The Pleasure Garden by Lubaina Himid and Rebecca Chesney
New work, including preparatory pieces relating to current and future projects at Ushaw, by two of the country’s leading contemporary artists.
Popular in Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries, follies were decorative buildings placed within designed landscapes as the building and its surroundings were intended to enhance the experience of each other. The Pleasure Garden brings this historic relationship into the present through a collaboration between artists, Lubaina Himid and Rebecca Chesney.
The works on display reveal Himid’s long-standing interest in monuments and overlooked histories. Her Jelly Mould Pavilions began with Victorian jelly moulds, which she painted and reimagined as models for public monuments. The works explore the links between sugar, enslavement and Britain’s wealth, and in 2017 one of her designs became a full-scale pavilion for the Folkestone Triennial.
Himid won the Turner Prize in 2017 and is Britain’s representative at the 2026 Venice Biennale. Chesney’s work is grounded in the natural world and encompasses paintings, drawings and interventions in a range of landscapes and environments.
On display from Saturday 14 November 2026 – Sunday 31 January 2027, entry included with admission and membership.
Image credits:
Lubaina Himid, Jelly Mould Pavilions for Liverpool, 2010, acrylic on jelly moulds, dimensions variable. Installation view, Gifts to Kings, MRAC Occitanie, Sérignan, 2018. © Lubaina Himid. Courtesy MRAC Occitanie. Photo: Aurélien Mole
Rebecca Chesney, 6/9 for Astley Hall 2021. Plaster casts of mugwort, bittercress, fennel, greater plantain, nettle & apple. © Rebecca Chesney
