Getting amongst it at Baltic
Baltic visitors have become used to a hands-on experience. Lucy Cran and Bill Leslie tell David Whetstone about their willingness to share the creative process
If their exhibition at Baltic now looks as it did when they last saw it, Bill Leslie and Lucy Cran would probably be very surprised. Almost certainly disappointed, too.
The big clue to its purpose is there in the title – Play Interact Explore.
It’s the latest in a succession of Baltic attractions that have proved exceptionally popular with young children and their parents or guardians.
Rather than be admonished for touching or getting up close, youngsters are encouraged to do as the title says and get stuck in.
Occupying the same ground floor space as Albert Potrony’s playground-inspired Equal Play which ran through 2022, it presents a similarly challenging – but perhaps more cheerful - face to those venturing inside.
Bill and Lucy are a couple who are clearly compatible in a creative sense. They set themselves up in 2019 as Leap Then Look, which would seem to embrace an element of risk but was almost certainly well thought through.
Read more: Writers urge Government to sign off on writing centre scheme
“We originally studied theatre but we’ve then gone on to study art,” says Lucy.
“But I think a performance strand is evident in everything we do, inviting people in to what’s almost like a set.
“In our individual practices as well, we were always trying to find ways of inviting people in. That sense of participation maybe comes from that theatre background, working in an ensemble.”
Bill chips in: “You make sculpture and performance and I make sculpture and film and those aspects are something we’re always exploring.”
You can see it clearly in Play Interact Explore, which brought Bill and Lucy to the North East for the first time.
While it offers all sorts of items with which to make structures or sculptures, that’s not necessarily the end of the process.
Lucy shows how they can then be photographed against a psychedelic backdrop with coloured shapes and a projector.
There are also hand-held tools with tinted lenses through which you can look or take photos.
Sail-like structures, suitable for creating a cabin or hiding place, are designed to be stable but can be pulled into position by a determined two-year-old, says Lucy.
Overhead, like snakes, writhe brightly coloured tubes with cup-like mouthpieces on either end. Through them you can talk to someone on the other side of the room. I can vouch that they work, too.
“They’re a great parent trap because adults will know immediately what they are and go to one end while telling the child to go to the other,” says Bill.
The pair explain how they’ve created the impression of zones within the gallery, defined by circles of carpet. Items can be moved from one to the other but there’s a semblance of order.
“These different journeys into and through the space are very important,” says Bill.
And he adds with a laugh: “People can spend hours in here.”
But the pair are insistent that this is an exhibition rather than a playground.
Bill: “For us it’s important that it’s called an exhibition and that what it contains are artworks because then it poses questions about what belongs in an art gallery, who artworks are for, who has permission.
“If you want children to be welcome in a gallery space, the first thing they’re going to want to do is touch things and you then have to think, ‘Well, that’s their mode of experiencing the world so we have to make allowances for that to be able to happen’.”
Lucy suggests their creation sits between the two things while encompassing both.
“It’s a space in which you can play but for us it’s part of our artistic practice and in a broader sense part of our artistic research.
Read more: Review - Saint Maud at Live Theatre
“As well as inviting an impulsive type of play, we’re thinking about people’s physical engagement with artworks as a mode of critical inquiry. We’re working with others to test ideas.”
When it comes to making things in the gallery, there are no plans or instructions, as in most commercially available games. Every possible creative path has been kept open with no right or wrong way.
Play Interact Explore first saw light of day at Towner Eastbourne, along the coast from Brighton where Bill and Lucy are based.
That was at the beginning of 2023 when the gallery, formerly the Towner Art Gallery, was celebrating its centenary.
It emerged from workshop sessions involving community groups, including one comprising adults with learning difficulties.
“We’d spend time playing with materials and working on prototype artworks in the knowledge that these were people who wouldn’t normally access the art gallery,” recalls Bill.
“We were thinking about how we could design spaces that would be accessible to them and to the general public.”
Adds Lucy: “Those groups acted as consultants. We took ideas from the sessions and built them into the design of these objects. Then this exhibition opened to the public and now it’s touring."
“It has been really successful and popular with young families but we were keen that it was a space for all ages,” says Bill.
Baltic curator Katharine Welsh and Amanda McMahon, interim head of education and civic engagement, are delighted to see another interactive display in the building.
“I think it’s very generous of artists like Lucy and Bill to let the visitors become the artists in a way," says Amanda.
“This goes beyond play. It’s more about visitors becoming part of the exhibition and at Baltic that’s very important to us.
“It’s what we hear from our community groups and the young people we work with. They want to test and try things.
“Also, it fits beautifully alongside our schools programme.
“We’re here to offer alternatives and build confidence so you enter a world of exploring, testing and being the facilitator.”
Play Interact Explore is at Baltic until June 1, 2025. Check the Baltic website for opening times and other information.