sense we are local and global. Firstly, we show contemporary art of global quality . Secondly, we aim to connect contemporary art with global environmental concerns in King’s Lynn. This town, in Norfolk, Eastern England, is a place we really care about. Thirdly, we are also keen to show new work by emerging talents, often by artists who are local. And fourthly, we aim overall to bring a new understanding about the environment globally. Over time, you can expect to see all forms of visual arts: from painting to film, to photography and sculpture, but also, to engage with new environmental and ecological themes.

The gallery is spacious but modest in size (180 square metres in area), arranged over two floors separated by a stairwell. This semi-domestic context has also turned out to be a brilliant place to show art. It means we can create different atmospheres and experiences as people move around the building.

Each exhibition aims to develop a new strand of interest in the environment and to stimulate related activity and events. This is timely in an era when we need to be increasingly wary of all kinds of threats from pollution, species loss, deforestation and climate change, and now global pandemics.

During a normal season, we organise events, talks, films, music, practical workshops, and community projects for each exhibition. The idea is to encourage creativity and active discussion widely around the subject in question. We specialise in bringing a diverse approach to our programming. Each theme brings out different points of view, across art, science and a within a wider culture. By these means we can influence new understanding of the environmental problems we face.