British Art Show 9, Whitworth Manchester, Aberdeen Art Gallery, and The Box in Plymouth, UK

27th May – 4th September 2022

curated by Irene Aristizábal and Hammad Nasar

Anne Hardy imagines the city as a sea in constant flux, with tides and backwaters akin to our unconscious. Working initially with photography, and latterly with large-scale installations, she creates alternative versions of our everyday world using urban jetsam and street-combings: materials and objects, sounds and other intangible things that she finds in the forgotten corners and voids in the city, seeing them as conduits to altered states and timeframes.  

Liquid Landscape (2018-present), presented at the Whitworth, combines objects and sonic gatherings from the port city of Rotterdam with the experience of an unexpected tropical storm in London. Exploring what it means to exist in a state of unexpected instability and change. Surround sound, light and wind are choreographed to suggest a sequence of changing atmospheres, which sit in parallel with a physical space defined and shaped by colour. Objects and structures appear to be sinking into the floor, or swept across the surface as if marooned by water. Visitors are asked to take off their shoes before entering; as Hardy remarks, ‘removing your shoes makes you vulnerable and more sensitive; you become part of the installation.’ She goes on to say: ‘I want the work to give you the feeling that it is performing for you, and around you; that it is a poetic being with which you can spend time but can never fully understand.’ 

Anne Hardy exhibited Liquid Landscape at The Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, and works from her series of photograms ‘The Depth of Darkness, the Return of The Light’ at Aberdeen Art Gallery, and The Box in Plymouth.