Gary Stewart: Creative Labs
15 January – 21 February 2025
Free Entry
Orleans House Gallery invites you for a series of creative labs focused on sound, space, and the environment led by artist Gary Stewart. These hands-on performances and activations blend theory and practice, bringing together the best of creative media and technical production, all shaped by culture and history.
Through experimental processes, you’ll have the opportunity to engage with important aspects of sound and art in innovative ways.
Our open-door labs are designed to be inclusive spaces where everyone is welcome. Come along, share in the experience, and connect with the diverse voices and stories within our community. Whether you’re an artist or a curious visitor, you’ll find a space that feels like home.
Upcoming Gallery Lates with Gary Stewart:
15 January 2025: Sonic Laboratory with Demigosh (Ade Balogun)
Join us for Resurfacing, a live immersive soundscape by Irish-Nigerian vocalist and performance artist Demigosh.
Resurfacing is a dialogue between histories, identities, and cultural forces. It draws Yoruba spiritual chants, exploring how ‘these ancient traditions endure and evolve in the present.’ Demigosh highlights the cultural resilience of Yoruba spiritual traditions nearly erased by British colonialism.
You’ll be among the first to hear Resurfacing, initially demoed at Staffordshire St Gallery.
Activities for the day
10am–5pm – Meet artist Gary Stewart in the gallery and watch him at work
6pm–9pm – Performance with Demigosh, followed by late opening hours for A Ripple in Time
The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm with no booking required. Book tickets for the late event on 15 January, 6pm to 9pm.
19 February 2025: Let’s Get Creative with Dubmorphology and Sonic Laboratory with Dubmorphology,
Cleveland Watkiss, Shamica Ruddock and Edie Bailey
Come along for a full day of sound art, music making and performance.
Activities for the day
10am–1pm – Activation with Gary Stewart, meet the artist in the gallery
1pm, 2pm and 3pm – Let’s Get Creative interactive music-making workshop with Gary Stewart and folk singer Edie Bailey. Let’s Get Creative is aimed at families with children aged 4-11.
6pm–9pm – Performances by Dubmorphology, Cleveland Watkiss, Shamica Ruddock and Edie Bailey, followed by late opening hours for A Ripple in Time
The gallery is open from 10am to 5pm with no booking required.
Tickets for Let’s Get Creative interactive family workshops will be released soon.
Book tickets for the late event on 19 February, 6pm to 9pm.
Stay tuned for more information on the Creative Labs, as this page will be updated with new events and activities.
These series of events are part of A Ripple in Time exhibition, open at Orleans House Gallery until 23 February 2025. The exhibition is the outcome of Gary Stewart’s research into the Richmond Borough Art Collection which began in February 2024.
Learn more about the Ripple in Time exhibition.
Previous Creative Labs
11 December 2024: Sonic Laboratory with Ben Swaby Selig
Join us for a Creative Laboratory about land, memory and Dub with artists Gary Stewart and Ben Swaby Selig. The event includes a representation and conversation about Ben Swaby Selig’s recent work, Sound Clash.
Sound Clash uses soundscapes to encourage active listening, bridging East London and Jamaica. It combines archival recordings and interviews via Jamaican sonic practices to consider our relationship to land, gentrification and dislocation. At Orleans House Gallery, Sound Clash finds parallels with Gary Stewart’s exhibition, A Ripple in Time.
Sound Clash is an on-going collaboration between Ben Swaby Selig and filmmaker Hannah Oliver, featuring contributions from Gary Stewart. The work was first presented at Frieze London this year.
30 October: Sonic Laboratory with Gary Stewart
Gary Stewart will be offering a special preview of his Quantum Entanglement Performance. He will later present it at the Stuart Hall: Positions and Trajectories conference, which takes place on 01 November 2024 at Birmingham University.
On this interactive performance and discussion, Gary creatively mixes two recordings of the late, renowned cultural theorist Stuart Hall, placing him in conversation with himself and the audience. One recording features Hall as a young man, early in his career, while the other captures him later in life as a respected academic addressing a conference.
Gary’s work draws inspiration from the concept of retro-causality in quantum physics—the idea that the future can influence the present, and the present can influence the past. Through this lens, the performance explores the complex ways time, history, and ideas interact.