Following the unprecedented success of Child’s Play’s opening night, Norman Rea’s first exhibition of this academic year, I was able to chat to the curators – Evie Brett (she/her) and Iris Beck (she/her), about their experience in curating and organising an exhibition of this scale. This is the first episode of a new series for Arts, entitled Canvas Conversations, where we speak with student artists and curators – aiming to illuminate their stories and give voice to an increasingly overlooked group of students.
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Georgina: “Evie, in your curator's welcome on the opening evening of the exhibition, it was mentioned that the theme, Child's Play, was your idea. What inspired you to come up with this concept and how did you develop it?”
Evie: “Well! I originally conceptualised Child’s Play back when I was a member of the 2023/2024 committee as an idea for what was then meant to be our third exhibition of the year. It was decided by Amelia and Eleanor, our co-directors at the time, that the third show would be a ‘committee choice’ – whereby anyone on the team would have the opportunity to put forward an idea. In the end, we all voted for Perceiving Nature to be the chosen exhibition – which was a fabulous show, exploring representations of the natural world.
“Throughout the rest of the year and especially after I was lucky enough to become one of the co-directors, alongside Iris, the concept of Child’s Play continued to tick away at the back of my mind. It was just so brilliant when the rest of the committee encouraged us to go ahead with the idea and see it come to fruition!”
Evie: “With this show, I simply wanted to capture a sense of fun within the gallery. Ultimately, I think it’s a feeling of joy that lies at the heart of art, both for the artist themselves and those perceiving it - and that’s applicable whether we’re aged 2 or 82. I wanted to tap back into that childlike creativity and artistry that I think is all too easily lost as we get older. It’s definitely been a long time coming, but I am so pleased with what we have created as a team, and I think we should all be really proud of ourselves!”
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Georgina: “As curators, what sort of art were you primarily interested in with regard to this theme? Did any that you ended up using surprise you?”
Iris: “Much of our initial discussion focused around modern and contemporary art in its abstraction; sometimes the simpler, nondescript forms that are mostly linked to the colour and materiality of the artwork feel like the most unpolluted expressions of emotion in art, that a childlike mind could certainly be drawn to. Artists in our exhibition such as Guada Gomez and Shoni Aston definitely speak to this idea very well.”
Editors note: Abstraction and Expressionism demand a unique sensitivity to colour dynamics, spatial relationships, and composition – elements that require not only intuition, but also a profound understanding of art theory. It can incorporate layers of social commentary and personal experience, and also philosophical inquiry – challenging viewers to engage with the work on multiple levels. The recent Expressionist exposé at Tate Modern encapsulated this philosophical approach to artistic creation and curation (see Muse Art’s review of this exhibition). The idea that ‘a child could do it’ has long been a common refrain, but to my mind, to consider abstraction as something a child could effortlessly replicate, is to tragically miss the intricate relationships between the artist, their philosophy and the viewer. I was thrilled to see this theme elucidated so thoroughly throughout Brett and Beck’s exhibition.
Iris: “In an alternative direction, many of our artists were linked more to an idea of the childlike imagination, or what children would most enjoy seeing art of. This could include more whimsical narrative-based subjects; a key example would be Lia Dae McClain and E.K. Mosley, two exhibiting artists who both primarily work in children’s illustrations and create pictures so fantastical that they can immerse you within an imagined story all by themselves.”
Iris: “For some of our curatorial team, the theme was all about returning to childhood from the adult perspective, reflecting upon their own experiences of growing up and what they understood about their earliest memories of life, even if they might feel more fragile and distant to where they are in life now. We found artists like Sophie Pearson and Amy Canning, who despite making deeply personal artworks managed to transport each viewer back into a nostalgia state with their inner child, either lost or found. Perhaps the most surprising realisation we had about the exhibition was how much variety could be found within all the artworks and how they interpreted the theme, and yet the viewing process never felt disjointed or disconnected."
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Georgina: “In the press brief, you mention that the exhibition is partly inspired by Susie Hodge's work, Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done That. Is there anything that you particularly hope viewers will take away from the exhibition in light of the ideas Hodge speaks about?”
Evie: “I think ultimately we are deconstructing the idea that to be compared to a child is a ‘bad’ thing. Whilst in her text, Hodge makes the claim that Abstract Art is not simply child’s play, but is a term that describes works that engage with extremely intellectual, political, sophisticated ways of thinking, I think it's important to directly challenge the very root that lies within the book’s title. Especially in regard to artist practice, why should it be a negative thing to be likened to a child, when in today’s climate, children are some of the most free-thinking and imaginative people in society. If anything, I’d say we all need to embrace our inner child a little bit more.”
