Transition - exhibited in 'Deep Horizons', Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Deep Horizons starts with the topic of excavation and presents sculpture, drawing, painting, installation, ceramics, photography and moving image
from the last 50 years. Developed through a series of conversations, the exhibition explores layers of themes, including history and time, geology and land, memory and dreams and the politics of how we record and understand the past.

The exhibition presents two very different collections of modern and contemporary art: the Middlesbrough Collection, cared for by MIMA, and the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, managed by The Roberts Institute of Art. Seen together, they present connected and contrasting artworks in new combinations to allow fresh readings. A number of the pieces displayed have not been seen in a public gallery.

Six curatorial collaborators have shaped the exhibition’s themes MIMA and Roberts Institute of Art curators. Each coming from a and with different field of knowledge, their perspectives and interests have opened viewpoints on excavation and new readings of artworks. The curatorial collaborators are: broadcaster and actor Sir Tony Robinson, artists Liliane Lijn and Fiona Crisp, botanist Dr Greg Kenicer, Professor of Physics Chamkaur Ghag, writer and academic Dr Julietta Singh and former Tees Bay Pilot Geoff Taylor.

Brownsword's work was curated from MIMA's collection by TV broadcaster Sir Tony Robinson:

Transition, 1999.

"Of all the artworks, this is the one that I react to most personally. In my early twenties, I married the daughter of the chairman of Stoke City Football Club when they were at their height. At that time, Stoke was dominated by the extraordinary architecture of pottery production, just like the glorious buildings on telly show The Great Pottery Throw Down. This piece really works as a monument to that industry.

Years later, I went back to Stoke with Time Team, and as we excavated, I realised that literally millions of broken pieces of pottery discarded over the last 200-300 years sit under the city. All of these beautiful cups and saucers, each with just a slight flaw, had been chucked away. In Brownsword's piece, I think there are too few salvaged elements - they should be a foot deep! For another TV show, I excavated an eighteenth century colonial settler's house in the West Indies. All that distance away, deep in the jungle, we found pottery from the same factories - little messages from Stoke-on-Trent.