Weird Hope Engines, Bonnington Gallery, 2025

This was a particular exhibition experience because I had some of my own work on display and for sale during the associated zine fair, The Critical Hits Zine Fair.

I was struck, upon entering the space, by how much the gallery had been completely adapted from the last time I saw it for the working-class photography exhibition in late 2024. It succinctly illustrated the power of creative curatorship and how you can transform a space to compliment and amplify the works it is displaying at any given time.

The Weird Hope Engines exhibition embraced the culture of tabletop roleplaying games to explore play as a site of projection, simulation, communal mythmaking, distorted temporality, and alternate possibility.  The first exhibition of its kind, it highlighted the practices of innovative designers, artists, and writers in the field of independent game design, and brings their work into dialogue with fellow-travellers in the field of critical art practice. 

There were multiple interactive spaces throughout the gallery, all with different opportunities to play and create. This gave the exhibition multi generational appeal. It also went some way to dismantling the wall between art and viewer usually felt so heavily in gallery space. This said, one of the volunteers there did comment that folks still seemed reluctant to move the beanbags placed around the space. Pushing this really appeals to me and I will look to how I can expand on audience participation in my installation work.

Maybe it was coloured by the success of my work selling at the zine fair, but I really enjoyed this exhibition. It felt intimate, thoughtful and playful.