QUEST GOES WEST

THE HARRIS - PRESTON

Date: Saturday 28th April 2018

The Quest for the Perfect Shirt (questforperfectshirt.com) went west with a visit to The Harris in Preston.  The Quest for the Perfect Shirt was one of the creative events that were taking place alongside the large-scale exhibition ‘Hard Times’, by 2017 Turner Prize-winner Lubaina Himid, at the Harris Museum, Preston, from 2nd March to 3rd June 2018.

​

The show’s title Hard Times is a reference to Charles Dickens’ novel, inspired by his visit to Preston during the workers’ Lock-out of 1853.

​

Through the course of the three-month show, Lubaina  invited selected artists, to curate exhibition and events alongside her work in the gallery.  Events included;

• Art Zoo programmed by artist Jane Elizabeth Bennett, Part performance, part installation and part living sculpture, Art Zoo provided a chance for visitors to see artists at work, including Lubaina herself. 

• Print Symposium - Activating the Archive of Gwyneth Alban Davis programmed by artist Tracy Hill and Magda Stawarska-Beaven & Heather Ross. 

• Artist Rebecca Chesney invited prominent women working in the sector to discuss the lack of representation of women artists in national and public collections.

• Reading the Threads featured Lubaina in conversation with black artists, talking about literature and texts that influenced them as very young women.  

• Men Who Care, a work by Lubaina’s fellow UCLAN lecturer William Titley’s, was an interactive piece of sculpture made from two antique gentlemen’s wardrobes designed to engage with members of the public and raise awareness of what it means to be a male carer.

• Film installation by Tao Lashley-Burnley, who screened a film made with the works of artists Sophie Barrott, Hannah Cobb, Lois Hopwood.

• Minor Conspiracy was an interactive performance piece featuring a reed organ by artist Rob Mullender.