Habit, Ability!

How might we continue to inhabit a damaged planet?

How can we learn collectively from nature’s methods of survival and transformation?

Habit, Ability! is an exhibition with events exploring ways to learn from and ‘be in’ nature. Come to The Newbridge Project, Shieldfield, Newcastle to see survival strategies found in landscapes that are considered uninhabitable by humans.

Seeing survival in these places through long and continuous engagement is a strategy against the common attitude to conquer and extract from nature

PART ONE: Habit, Ability!  (9 July – 23 September) begins by looking at Intertidal Mud Flats, Peat Bogs, the Arctic Tundra, and the Ocean. For humans, encountering these landscapes is challenging. Some of these places are protected by legislation – prohibiting or limiting human access for their preservation, or they are protected areas of scientific study.

The exhibition then turns to look at NewBridge and its new home in Shieldfield, Newcastle, having moved in 2021. Works in the exhibition assess NewBridge and its the environmental impact of the organisation on its surrounding spaces and at large.

PART TWO: Learning from Habit, Ability! (5 October – 19 November) will slow down production. The NewBridge Project’s gallery programme pauses to reflect on learning from the exhibition and to develop this learning with others.

Through workshops, discussions and reading groups, Learning from Habit, Ability! will take time and slow down to consider our environmental impact, working practices and relationships within broader systems of power. We will  be working in the gallery space with community groups to view through their eyes the exhibition, the area of Shieldfield, the landscape and communities therein.