Sorry about the mess
Friday 7th March 2025 – Sunday 30th March 2025 , 12:00pm to 6:00pm
Private View | Friday 7th March from 6-8pm*
Parents & Carers Opening | Sunday 9 March from 10am-12pm
Exhibition Times | 8-30 March 2025, Thursday to Sunday, 12-6pm
Sorry about the mess is a group exhibition of artists and writers who are also mothers, exploring the evolving relationship between motherhood and making art. Within this context, mess becomes not just an aesthetic but a condition; an obstacle; a form of critique; a mode of play; a process of creation; an act of revolution.
The exhibition’s title invokes the words uttered by countless mothers when welcoming visitors into their homes: an apology designed to smooth the exposed edges of the struggle and intimacy of domestic life. But as visitors step into the sprawling, inhospitable office space formerly occupied by Meta, it becomes clear that this apology is insincere, a mockery of social expectation. Ranging from sculpture to installation, painting and text, art spills across the tiled grey carpets, up and across the walls, and dangles from the ceiling. It is soft and inviting, cumbersome and awkward, bold and unapologetic.
A three-metre long wall assembled from soft foam mattresses, wood and wire by Erika Trotzig boulders through the space; tentacled kitchen appliances dine at Rosie Reed’s mirrored table; scraps of wallpaper lie swept up against a column in a site-specific installation by Ludovica Gioscia; Sophie Goodchild’s swirling felted wool textile hangs suspended in the air; Holly Stevenson’s surreal ceramic sculptures perch on side tables; a pair of gnashing hybrid vagina dentata-crow creatures by Flora Bradwell stand hunched, surrounded by a scatter of wailing spheres. There is a wall of never-seen-before monoprints by Chantal Powell; a collection of visceral mixed media works by Jacqueline Rana; a pair of ‘unicorn mom’ curtains by Anna Frijstein; a quilt of floating body parts by Rosie Gibbens; a ‘feeding throne’ by Bea Bonafini; a large-scale sculptural painting by Jo Dennis assembled from an old army tent; a site-specific installation by Emily Moore that plays with shadow and light; and Justine Hounam’s vast sculptural ‘skin’, pulled taut between two columns and accompanied by a video work projected onto the floor.
The writing is also imagined as tactile objects and experiences. Amy Acre has created an installation around her poem Atheism that invites us to step into a dark, womb-like space where her words are etched into wood and played out through an audio recording. Kiran Millwood Hargrave presents a brand new poem stitched onto a bed sheet splashed with postpartum bloodstains; the words of Anna Brook’s poems trace the edges of two photographs of domestic mess; Avni Doshi exhibits a series of diaristic fragments that capture her daily routine as she attempts to balance her creative practice and mothering responsibilities; and Niamh Gordon’s typewritten text struggles to stay within its own margins, sprawling across pages while bearing the scribbles and etchings of her two-year-old daughter. Meanwhile Kate Briggs reimagines extracts from her 2023 debut novel THE LONG FORM, which locates childrearing and the domestic space of mothering within the languages of politics, philosophy and literary theory; Naomi Wood presents comic flash pieces exposing the fragmentation of the postpartum period; Tamarin Norwood invokes the deafening silence that surrounds bereaved mothers experiencing maternity leave without a baby, through the construction of a quiet, all-too-orderly space within the exhibition; and Millie Walton invites visitors to reassemble words from her prose poem on an interactive velcro-board installation, reflecting the ways in which mothering is both personal and collective, improvisational and scripted.
Stationed throughout the exhibition space are welcoming places to pause and rest, as well as areas in which children are invited to play and create. These interactive sets, designed by Nefeli Sidiropoulou in collaboration with Babe Station, encourage us to become active participants in the space, rethinking how we move through and engage with art.
Exhibiting artists: Bea Bonafini, Flora Bradwell, Jo Dennis, Anna Frijstein, Ludovica Gioscia, Rosie Gibbens, Sophie Goodchild, Justine Hounam, Emily Moore, Chantal Powell, Rosie Reed, Holly Stevenson, Erika Trotzig
Exhibiting writers: Amy Acre, Kate Briggs, Anna Brook, Avni Doshi, Niamh Gordon, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Tamarin Norwood, Millie Walton, Naomi Wood
Sorry About the Mess runs from 7 to 30 March 2025 at Shaftesbury Avenue, open Thursday to Sunday, 12-6pm. Please note, the date of the private view has changed to Friday 7th March.
For more information about the exhibition and the accompanying programme of free workshops and talks, visit: https://www.babestation.org.uk/
About Babe Station
Babe Station is an evolving art and research project, exploring the relationship between making art and motherhood. Initiated by writer Millie Walton, it aims to promote and support the work of any person who identifies as a mother or has experienced child loss through collaborative and interdisciplinary projects. For more information, visit: https://www.babestation.org.uk/
Access Information
Shaftesbury Avenue has step free access throughout from street level, including to an accessible toilet. The upper floors are accessible via lifts. This venue does not have a hearing loop system. Accessible parking is not available on-site.
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email shaftesbury@bowarts.com or call 020 8980 7774 (Ext. 3)
Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a seat near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
Transport Information
Nearest train station(s): Picadilly Circus (Picadilly, Bakerloo), Tottenham Court Road (Elizabeth Line, Central, Northern)
Bus: 9, 12, 14, 22, 23, 24, 29, 19, 38, 88, 94, 139, 176, 453
Parking: No parking available.
Bike: No bike shed on site.
