Hannah Perry Audio Description Script

Welcome to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and this audio description of the Hannah Perry exhibition. 

Stepping out of the lift on Level 4 we reach the entrance area to the gallery.  The entrance walls are painted a dark blue-black.  A 10-meter-wide wall stands in front of the entrance where the title 

Hannah Perry | Manual Labour

22nd June 2024 – 16th March 2025 

Is written in large orange metallic letters.  The letters shimmer against the blue-black wall and reflect their colour around them.

The exhibition can be accessed on the left or right of this wall.

Passing through the wide entrance doorway we enter a huge open space.  The surrounding walls are white, and the lights are dim. Six white pillars run down each side of the gallery.  Spotlights illuminate large sculptures on the left and right and there is a screening area at the far end of the gallery. Scaffolding is constructed around the sculptures and the screen, giving the space an industrial feel.

Turning to the right, on the wall by the entrance is an introduction to the exhibition in black letters on the white wall with the title; 

Hannah Perry - Manual Labour

The first paragraph explains- ‘British artist Hannah Perry presents a major new Commission that considers motherhood, labour, and class. An immersive environment. comprising film, sculpture, print and sound. The exhibition explores the process of becoming a mother and its creative and destructive power.

Her chosen materials are associated with manual occupations in manufacturing and industry.’

A QR code at the bottom of the introduction can be accessed for more information on the exhibition.

As you step into the gallery your attention is drawn to a large screen at the far end on which a film plays.

The Screen Area

An amphitheatre has been constructed from five towers of scaffolding that rise 6 meters almost reaching the high ceiling.  The towers are positioned to form a half circle 10 metres wide. The scaffolding is covered in a fine, black mesh, creating a cathedral like space where the large screen hangs in the middle.

There are 4 low black wooden benches shaped in a curve to view the screen and placed as if around a circus ring. The benches complete the circle formed by the scaffolding towers. 

Visible through the black mesh, thin strip lights hang down from the scaffolding behind like long icicles, about 12 on either side of the screen.  These lights flash and fade in and out whilst the film is playing, coordinating with images on the screen. 

The projector is cradled in in its own scaffold-like metal poles that hang down from the ceiling.  When the silver poles catch the light, they shine and echo the shapes of the dangling strip lights behind the film screen.

The audio for the film emanates from a surround sound system. 16 neat, round, black speakers have been placed around the gallery including the pillars.

The film runs for 17 minutes. The focus of the soundtrack then moves to the two sculpture areas.The whole cycle repeats every 30 minutes.

The soundtrack is integrated with the film and with the sculptures which move.  Although the sounds home in on different sections of the exhibition in turn, they can still be heard from everywhere.

The description will follow the order of the soundtrack in describing the different areas of the exhibition, starting with the screen area. 

The Film

The introduction notes outline the ideas of the film-

‘The film explores the questions posed by the transition into motherhood jumping through personal and shared memory…‘

Images from the film include-

An urban landscape.Washing hangs on a line.  A back view of a young woman with blonde windswept hair.  She picks her way down a back lane between terraced houses. 

Another image shows white-hot steel cascading from a bucket into a roaring fiery furnace.

A second image of the woman shows her pole dancing in a skimpy black tank top and matching close-fitting shorts.  She grabs the pole and kicks and flips her body over and around.  The view opens to flickering shadows of silhouetted bodies dancing against a purple-blue screen.

The next image is of a huge white-hot metal pipe formed and pounded into shape by heavy machinery.

The blonde woman appears again, she stands gazing in a mirror at her pregnant body. She wears the tank top and shorts. The swollen bump of her belly protrudes reflected in the mirrors from the side and back.

Stripes of colour streak like TV interference warping her image. A split screen shows her pregnant body from different angles. 

Memories of her lithe, dancing body repeat on screen.

Now the woman is poised in a shooting gallery.  She takes aim and fires at a target outline of a man. A closed view of the woman as she lights a cigarette with a match. 

In the dark corners of a factory, white sparks fly from an industrial angle grinder.

In a nude portrait, bathed in blue light, the woman stands cradling a one-year-old child hitched against her side as they chat and smile.  The child's bare legs dangle astride the woman's huge baby bump. They are reflected in a hall of mirrors behind. 

The film moves on to show an aerial view of an Asbestos Quarry.  Dusty single track roads push up across the stoney rubble sides of the quarry.

At this point in the film, the strip lights on the scaffolding flash, there is an explosion on screen as the sides of the quarry collapse and clouds of asbestos dust envelop the scene.

The factory is shown again, thumping machinery shapes and pushes out a huge molten pipe. 

When the film concludes the sculptures erupt into movement at set times in turn. 

The Pelvis Sculpture

Heading back towards the entrance from the screen area, on the left, is a sculpture made from two bronze-coloured halves that form the shape of a pelvis as they rest together. The pelvis sculpture is surrounded by scaffolding at knee height 4.4 x 3.3 meters and long scaffold poles that rise up 6 meters equalling the height of the screen area.

