1. What does the title of the exhibition mean?
This exhibition explores the nature and the beauty of chance encounters – events that might not have happened had one not been in the right place at the right time. In this exhibition, these meetings occur on multiple levels. Firstly, there are references to the encounter between Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska, who met in Preston, Lancashire, and began collaborating. Through their chance encounter, the two artists bring together a range of geographies, languages, and artistic styles.
The exhibition itself unites aspects of the Kettle’s Yard house and collection alongside Himid and Stawarska’s own works creating new connections. In Another Chance Encounter, there is a constant back and forth between different locations and multiple references to other artworks in the Kettle’s Yard house. The title encourages visitors to re-evaluate the way that they consider encounters, both with art and with the world around them.
2.The exhibition is full of references to the Kettle’s Yard house.
In this video, Lubaina Himid describes how working with Jim and Helen Ede’s house has been a lifelong dream. She has been visiting the house since the 1970s, and brought Stawarska in recent years. Consequently, they both wanted to bring references from the house into their artworks. There are glimpses of conversations between the works in Kettle’s Yard and those in the exhibition. In gallery one, Himid references Ben Nicholson’s Still Life with Knife and Lemon (1927) in her work Your Charm Offensive (2025). In gallery two, lemons and limes run as motifs throughout both artists’ work, a clear reference to the iconic citrus fruit in the Kettle’s Yard house. Seasoned visitors will be able to spot these connections straight away, others may come across them in a brief, chance encounter.
3. There are also ‘interventions’ in the Kettle’s Yard house.
In addition to the exhibition, Himid and Stawarska have made six interventions for the Kettle’s Yard house. They all vary in size, location, and medium. During Another Chance Encounter, visitors to the house will see a new painting in the extension titled Flying Carpet. This artwork draws inspiration from the textiles in the house, many of which come from North Africa and the Atlas Mountains – drawing connections with the Edes’ former home in Tangier, Morocco, where they lived in the mid-1930s. Flying Carpet also has a few details that may remind visitors of the domestic activities often remaining in the background at Kettle’s Yard, such as a radio and a colander.
Stawarska is equally interested in resurrecting the sounds of life within the Edes’s former home. At the beginning of the house tour, visitors will hear a sound piece titled Sweet Sharp Taste of Limes installed in the rarely seen kitchen. Stawarska leaves the door ajar, providing a glimpse into this space, and fills it with the noise of daily life. The sound piece comprises a combination of recordings of the Kettle’s Yard kitchen and Stawarska and Himid’s own kitchen, with sounds of flowers being prepared and water running from a tap.
The exhibition curator, Dr Amy Tobin, likened Himid and Stawarska’s interventions in the house to a tenancy. It is as if they have moved in for the four months that Another Chance Encounter is on display at Kettle’s Yard. Make sure you catch it before they move out!
4. Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska and Nina Hamnett feature in the exhibition.
Stawarska and Himid’s installation in gallery two, Slightly Bitter, was inspired by the relationship between the writer Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska and the artist Nina Hamnett. Writing letters to each other between 1917 and 1918, the two women navigated their own complex relationship whilst organising the estate of Kettle’s Yard collection artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska following his early death in 1915. Gaudier-Brzeska’s art and archive was foundational to the Edes’s early collection. Himid and Stawarska’s collaborative installation includes excerpts from these letters in a sound piece recorded by both artists. Themes of correspondence, connection, and above all chance encounters inspired by Gaudier-Brzeska and Hamnett’s exchanges are at the centre of this gallery.
With this installation, Himid and Stawarska explore lives that have often been marginalised in the context of the house and modern art overall.
5.The paintings in gallery one are each accompanied by a written narrative.
Painted in her studio in Preston over the past year, Himid’s collection of works in gallery one each tell a thought-provoking narrative. Himid’s creative process usually involves privately imagining narratives alongside her artworks. Yet for Another Chance Encounter, she decided to provide these conversations next to each of the canvases, offering an insight into the thoughts and feelings of the subjects of each painting. Her paintings have also been deliberately hung close to the floor, as though visitors are eavesdropping on their conversations. Visitors can either choose to relate the painting to the dialogue or imagine their own narrative inspired by the colourful and expressive interactions occurring in the paintings.
Another Chance Encounter
What's On
