Join us for the opening of a new exhibition by the Hidden Spire Collective.

About the Hidden Spire Collective

The Hidden Spire Collective brings together adults from different walks of life to create ambitious, publicly shared artwork. What unites the group is a shared commitment to creativity, collaboration and making work that matters. At the heart of the project is co-creation: the group decides what stories it wants to tell, what themes it wants to explore, and what kind of artwork it wants to make. Run by the Old Fire Station and Crisis, this year marks 15 years of Hidden Spire projects.

Salvages is the sixth Hidden Spire Collective project.

The process

We wanted to create a new collaborative project, this time in the gallery. Through discussion and deliberation, we explored different themes before settling on ‘hope and despair’, developing an exhibition accompanied by a performance.

We began by exploring the theme more deeply. Sessions with artists and academics introduced different perspectives and helped us develop our ideas into an artist brief. We then interviewed three artists before choosing sculptor Ismael Rodriguez to work with us.

Over six weeks, we brought our ideas to life, including making a boat from willow, found objects and reused materials. Working with Ismael, sound artist Daniel Patiño and performance maker Lizzy McBain, we experimented with materials, created a soundscape and explored how to bring the sculpture to life through performance.

The process was shaped by shared decisions, unexpected discoveries and ideas that shifted along the way. The finished work brings together our different perspectives and imaginations in a collective act of creation.