World Art Collections Exhibition
at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

The Art Lab: Changing Landscapes is a new kind of exhibition, combining the display of art collections and contemporary artist commissions with creative programmes, research tools and materials to enable active public engagement.

The exhibition opens at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, on Saturday 6 October 2012 and continues into 2013. 

This exhibition is part of a new EU Interreg funded project, which is a collaboration until 2015 between the Sainsbury Centre, Fabrica art gallery in Brighton and three institutions in the Pas de Calais and Normandy in northern France.

“Led by the Sainsbury Centre’s education team, this project has creativity and learning at its heart. More than an exhibition it is a programme for visitors to join in with, and learn from, and be inspired by.” – Veronica Sekules, deputy director and head of education and research, Sainsbury Centre for Visual ArtsContinues…]

The exhibition combines rarely displayed works of art from the Sainsbury Centre collections together with stimulating new projects, commissions and residencies by visiting artists, and by academics. The first programme centres on the idea of Changing Landscapes and includes multi-disciplinary contributions to show a whole variety of the current thinking about landscape and environmental issues:

• Artists Dalziel and Scullion will show a new film about the last wolf in Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands and recent work Ha.ri.er tweed,made in response to research about endangered wildlife in Scotland.
• Lee Grandjean, artist and former deputy head of sculpture at the Royal College of Art, will display a dramatic new installation entitled From The Deep Woods, consisting of eleven sculptures and a wall painting.
• Anthropologist Dr Aristoteles Barcelos-Neto of the Sainsbury Research Unit will display drawings commissioned in Brazil which illustrate for the first time the spirit life of the rainforests, in an area threatened by commercial development and deforestation.

There are also practical art-making areas where visitors can create miniature gardens or contribute to a soft landscape being specially created for families and children. At the centre of the display will be an on open gallery where artists can submit work, contributing to the evolving nature of the project. A library and resource areas are available for study and the space can be booked for informal meetings, discussions and talks. Artists, individuals or groups wishing to get involved in Changing Landscapes should contact the Sainsbury Centre education team on 01603 593726.

Changing Landscapes is the first major event  of a new project, which is a collaboration between the Sainsbury Centre, Fabrica art gallery in Brighton and three institutions in France: the Municipal Museum for the Ville de Calais, the Communauté d’Agglomeration du Calaisis and the FRAC Basse Normandie in Caen. The project is funded by the EU as part of the Interreg initiative, designed to stimulate cross-border co-operation and explore shared culture and heritage. Over the next two and a half years the organisations will work together to run a contemporary art and education programme based around the themes of Changing Landscapes,  concentrating on the special character of the coastal regions of the southern UK and northern France; and Aftermath, looking at the legacy of war and conflict.

The exhibition coincides with an exciting period of change for the Sainsbury Centre, continuing a major project to configure the building. This work will include the renovation of the space at the east end of the Centre, relocating the shop and providing more space to display the permanent collections. It will also lead to the creation of a large suite of temporary exhibition galleries downstairs. The new gallery spaces will be launched on 14 September 2013, with a major exhibition displaying the best art of Norfolk and Suffolk throughout history. Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia, will celebrate the rich and unique artistic heritage of the region, with works from across the visual arts from the prehistoric period to the present day.