2126: What If? Preview

Enjoy a first look at our summer exhibition, 2126: What If?. Presented in response to Portsmouth 100, the city’s centenary programme, the exhibition brings together artists connected to the city - Maria de la O Garrido, Alice Hume, and Matt Westbrook - to speculate and imagine Portsmouth in 100 years time.

Tickets are pay what you can. All donations directly support our work as a registered charity, creating inclusive, accessible art experiences for all and helping artists to thrive.

Artists, art workers, and practitioners are invited from 5.30pm for an extra half hour of networking and conversation before the preview.

Exploring themes of sustainability, community, justice, and technology, 2126: What if? encourages visitors to reflect, dream, and contribute to a collective, hopeful future, shaping a visionary narrative that honours the city’s past while looking forward with imagination and purpose.

Alice Hume is weaver and textile artist based in Portsmouth. Hume has studied textiles internationally at weaving schools in Sweden and Japan, and in 2013 she completed a degree in Woven Textile Design at Winchester School of Art. Her practice is grounded in heritage, community, and the traditions of textile craft. Working on a Harris floor loom alongside smaller looms made by her father, she combines hand weaving with embroidery, knotting, and wrapping, often incorporating vintage and repurposed fibres. In adopting a process-led approach is slow and intuitive, Hume works often unfold organically.

Hume has a strong commitment to sustainable practice, including the use of homegrown flax and natural fibres. Since 2023, she has worked to develop urban textile gardens in Portsmouth, growing flax across the city, and engaging with local communities to learn about sustainable growing practices and the strengthen understandings around the origins of textiles like linen.

Matt Westbrook is an artist, educator and founding member of Grand Union Studios & Gallery. He is from Portsmouth, and now based in Birmingham and the course leader for the Foundation Diploma Art and Design course at Dudley College. He is also a visiting lecturer at Loughborough University.

Westbrook’s practice is rooted in an interest in landscape and the built environment, and particularly inspired by the geography of the South Coast. Many of his compositions emerge from walking and direct engagement with architecture or terrain, often reflecting speculative futures or familiar-yet-unfamiliar places. Memory plays a central role within Westbrook’s practice, often guiding the selection of imagery and response to new contexts. Influenced by Michel Foucault’s theory of heterotopia – ‘other spaces’ that mirror and subvert social norms, works often begin by collecting archive photographic images from scientific, engineering or architectural sources, which are then reassembled into new print or collaged narratives. He often employs artificial parameters to this process, such as only using imagery from one or two sources.

Maria de la O Garrido is a Spanish artist who has been living in the UK for the past 13 years. Upon receiving various scholarships from Spain and UK, including The Jane Rapley Scholarship, Garrido completed a BA degree in Fine Arts, later pursuing a Master’s degree in Photography, Practices, and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins University. During this time her approach to image became increasingly multidisciplinary and conceptually expansive, integrating photography and collage in a sculptural manner while also incorporating video and performance into her artistic practice.

The generation and use of archives play a vital role in Garrido’s work, which primarily focuses on analysing elements of her environment that capture her interest and transforming them to create new meanings. Her artistic practice is particularly drawn to the social and political dimensions of art, as well as the unrealised potential within various communities. Believing in the transformative power of art, especially in the current geopolitical climate, Garrido continuously explore ways to create connections and new ways of resistance through her work.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Aspex Gallery, The Vulcan Building, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

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