Joanne Hall’s practice focuses on the interrelationship between humanity and the natural world, ranging from local and environmental scales, to considerations about the wider Universe. Through investigations into the act of looking, as well as the ever-shifting nature of our perceptions, she creates work that focuses on uncertainty, and the process of discovery.
With a particular emphasis on geological phenomena and movements, Hall’s work investigates the relationships between materiality and force. Her practice is a multidisciplinary one; with materials playing an important role in the working process. Through experimentation with material combinations, she is in a constant process of investigating the space between knowing and being, where the physical world meets our interpretation of it.
Inspired by the history of the Gallery building, first as a textile mill and then as a hub for contemporary art, craft, and creativity, this work explores the interconnection between past and present, and how one can shape the other. Drawing on the cloth manufacturing history of Sunny Bank Mills and its current use as a contemporary art space, Fragments explores the meeting of these two worlds through an exploration of associated materiality. Worsted cloth, similar to the type that would have been made in the mills here, is combined with liquid porcelain, a traditional artmaking material.
“This clashing of materiality results in the fragmentation of the porcelain, echoing the fragments of time and memory that are embedded in the Sunny Bank Mills buildings.”