Foundation Club Residency 2023

Annabelle Blackett 

The Heart of Bernicia  

Annabelle Blackett’s work considers architectural elements of the British landscape. Her research-based practice explores prehistoric art forms of Neolithic and Bronze Age cup and ring marks. The form of these ancient artworks is often reflected in her paintings and collages.

Blackett’s lightbox The Heart of Bernicia (2022), installed in Baltic’s entrance space, is inspired by aspects of the religious life in Northumbria, comprising elements from the Neolithic era, the ancient kingdom of Bernicia and of Christian Northumbria. Cup and ring marks are located around the landscape and include those found at Lordenshaw, Doddington Moor, and Roughting Linn. The marks appear through history as symbols of solar worship, fertility, astronomical calendars, and as symbols of life and the afterlife. The North East is also rich in Christian symbolism. The arch depicted in the artwork is of a cloister in Durham Cathedral. The lightbox was created using drawing and print techniques such as screen-printing and lino printing. Blackett was commissioned to make a new work for display at Baltic as part of her Foundation Club Residency.   

Rachel Campbell Hewson 

and Hadrian’s grief — 

Rachel Campbell Hewson is an artist and writer. Her practice, which encompasses collage and animation, focuses on the manipulation and blending of images from art history, whilst reflecting on femininity, history, love, life and death.  

Campbell Hewson’s installation, and Hadrian’s grief (2023), is inspired by the story of the Emperor Hadrian and his beloved Antinous. In 130 AD Antinous fell into the Nile and drowned. Hadrian’s grief was so immense, he idolised his love and made him into a God. He became ‘Antinous the good’, ‘Antinous the hero’ and ‘the new Dionysus’. The cult of Antinous became infamous and survived through the centuries. The glass sarcophagus installed in the centre of Baltic’s Level 5 Viewing Platform is a monument to Hadrian and Antinous and the immortality of love. With a score written and performed by Daisy Bell, a collaborating musician and artist, the work invites us to consider grief and desire: what is it to live well and die poorly, to live in shame and die at peace.  

Campbell Hewson was commissioned to make a new work for display at Baltic as part of her Foundation Club Residency. Foundation Club has been designed to support young people from the North East aged 16–24 to access, engage with, learn from and be mentored by creative and cultural professionals to progress their artistic talent and realise their creative potential. The other selected artists in 2022 are Annabelle Blackett and Cameron Lings. Their commissions can be found on Baltic’s Ground Floor and Level 4 Viewing Terrace at Baltic between 24 March – 17 July 2023.

Cameron Lings  

Repercussions 

Cameron Lings makes sculptures that draw from bodies of statistics and data sets. His work explores key topics around current affairs and issues regarding the environment. He uses materials such as wood and metal to make layered sculptural forms. 

Lings’s sculpture Repercussions (2023) is made with acrylic, aluminium and concrete, and sits centrally in Baltic’s Level 4 Viewing Platform. The work has been created using data sets from the monitoring of air pollution on and around the Tyne Bridge (Gateshead side). It visualises this in sculptural form, following the ebb and flow of data from January 2022 to January 2023. A neighbouring graph shows the exact data collected and the peaks in pollution during this period. The paint on the surface of the sculpture is vulnerable and unprotected, and, subject to the elements; it will gradually fade over time. The sculpture is a timely reminder of how our environment can be influenced by our actions and how nature has the power to transform. Lings was commissioned to make a new work for display at Baltic as part of his Foundation Club Residency.