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Brighton CCA

A new centre for
contemporary arts at the
University of Brighton

Exhibition

Photo: Rob Harris

Photo: Rob Harris

Photo: Rob Harris

Photo: Rob Harris

Photo: Rob Harris

Photo: Rob Harris

Brighton CCA is delighted that Jade Montserrat has been commissioned to undertake the 2022 Summer Commission at the gallery. The commission, focusing on Montserrat’s articulation of black histories, bodies and narratives consists of six new works spanning the 45 metre façade of the building in the centre of Brighton. This is the artist’s first major public art commission in the UK.

This work is part of Brighton CCA’s Summer Commission programme, a series of public art works commissioned annually for Grand Parade. For her 2022 commission, Montserrat draws together combinations of image, text and colour responding to the violence, loneliness and exclusion of contemporary society, amplified in recent times by the pandemic, war, displacement of peoples and the struggle for equality. Within this context, and the isolation that has become such a feature of our society, the drawings act as a series of personal messages, poetic statements of solidarity and hope. Referencing the visual language of the urban street, the tagging and graffiti familiar in Brighton, each panel can be read as an expression of a communal experience; from a crisp morning in autumn to a feeling of vulnerability in the face of the unknown and the strength which can be drawn from a shared identity. Monserrat’s commission for Brighton is both a voice for hidden personal traumas and a reminder of what we all share.

The commission series is a collaboration with Brighton Festival and funded by Arts Council England. Supported by Omni Colour.

Jade Montserrat is an artist based in the North of England whose research-led work explores the interplay of art and activism through performance, drawing, painting, film, installation, sculpture, print and text.

The inaugural commission in 2021 was awarded to Alexandre da Cunha.

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