Not Alone Comes Home

About

In the midst of the 2020 lockdown, inspired by a fragment of an old song, Golden Thread Gallery director Peter Richards had an idea for a different kind of exhibition, one that could overcome the distances forced between artists and curators worldwide by the Covid-19 pandemic. Not Alone was an exhibition in a bottle, containing eight works from some of the leading artists on this island: Graham Gingles; Joy Gerrard; Sharon Kelly; John Rainey; Chloe Austin; Ailbhe Greaney; Megan Doherty and Clare Gallagher. Each artist created a piece of art tiny or portable enough to fit inside a glass bottle, yet powerful enough to convey vast philosophies, stories and ideas, and endless possibilities of interpretation.

Packed up, the exhibition was sent out to international curators who each mounted the exhibition in their own homes. Installing and arranging the works in their spaces, they each created new configurations, different contexts and connections for the exhibition. They then packed Not Alone back into its bottle and sent it on to its next destination.

Back home, the Not Alone bottle is finally open for all to see. A domestic-sized exhibition designed to build connections in a cut-off and isolated world finally brings us back together in a joyous celebration of our wonderful artistic community. 

Golden Thread Gallery is a leading contemporary visual art gallery in Belfast. We work to broaden access to and improve public experience of visual art in Northern Ireland, with programmes of high quality that embrace the breadth and variety of contemporary arts practice, and develop, support and promote the work of Northern Irish artists. Our mission statement is “Creating a context, challenging perceptions, promoting creativity, delivering contemporary visual art for all”. Annually we host six major exhibitions in our main galleries and six Project Space exhibitions of emerging local artists; workshops for all ages/abilities, talks and tours, artist mentoring, and community outreach.