Sorry about the mess
Thursday 6th March 2025 – Sunday 30th March 2025 , 12:00pm to 6:00pm
Private View | Thursday 6 March from 6-8pm
Exhibition Times | 7-30 March 2025, Thursday to Sunday, 12-6pm
Sorry about the mess is a group exhibition of work by visual 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 through Anna Frijstein’s black ‘Unicorn Mom’ curtains, into a 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; 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 alongside surreal ceramic sculptures by Holly Stevenson and a pair of gnashing hybrid vagina dentata-crow creatures by Flora Bradwell. There are tentacled kitchen appliances by Rosie Reed; a wall of never-seen-before monoprints by Chantal Powell; a quilt of floating body parts by Rosie Gibbens; a ‘feeding throne’ by Bea Bonafini; richly coloured sculptural paintings by Jo Dennis; an site-specific installation by Emily Moore that plays with shadow and light; and Justine Hounam’s vast sculptural ‘skin’, pulled taut between two columns.
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. Anna Brook has paired two of her poems with photographs she has taken of domestic mess; Kiran Millwood Hargreave has written a new poem in response to the show’s theme and stitched the words onto a bed sheet that bears the blood stains from her labour; and Avni Doshi presents a series of diaristic fragments that capture her daily routine as she attempts to balance her creative practice and mothering responsibilities.
Among the art, there 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 Walton in collaboration with Babe Station, encourage us to become active participants in the art 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 Hargreave, Millie Walton
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.
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.
