Go On Being So
Newlyn Art Gallery
08 Aug — 12 Sep
View a 360 tour of the exhibition
An Arts Council Collection National Partners Programme Exhibition.
Go On Being So is curated by the MBA Collective, a group of art, photography and graphics students from Mounts Bay Academy aged between 12 and 16 years.
An incidental conversation between the 14 students around what it means to be a global citizen was the starting point for their exploration of the Arts Council Collection, bringing together an intriguing selection of works that say something about the world today and their place in it.
MBA Collective looked for works which resonated with them, while also considering pieces that illustrated issues other young people in different parts of the world may be facing.
“We chose works that said something about big issues for us personally, and are universal to people of our age, such as mental health and equality,” explained the Collective.
FF Gaiden: Delete, Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, 2016
The title Go On Being So refers to their quest for strength and resilience; “things might not be too good but there’s still life, you’re still living, there’s still beauty in it”, as demonstrated in works such as Karl Ohiri’s How to Mend A Broken Heart, and Rod Dickinson’s Egg Bag. The title also acts as a provocation, reflected in works such as Gavin Jantjes’ Freedom Hunters and Donald Rodney’s Self Portrait: Black Men Public Enemy; “it then becomes a challenge: Go On Being So – Can we? Should we?”
MBA Collective, Nov 2019
Other artists featured include Michael Armitage, Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, Sarah Beddington, Michelle Williams Gamaker, Margaret Harrison, Andrew Herman, Young In Hong, Claudette Johnson, Joanna Piotrowska, Joanna Price, Mario Rossi, Ibrahim El-Salahi and Ross Sinclair.
See how the Collective selected the works
For our summer exhbitions we usually produce a Family Think & Do activity booklet. This year, you can find the activities to do at home on our 360 Virtual Tours. Look out for the six green actvity circles in each exhibition tour.
Listen to artist Gaving Jantjes talking to the curators of Go On Being So.
Listen to a conversation between artists Young In Hong and Michelle Williams Gamaker, who both have work in Go On Being So.
Both Go On Being So and Hippo Campus: Where We Learn were created before the Covid-19 pandemic, but in many ways the themes of each exhibition are more pertinent now than when they originally opened in Feb 2020.