MK Gallery: Please Touch the Exhibit

MK Gallery invites multidisciplinary artist Francesca Cant to design its Summer Commission 2022 and she’s keen that visitors touch all the pieces.

As part of her artistic practice, Cant explores the possibilities and limitations of play. This aspect is realised in her latest work for MK Gallery, Portholes. The participatory sculpture encourages play and social interaction, inviting audiences to arrange, stack and compose the elements of the sculpture to create new patterns and structures.

Roisin Callaghan, Producer, Public Programmes (Community & Partners) at MK Gallery said:
‘We are excited to introduce Portholes, to visitors. The sculpture is available now to interact and play with on Margaret Powell Square, outside the main entrance to the Gallery. It will be interesting to see how the elements are re-imagined into new forms by visitors.’

Cant explained: ‘I’m interested in the notion of play and how this exercise gets disregarded as people's lives get busier. Play is extremely important for both adults and children alike, so I really hope people can come and enjoy the sculpture, interact with it and make something exciting from it. The possibilities are endless.

My work promotes curiosity and encourages audiences to become more aware of their surroundings and the people they share the space with. I enjoy the simple geometry of modernist structures and the visual connections it has to childhood building blocks; by rejecting the ornate and decorative it

allows me more creative freedom to design imagined cityscapes and the architecture that may be housed there.’

Portholes is available to play with throughout the summer months, during the Gallery’s regular opening hours.