With absolute conviction and comfort, somebody else’s mother jumped out at me from behind a mirror, wearing a huge wicker mask, while her child ran from one end of the gallery with materials to build a den. Just Browsing at Bluecoat gives sincere permission to touch.
The mask, by Lewis Prosser, an ‘absurdist basketmaker’ is a tool for performance. The blankets being used to build the den are by Garth Gratrix, whose previous iterations of the work haven’t been specifically touted as interactive. The beanbags, shaping the path to the new den, are by Sufea Mohamad Noor. These are specifically tactile works, but not necessarily tools for play.
The audience, more than the gallery or artist, is playing the role of decision maker in this exhibition that challenges what the role of a gallery is, possibly what the work within is, too.
There was a thing curators and gallery directors used to talk about before COVID: Gallery 3.0.
Gallery 1.0 being the thing that puts most people off. The assumption of what The National Gallery is – shushing, no phones allowed, staring pensively at Turners.
Gallery 2.0 being a gallery with workshops and/or serving some social function (gardens, workshops, cafes, training, or options to engage).
I’m massively simplifying a gigantic international initiative here, so forgive that.
Gallery 3.0 was always a bit undefined. It had to encourage people into a lifetime association with the arts, retain its cultural significance and responsibility to presenting the thoughts and processes of artists, and make visitors as important as the artists.
The discussion around that has died down a bit, but Just Browsing feels like a reestablishment of the experiment, and the results are promising.
If you’d never been to a gallery before and you walked into the Bluecoat this winter, you would almost definitely leave thinking the art world was a safe space for you and (hopefully) that you were part of it.
Most artists here describe their work in relation to bringing people together, or its value to community. That community changes, and is sometimes specific, sometimes vague.
Carla Wright’s ceramic seating is as much about the assemblages of forms and meaning in her work as the human meetings it might instigate. Sufea Mohamad Noor’s work often uses food, but in this instance her work is the table content, rather than about it, but still aims to bring people together through shared senses.
Together, the artists here are kind of offering one unified experiment on behalf of the gallery, but it is absolutely worth separating it all into pieces.
Consider the title for a moment: Just Browsing. That freedom to explore retail spaces and discover the objects you desire through touch.
Ffion Evans is probably the most desirable work to browse through touch, with huge huggable quilted and knitted sculptures. Her practice has tangible benefits to those she works with. The objects are used as tools to support arts-in-health projects, incorporating scent, texture and weight as prompts for therapeutic use.
Ivy Kalungi’s installation is the only one to really address the shared nature of gallery and retail space as multi-purpose buildings. In her film, interviewing Black women in hair salons between Belfast and Liverpool, we hear of the power of conversation, but also the importance of physical connection and touch during the ritual of hair styling. That is, I guess, the aspiration of the exhibition.
An exhibition which evidences that your relationship with a gallery can be as meaningful as your relationship with your salon. You are essential to Just Browsing. Just Browsing is useful to you. It’s symbiotic and mutually beneficial.
Just Browsing is open at Bluecoat until 8th February 2026
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
