Abstract

An international group exhibition featuring photographic works by Mandy Barker, Tessa Bunney, Liza Dracup, Sophie Ingleby, Helen McGhie, Maria McKinney, Robert Zhao Renhui and Penelope Umbrico.
The eight photographic artists in Observe Experiment Archive
delve into the age-old sense of wonder we feel when faced with
the complexities of our ever-changing world.
Curiosity about and concern for this world is a hallmark of all their work. Some of the artists in the exhibition seek to reimagine our natural world as it is transformed through human intervention and through the processes of photographic seeing itself. Others are fascinated by the contemporary allure of the unknown or by
global challenges that demand new forms of human inventiveness.
Observe Experiment Archive is not a comprehensive survey. Instead, it offers a selected view of the ways in which contemporary
art photography uniquely reflects scientific concerns, both contemporary and through a historical lens.

Practices of observation, experimentation and archiving are central to the explorations of all the artists exhibited here. Such approaches are imaginative mirrors of scientific methodologies. Scientific method often begins with an observation of something that captures the scientist’s attention and provokes their curiosity to know more. Experiments are then used to test a scientific hypothesis about phenomena in the world, while archiving is the process through which scientific research data is stored for future use. The artists in this exhibition, like scientists, are all keen and inquisitive observers of the world around us. Experimentation occurs as part of their creative process, as they test, reiterate and refine the photographic outcomes. The impulse to archive is reflected in the new photographic collections that they have created, as well as in the inspiration that many take from existing archival holdings, whether digital repositories or museum collections, including the one here at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.

As part of Observe Experiment Archive, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art presents ‘This is What I See,’ an overview of photographic artist Marjolaine Ryley’s practice to date,
incorporating photography, text and archival materials.