Hew Locke exhibition

We were out early to get to Whitley Bay for our day with the boys. James wasn’t dressed when we got there but the promise of lunch at Wagamama after the art gallery got him moving.

We’ve walked miles as it was a fair way from Gateshead metro to the Baltic via the Sage. I was happy to see it is a warm space so people can go and sit without buying anything. We wanted to go to the Hew Locke “The Procession” exhibition up from the Tate. #3 daughter had been with Nathaniel’s class - he loved it so I hoped the boys would too. We joined a guided walk round - he was good but went into too much detail so after 3/4 an hour James had had enough and needed his lunch. I would have been happy to stay longer and learn more about the significance of each exhibit.

“A procession is part and parcel of the cycle of life; people gather and move together to celebrate, worship, protest, mourn, escape or even to better themselves. This is the heart of Hew Locke’’s ambitious new project, The Procession. The Procession invites visitors to ‘reflect on the cycles of history, and the ebb and flow of cultures, people and finance and power.’ Tate Britain’s founder was art lover and sugar refining magnate Henry Tate. In the installation Locke says he ‘makes links with the historical after-effects of the sugar business, almost drawing out of the walls of the building,’ also revisiting his artistic journey so far, including for example work with statues, share certificates, cardboard, rising sea levels, Carnival and the military.
Throughout, visitors will see figures who travel through space and time. Here, they carry historical and cultural baggage, from evidence of global financial and violent colonial control embellished on their clothes and banners, alongside powerful images of some of the disappearing colonial architecture of Locke’s childhood in Guyana. (He is Guyana’s/Scottish).

The installation takes inspiration from real events and histories but overall, the figures invite us to walk alongside them, into an enlarged vision of an imagined future.”

We walked over the Millennium bridge then up the hill to Eldon Square. Gyozas and curry weren’t enough so they needed more gyozas.


Mr C took them to the Hancock while I went to get new Birkenstocks.

Home for feet up and a rest!