David Nettleingham – 1000 Token Gestures

23/01/25 till 29/01/25

This is an installation about ownership, belonging, and the complexity of community. It creates literal grey areas.

The exhibition is slowly reduced, counting down from 1000 pieces at the beginning – deconstructed and changing shape as people take ownership of the individual pieces of the whole. At the same time, by taking a piece one owner becomes connected to every other. They are part of something bigger, if more diffuse.

Community includes and excludes; it is defined by ideals but also social and economic realities. These forces often contradict each other. This is why ‘community’ is always desirable, but always elusive.

Each piece of the installation is made of anthropic rock, inspired by Pulhamite and the material history of the landscapes of East Kent: limestone dust from the Canterbury Cathedral stonemasonry yard, sand from Ramsgate beach, coal clinker to mark the memory of East Kent’s coal mining industry, and cement to… cement it all together. Straw (this is the Garden of England despite all evidence) helps form the structure – a wattle and daub construction of the local.

These token gestures are both solid and fragile; made of the same constituent parts but never the same.

Private view: Friday 24th January, from 6pm