CUMBRIA.- Lakeland Arts has announced Jocelyn McGregor as their Untold artist commission for 2023. McGregor will develop a contemporary art installation for Windermere Jetty Museum in response to the collection and its unique location in the Lake District, Cumbria.

Cumbria-based McGregor was selected by a panel from eight artists who were nominated by Lakeland Arts and Arts&Heritage. The panel included members of the Lakeland Arts programming team, Marie-Anne McQuay Director of Projects Arts&Heritage and external guest artist Bharti Parmar. McGregor’s proposal responded to the merging of nature and industry at Windermere Jetty Museum and will involve climate conversations with local people.

As part of the Untold programme Lakeland Arts will commission bold new contemporary art to be located at two of its venues that explore the often untold, or missing narratives in Cumbria’s history. Inspired by the locations and the Lakeland Arts collection, the artists chosen will work with different communities to bring an authentic voice to an ambitious new programme of work. Untold, now unforgotten.

Artist Jocelyn McGregor “I'm over the moon to have been selected for the Windermere Jetty Museum Commission. This will be my first major commission in my home county and such a unique space to work with, jutting out over the banks of Windermere, and literally inviting water into the gallery. I can't think of a more perfect position from which to reexamine our relationship with the natural world.”

Naomi Gariff Programme Curator Lakeland Arts, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Jocelyn on the first Untold commission at Windermere Jetty Museum. Jocelyn’s commission will be something new and exciting for the museum, animating its hidden stories in a very surreal and engaging way.”

"Jocelyn McGregor's Untold commission builds on her deep local knowledge of the landscape of Cumbria, combined with an imaginative and participatory response to the site. A&H is looking forward to experiencing the work she'll present at Windermere Jetty Museum through Lakeland Arts and the new voices she'll bring in."

McGregor’s commission is being developed across 2022/23. It will emerge in public via conversations, social media and events, with the final installation on display at Windermere Jetty Museum from 15 September 2023 – 1 January 2024.

Jocelyn McGregor is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Cumbria. Her work involves sculpture, installation and animation. Taking inspiration from folklore, surrealism and supernatural fiction the artist blend nature and the human. She studied a BFA in Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Fine Art 2007-10, and an MFA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art 2015-17.

She has exhibited both nationally and internationally including ‘Earthing’ (public sculpture) for Sculpture in the City 11th Edition: Aldgate Square Commission, London, UK, 2022-23; ‘Mantle’ (solo), Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK, 2022; ‘The Picnic’ (performance) for ‘Nocturnal Creatures’, Whitechapel Gallery and Sculpture in the City, London, UK; ‘Trespassers Will be Detected?’, Dnipro Centre for Contemporary Culture, Ukraine, 2020; ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, touring South London Gallery & Liverpool Biennale, UK, 2018-19; ‘A Fieldguide to Getting Lost’, T.A.F, Athens, Greece, 2018; and ‘Risky Attachments’, FOOTHOLD Gallery, Polignano a Mare, Italy, 2017.

Awards include Henry Moore Foundation Award 2023, the British Council SWAP UK/Ukraine Residency 2019-20; Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2018; Artist-in-Residence at HKBU Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong in 2018; and Alexander McQueen Sarabande Foundation Emerging Artist Award in 2017.