Arts Exhibition in unique heritage space, Southamppton

a space’ arts, a visual arts organisation supporting and inspiring artists, audiences, and communities in Southampton, has commissioned a unique exhibition for this summer. ‘Holding Space’ by visual artist and researcher Anna Bunting Branch is an exhibition which considers how environmental factors affect decisions about bringing children into the world. It will include a fascinating mix of animation and painting, as well as community workshops hosted by the artist.

‘Holding Space’ was inspired by Anna’s ongoing research into childlessness and different ways of conceiving the future in the face of climate emergency. Her use of the term “childless” rather than the more positively glossed “childfree” expresses a commitment to thinking through the negative and embracing difficult feelings. The experiences of intentionally childless people are often misunderstood, and the works in this exhibition explore the potential for what the artist calls “fertile counter-narratives” of childlessness.

The exhibition includes an animation that touches on the personal and political stakes of reproductive refusal—taking breath as a metaphor for the intimate relationship between body and environment. In response to what the animation’s protagonist calls the “violent comforts” of late capitalism, refusal is here reclaimed as a generative and loving act. Digital effects bring hand-painted imagery to life along with new music by Rosie Carr.

As part of her commission for GHT, artist Anna Bunting-Branch is seeking participants for a series of feminist community creative workshops exploring ideas around climate action, reproductive refusal, speculative fiction, and alternative futures. These will involve crafting, storytelling and writing. The results will form part of the exhibition. The 2-hour workshops will take place in July and August.

Other events in response to the exhibition include a Critical Writing Commission by Patricia MacCormack, who wrote The Ahuman Manifesto, a Book Club (FLARB – free, lazy, arty, radical book club) and a GHT Creative Writing Group run by South Asian fiction writer, Susmita Bhattacharya.

‘Holding Space’ is an exhibition shaped by self-reflection, which invites us each to consider our own conceptions of reproduction and futurity.