Experimental art pops up in Cambridge city centre
New exhibition by ARU’s MA Fine Art students opens in the Grand Arcade on 21 May
ARU student Gill Munn's work titled No Place Like Home, which will be on display at Art@Unit43
Students at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) are bringing powerful, experimental art out of the studio and into the heart of Cambridge with a pop-up exhibition at the Grand Arcade.
Opening on Thursday, 21 May and running throughout the Bank Holiday weekend, Art@Unit43 will showcase work by MA Fine Art students from ARU’s Cambridge School of Art.
Taking over a first-floor retail unit, the exhibition invites visitors to meet the artists and engage with contemporary art outside a traditional gallery setting.
Instead of polished final pieces, Art@Unit43 focuses on “works in progress”, offering a glimpse into the artists’ studio mindset where ideas evolve through process, experimentation and uncertainty.
The artwork on display tackles a range of complex and sensitive themes. Phil Cope’s ///I.Will.Breathe is a video work reflecting on the final months of his sister’s life. Using digital material created by her, and selected and curated by Phil, it explores his sister’s final struggles with cancer and her determination to live her life as fully as possible.
Gill Munn’s No Place Like Home features ceramic limbs bursting through windows and doors of a cardboard house, highlighting how spaces that should feel safe can instead, for some women, resemble oppressive prisons, while Jonathan Wong’s Superposition no. 10 is inspired by four of the principles of quantum theory.
“We wanted to create an exhibition that feels open, accessible and alive. Showing work in the middle of a shopping centre creates surprising conversations and allows people to experience artistic processes up close.”
MA Fine Art student and exhibiting artist Francesca TomlinsonArt@Unit43 runs from Thursday, 21 May until Monday, 25 May at Cambridge’s Grand Arcade. The exhibition will be open from 12–4pm and entry is free.