BRISTOL.- Antlers Gallery announces You Move Me, an ambitious exhibition of new work that revolves around a large-scale site-specific installation by Bristol-based artist Jo Lathwood. You Move Me takes over Bristol’s Create Centre, transforming the environment centre into a wooden tunnel-like space for visitors to journey through and explore. In dialogue with this main framework a select group of artists have been commissioned to respond to Lathwood’s work. The invited artists are Helen Jones, Laurie Lax, Olivia Jones and Synnøve Fredericks.

You Move Me takes its inspiration from the ‘hidden’ River Frome that disappears underneath Bristol City Centre. The wooden tunnel transposes the path of the river through and underneath the city, with Lathwood using interference patterns (a form of optical allusion) to allude to the movement and flow of water. In creating an immersive environment, Lathwood explores themes of viewing and reviewing familiar spaces in and around the city and examines the ways in which nature and the urban environment interrelate.

The four commissioned artists have created new works that affect the aesthetic and layout of Lathwood’s structure, responding to and interpreting the themes within the work, in an exhibition that is neither a collaboration nor a group show. Instead it promotes a different format that lies somewhere between these two expected modes. All four artists were originally approached because of the drawing aspect of their practice, however a number of the responses have developed to incorporate an element of building in reaction to Lathwood’s construction.

The Create Centre’s waterside location provides an ideal backdrop for the show, and its affinity with sustainability and localism chimes with the themes of the show. The central installation is primarily built from natural and found materials, with the wood for the structure coming from the Bristol Wood Recycling Project and the cardboard locally sourced from retail recycling, giving a sense of nature within an urban context. The participatory nature of the piece, which requires viewers to physically navigate the passageway, builds a connection with the work and promotes a sense of adventure, discovery and play: elements which are consistently seen throughout Lathwood’s work. The lighting design of the show by Anna Barrett further transforms the space and creates a more immersive experience for the viewer.

Lathwood’s practice is concerned with the human endeavour to manipulate nature. She explores the impact that people have on their environment as they attempt to redirect nature to fit their urban environment and, whilst this is not a phenomenon that is unique to Bristol, she will use You Move Me to explore the city residents’ love of and affiliation with water.

“This work sets out an imaginative journey and explores the romance of an underwater river,” Lathwood commented. “There’s an emotional identification with moving water that is very different from the physical experience of what the river is probably like underneath the city, but it’s the emotional journey that’s more crucial, as it reflects a correlation with life’s journeys and how we are shaped by them.”

You Move Me is an ambitious venture for the nomadic Antlers Gallery. Being able to explore new ways of working, both with its chosen artists (some but not all of whom are represented by the gallery) and with the location of the show, were driving reasons behind staging the exhibition.

Jack Gibbon, Antlers’ Director, commented, “As a gallery, we have always straddled different ways of working. We wanted to commission a critical response to the city and You Move Me marks not so much a departure or progression from our usual shows, but another way to explore how to display art and engage audiences. It has been interesting to watch how the artists have responded to Jo’s work and to see how the works unfold together within the space.

“The Create Centre provides an ideal venue to unveil the artists’ contemporary visions of a watery journey beneath the city. We’re very grateful to the Arts Council England, whose funding enables us to continue to bring new and exciting commissions by a body of talented artists to unusual locations in Bristol.”