The sculpture towers above head height on a metal stand and is an anatomical representation of the pelvic bones, each side being a mirror image of the other. 

The two broad shallow dish shaped hip bones protrude vertically at the top almost like a pair of wings. The bones narrow and curve down branching inwards to form the pubic bones and seat bones in a triangular doughnut shape on each side, forming a cradle at the bottom.

The broad surface of the sculptures is smooth like bone and a light bronze colour.The edges are rougher and pitted with areas of dark spots and craters.

Every half an hour, the Pelvis Sculpture grinds into motion.  The two sides separate as they widen and rotate simulating their movement during childbirth.

You can hear a motor surge to power the movement. The sculptures rumble along a metal track as they open and turn in a choreographed, mirror image, display.

The introductory notes at the entrance explain-

‘The exhibition includes a choreographed mechanical sculpture which considers the physical act of labour. The work captures the beauty and struggle of the transition in the sculptures brutal constrained power’.

The Screen Prints and Silver Panel Sculpture

Moving to the right there are two artworks placed on either side of a long scaffold frame that is the size and shape of a market stall.

The scaffold is 6-meters-wide and runs parallel to the side wall.   A series of screenprints is displayed on the side facing the centre of the gallery.

The screenprints are in a continuous line made up of three equally sized sections each are 1.5 meters high and 2 metres wide. 

The two outer sections are individual canvas panels displaying black and white prints of similar design. The central section holds three narrower prints set side by side. 

The outer panels are printed with an abstract black, white and grey pattern.  Light marks radiate from black pockets creating a 3D effect, The pigment for the prints is sourced from used engine oil and this gives a brown tone in the greys streaks and smears. The mottled marks suggest a rich mossy layer, a living, growing fabric that lies across the surface of the canvas. 

In one part a lighter chunk appears to have worked loose from the surface breaking away leaving a dark abyss-like hole.

Anchored into the image are shapes printed from the working parts of a machine.  Round, cog-like marks meld into the image, in circular, dark concentric lines. In lighter areas the shapes appear like lines pressed into sand.

A round black surround sound speaker with a silver centre hangs from the scaffold in front of each of the outer screenprints.  The speakers hover in front of the prints without touching them and merge with the images as if camouflaged.

The three screen prints in the central section are each a variation of the same image. Two are printed on canvas and the third on a sheet of aluminium. 

At first glance the repeated image on the three screenprints appears like a waterfall that runs from top to bottom, flowing down a hillside.  Then the image of two faces in profile comes into focus and it becomes apparent the flowing space is really the gap between the contours of the two faces. The outline runs down their faces, around the nose to the lips and the chin in a close, intimate portrait. The couple, with lips parted, move towards each other.  The face on the right tilts upwards, their noses almost touch. 

The image is the same, but the treatment of each print is different, moving from darker to brighter from left to right. 

The first is a clear image printed in shadowy blue-greys with a lighter grey marbled gap between the faces. 

In the second the faces are more abstracted, sometimes obscured, as the inky oil merges and bubbles on the surface. Grey splashes rise from the bottom and evaporate across the faces blurring details and focus.

In the third image the faces are clear, and the gap is bright, like white-hot steel pouring from a furnace. The fluid lines surge around the nose, lips and chin rushing to the wider gap at the bottom.

The Silver Panel

On the other side of the scaffold from the screenprints is a long silver panel created from car wrap.The car wrap structure is: 5.7 meters wide and 1.5 meters high. The wrap is used in the car industry to create colourful designs in a skin that covers the vehicle. It is a thin but very strong material and here takes on a soft metallic sheen.  It is fastened tightly to a frame on the scaffolding like a taut drum.

There is a metre wide gap between the scaffolding supporting the screenprints and the silver panel.  Inside this gap a series of 12 strip lights hang diagonally in two directions creating crossed lines of bright white light that flash when the sculpture comes to life. 4 speakers placed in a line immediately behind the opaque silver panel create a hazy image of 4 round dark shapes. 

When the speakers behind the car-wrap start to make noise the sound waves create vibrations that shake the silver film in progressively violent waves.  The strong thin surface shimmers and trembles with the sound waves. The vibrations last for 3 minutes.

The silver-wrap panel reflects a softly blurred mirror image of whoever stands in front of it. Two of the white pillars and their round black speakers are also reflected in the panel.  When the panel starts to vibrate the reflections shake, wobble and distort like a warped fairground mirror. 

Light is reflected from the silver panel onto the floor.  When the panel shakes the light reflections are flung into throbbing short waves of light and shadow across the ground like ripples on water.

When the convulsions cease the lights switch off and the silver panel is still.  After a short pause the film will begin again.

This is the end of the audio description.

To leave the gallery exit through the same door as you entered.  From facing the silver panel sculpture turn right to find the entrance wall and follow to the left to find the doorway.