On the 14th of October, ‘26 Inspirations’ opened at the Building Centre as part of the Bloomsbury Festival. Created in response to this year’s theme – Breathe – a group of artists and writers have collaborated to create works that interpret the etymological connection between inspiration and breath. The exhibition is organized and curated by writer's group '26', a non-profit organization for ‘anyone who believes in the power of words’. Founded in 2003 by seven writers who wanted to champion the importance of words in all aspects of life, the group sets up ‘crowd writing’ initiatives, which bring together multiple writers to focus on a particular theme. The display at the Building Centre offers a place for community members to share their ‘inspirations’ with the public.
The works include a mixture of poems and visual art, oftentimes as a result of an artist and writer working together. One of the pieces, a ceramic mobile, was created by Gita Ralleigh and Miny Walker, medical doctors at Imperial NHS who worked throughout the pandemic. Miny has used her ceramics training to produce masks and leaves in white porcelain, reflecting her experience of how walking in nature helped her cope with work, and Gita has written an accompanying poem made with found text from Achille Mbembe’s The Universal Right To Breathe. Another duo are a mother and son inspired by mudlarking (hunting for artefacts on the Thames foreshore). Jill and Leo Hopper have teamed up to respond to the history of the riverbank with a display of found objects, a photograph, and a poem. Elen Lewis and Alex Harwood draw on the ‘raw beauty’ of the Jurassic coast: a striking wooden head bobs out of several layers of glowing sea coloured glass in their work, ‘Light is Coming’. The importance of public outdoor space resonates throughout the works, with many clearly still associating the theme of ‘Breathe’ with their experiences in the pandemic.
The works demonstrate the consistent source of inspiration the natural environment provides us all, regardless of employment, age, or previous artistic experience. Nature becomes a vessel for understanding and coping - quite literally in Therese Kieran’s triptych, where bowls and poems tulip red and ‘zingy dandelion’ yellow reminisce on letters she sent to Dylan Cudi, an imprisoned Turkish artist. Also using the environment to parallel their lived realities, Alexandra Lambert and Sana Iqbal reflect on the English garden and the diversity of plants in green spaces. Drawing on the fact that 80% of flowers in the UK are non-native, they ask why our ‘love for diversity falters when it comes to people’. The 26 exhibition is a space to see how so many similar experiences and interactions with the natural world produce a wide variety of responses.
The show will be on in Gallery 2 at the Building Centre until mid-November.
