Joseph Buckley: Brotherhood Tapestry

About

Built around three large new sculptural commissions, the exhibition takes as its starting point Buckley’s investigations into the space between blackness and Britishness.

Informed in part by his experience of growing up in Chapeltown, Leeds, as well as his research at Leeds’ Royal Armouries during a residency period at The Tetley, the three new commissions: Psychic Armour for Black Northerners, Brotherhood Tapestry and Better Clone Sons are set against a collection of smaller works. Brotherhood Tapestry weaves the audience through familiar and unfamiliar imagery – from historical references to West African mask-making and medieval armour, through British Modernist sculpture to the dystopian present and various Science Fictions. Taken as a whole, the exhibition gives a voice to the bleakness of the times in which we live by synthesising the comfortable and the challenging. 

Brotherhood Tapestry is supported by The Elephant Trust and runs alongside 50 Years of Leeds West Indian Carnival, an exhibition exploring and celebrating the 50th anniversary of Leeds West Indian Carnival.