In a world driven by perpetual motion, where overheated laptops, nagging shoulder pains, and overstimulated minds have become the norm, rest feels elusive.

Gathering Rest explores the restorative and transformative potential of rest in a culture that often prizes constant productivity. Responding to the social challenges of burnout, social injustice, and ecological crisis, the exhibition invites visitors to pause, reflect, and experience rest as a nourishing practice.  One that can foster presence, repair and collective imagination in the face of personal and planetary crises.

Taking inspiration from Evie Muir’s recent book, ‘Radical Rest: Notes on Burnout, Healing and Hopeful Futures’ (2024), the exhibition considers how art can offer constructive ways of responding to social pressures, injustice, and the relentless pace of modern life, creating spaces where audiences can reflect, recharge, and reorient their sense of time and purpose. It also explores how societal pressures affect those living with disabilities and mental health challenges, where rest is not a luxury but a necessity for sustaining life and ensuring longevity.

Featuring works by modern and contemporary artists drawn from public collections and artists across the UK, the exhibition highlights practices that engage the senses and reshape experience.

Gathering Rest aims to highlight how contemporary artists are exploring personal and collective experiences of rest as an expression of intimacy, repair and solidarity. Inviting audiences to explore rest as a radical, transformative act, the exhibition challenges us to reimagine rest not merely as recovery, but as a practice of sustainability, resistance, and reconnection to self and community.