Abstract

Time is Elastic is a concertina book and self portrait by Johannah Churchill, acquired into the permanent collection of the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art and exhibited in The Skin We Live In, the inaugural group exhibition drawn from the NGCA collection, from 23 November 2024 to 2 March 2025.
The work offers a lyrical exploration of fluctuations in the human experience of time, particularly during periods of illness, loss or isolation. In physics, time passes more slowly at sea level than at the top of a mountain when measured on an atomic level; time is relative to gravitational force, and mass slows the time around it. Yet the human experience of time is equally inconsistent with any perpetually linear representation. A lived experience of time is composed of moments: fleeting touch, memory, feeling, a reminiscent scent or sound. Our experience of the present is entirely interwoven with feelings of the past and imaginings of the future.
The Skin We Live In brought together work by 29 contemporary artists and photographers exploring portraiture across photography, painting, sculpture, film and printmaking, moving beyond skin deep to examine the shared human condition. The exhibition shifted the focus of portraiture away from the individual towards collective experience, giving visibility and voice to aspects of human experience such as loss, isolation and identity. Churchill's work entered the collection as a new acquisition alongside those of Michael Daglish and Janina Sabaliauskaitė.