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Georgina: “How do you go about approaching artists for your exhibitions - were there any artists you particularly wanted to collaborate with? If so, whom?”
Evie: We work collectively as a committee to approach our artists for each exhibition, which I think is a really fantastic thing because it means we each get to find that special bond with an artist. Finding an artist that truly speaks to you is such a special feeling and then to see the actual work up on the gallery’s walls is a wonderfully satisfying and full-circle experience! Speaking from experience, I would say Instagram is the place that I find most of my artists. Through hashtags and community pages, the algorithm really does help you to discover some truly amazing artists and creatives. Sights like York Contemporary Artists and South Bank Studios are always particularly good when looking for local artists. As soon as we decided to go for it with the exhibition theme, I just knew I had to enlist one of my good friends, Imogen Edmundson, who is a fabulous artist, working primarily in gouache and watercolour. I knew her recent practice has been heavily influenced by themes of childhood and growing up so I thought it would be perfect for Child’s Play.
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Georgina: “Have you encountered any challenges during the curatorial process, particularly regarding backlash against the message of the theme?”
Iris: “We never encountered any resistance or backlash to the theme itself; upon pitching it to the rest of the committee, the response was incredibly enthusiastic and we found that a theme like childhood was universal enough to be open to many artistic interpretations. We perhaps encountered some challenges in striking a curatorial balance that was both true to the exhibition’s playful theme and making sure our overall presentation was still becoming of a professional, functioning art gallery. Our gallery assistants, Belle and Lizzy, took a lead in imagining the decor for the exhibition, and they wanted to find decorations that would both speak to the idea of childlike creativity and yet never detract from the actual artworks within the exhibition; the beautiful starry garlands and the most delicate hanging origami were perfect in achieving this vision for the space.”
The exhibition incorporated interactive stations with its observational art. Childhood is the pinnacle of both watching and participating in order to learn, and the mixed-media presentation of Child’s Play hit the nail on the head.
Iris: “In nearly all NRG exhibitions, we always enjoy for there to be some interactive element to the exhibition, where viewers have the chance to give some sort of response to all the artworks they are seeing. On opening night, we transformed one of our gallery plinths into a sketchable cube equipped with the kind of crayons many of us used when we were younger, and this was the perfect adaptation of the existing gallery space into a channel for childlike creativity for the viewers themselves. Deciding how to balance such an unapologetically playful and most deliberately juvenile theme with the professional requirements of the gallery space was a challenge, but one that was taken on with great initiative during curation in a way that embodies all the excitement of being part of such a creative and practical student society.”
Georgina: “And which piece, for each of you, was your favourite? If you can pick one!”
Evie: “Ooh! If I had to pick just one, I would say my favourite piece is Peter Baker’s wooden blocks sculpture. Peter’s practice is all about fun, play, and experimentation. Indeed, he often encourages people to touch, move, and play around with his blocks, picking them up and rearranging their composition. When chatting with him, Peter was really taken with the interpretation of his blocks as likened to children’s playing bricks and I think they are a wonderful addition to the exhibition that really speak to the core ideas behind the motivation for bringing Child’s Play to life. They allow us to become childlike again upon engaging with them, taking us back to a sense of simplistic joy, allowing us to have fun simply for fun’s sake.”
Iris: “Child’s Play happens to be one of the largest exhibitions we have ever held at NRG, as we have over seventy individual artworks in total, and I found myself falling in love with so many different pieces throughout curation and opening night. A recent favourite would have to be Izzy McCormack, who made a fashion collection called ‘I am really a kite’ which included the most delicate, editorial garments made of paper. The collection was inspired by her childhood experiences growing up by the seaside, and in our exhibition we displayed several prints of each garment as well as a video display of her collection on the runway. In the video, each of her models floated and twirled down the catwalk allowing their dresses to spin out in colourful streams of floating paper; and this movement was so dynamic and bright yet incredibly delicate, embodying such a specific childlike idea of unselfconscious joy that was beautiful to witness.”
Many thanks to both Iris and Evie for their illuminating insights, and for their participation in this interview. Make sure to read Muse’s full review of Child’s Play, online now.
