Common threads

Featured Artists

Yo-Yo Lin; Oriele Steiner; melissandre varin; Catherine Cleary; Funmi Lijadu

In a year in which grief, illness, and isolation have been widespread, the sharing of memories and reverie has been an essential method of connection and intimacy. Whether to soothe suffering or ignite hope, the stories we tell ourselves and others are a formidable tool in the construction of our futures. This room gives space to such narratives.

BSL room description video

Room Audio Introduction

  • Re:collections / 再次·回顧
    Yo-Yo Lin, 2021

  • This landscape A4 painting shows two yellow hands and forearms stretched out to the centre of the page from the left hand side. The upper hand shows a ‘thumbs down’ pointing into the lower hand that remains palm up and open. In the background are bunches of blue berries in a brown cave-like space.

    Let that go
    Oriele Steiner, 2021

  • This portrait gouache painting on a dark blue painted paper has two orange yellow hands and forearm stretched out in full view. The left hand lays flat on the right, palm to back of hand with both thumbs outstretched pointing to the edge of the painting. Two dark yellow flowers sit in the background.

    Grounding
    Oriele Steiner, 2021

  • A blue-grey landscape gouache painting shows two dark green hands reach in from either side to touch fingers in the centre. Behind these hands sits a white snowdrop flower and a finger or lumpy flower object.

    Touch
    Oriele Steiner, 2021

  • les mains de ma mère/ my mother’s hands
    melissandre varin, 2021

  • Tower
    Catherine Cleary, 2020

  • A near-naked African mother and baby appear at the centre of a swirling collage of Catholic iconography as well as torn samples of religious thoughts handwritten on notepaper, while part of the backdrop shows young white men standing in the aisles of a church during what appears to be a wedding ceremony. Censorship marks blank out their eyes.

    Black Madonna
    Funmi Lijadu, 2020