Edgelands

Curated by Ben Rivers, this group show examines the overlooked fringes of the urban landscape. Based on the concept of ‘edgelands’, the exhibition draws together a selection of works that have inspired Rivers’ interest in these borders of society, both physical spaces – the neglected peripheries of the city – and abstractly, where individuals have withdrawn from mainstream culture.

Self-taught Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s photographs of the American mid-west outback sit alongside La Ville Petrifée by Max Ernst (1933), Catherine Opie’s photographic Freeway series (1994), Robert Smithson’s Tour of Monuments of the Passaic (1967), J G Ballard’s Concrete Island (1974), and others. Together they consider how social distance surfaces in architecture and landscape, the creative potential of overlooked spaces and beauty in the deserted or disregarded.

Artists include: Keith Arnatt, J.G. Ballard, Jeremy Butler, Prunella Clough, Max Ernst, Helen Levitt, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Stuart Middleton, Catherine Opie and Robert Smithson.