‘JUST WOW’: Tate Collective Producers sharing their first look at the Małgorzata Mirga-Tas exhibition* at Tate St Ives. Art titles (left to right): Romani Kali Daj – Roma Madonna, 2024; June 2022; Ćhajengri Duma – Women’s Thoughts, 2024. Photo: Danielle Hutchinson.
A new exhibition has opened this weekend at Tate St Ives, showcasing the work of Małgorzata Mirga-Tas.
The Romani artist from southern Poland ‘is best known for creating colourful textile collages made with materials gathered from family and friends’ according to the exhibition guide.
We joined the Tate Collective Producers group as they had their first look at the exhibition and captured their responses.
“The space is amazing, it’s huge, [there’s] a lot of colour in the exhibition.”
“Just wow… the scale of the pieces were incredible… I was just blown away to be honest.”
‘OUR COMMUNITY OF YOUNG CREATIVES’: Kate Turner, Assistant Curator, Young People’s Programme. Pictured in front of an untitled work by Fahrelnissa Zeid, c. 1950s, at Tate St Ives. Photo: Danielle Hutchinson.
The Tate Collective Producers is a group for young people aged 15-25, run by Kate Turner, Assistant Curator of the Young People’s Programme at Tate St Ives.
“We meet roughly every two weeks at the gallery to work with artists, collaborate with each other, explore our creativity and programme and plan public-facing events for a wider audience of young people.”
The group will be developing workshop activities in response to the Małgorzata Mirga-Tas exhibition, to be held at the Winter Festival in November.
“So far the group have been working with an artist called Becky Tyrrell, exploring the exhibition through a broader lens of portraiture, identity, representation and how you might define community – specifically thinking about our community of young creatives as Tate Collective Producers.”
Becky Tyrrell is a photographer based in Cornwall, winner of the Portrait of Britain Prize in 2020 and 2021.
As a guest artist, she led film photography workshops with the Tate Collective Producers.
‘AN OPPORTUNITY TO SLOW DOWN’: Becky Tyrrell (left) teaching a Tate Collective Producer the basics of film photography. Tate St Ives. Photo: Danielle Hutchinson.
“Everyone’s got a camera in their pocket now, but the approach that I take is much slower, much more fiddly, much more purposeful and there’s a lot of engagement with it as opposed to it being off-the-cuff.
“[My intention was] to give people an opportunity to slow down and really think about representation, think about themselves, think about their approach – how they’d like to be seen.”
Tyrrell is looking forward to seeing what the group produce for the Winter Festival.
“I’d love to see what you [produce] because it’s a really creative, thoughtful group of people… [As a photographer] you quite often work on your own, so to be invited in to work with a group of young people… is really refreshing for me.”
Tate Collective Producer Marija has been part of the group for 3 years and is excited about the different possibilities for their workshops.
“It’s the freedom to actually realise our ideas because it’s a big organisation… you pitch an idea and you expect it to be turned down but they’re actually like, ‘Oh yeah, we can do that!’.
“It just kind of encourages you to be a bit more ambitious and test things out and collaborate and have fun – do something that you wouldn’t be able to do if you were on your own.”
‘A BIT MORE AMBITIOUS’: The Tate Collective Producers discussing ideas in the Małgorzata Mirga-Tas exhibition. Art titles (left to right): Sofia Taikon, 2023; Out of Egypt, 2021. Photo: Danielle Hutchinson.
The Winter Festival will be taking place on the 23 and 24 November at Tate St Ives and Kate Turner welcomes all to attend.
“The event would encourage specifically young people to attend, although we welcome everyone and it will be an intergenerational event for all ages.”
The Tate Collective Producers will be based in Gallery 8.
“[It’s] a really fantastic gallery space to have ownership over because it’s the curved window out to the sea with the iconic view of Porthmeor beach.”
‘THE ICONIC VIEW’: The view over Porthmeor Beach from Gallery 8, the proposed location for the Winter Festival workshops, Tate St Ives. Photo: Danielle Hutchinson.
The Małgorzata Mirga-Tas exhibition will be open at Tate St Ives until 5 January 2025.
*Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Tate St Ives, 19 October 2024 – 5 January 2025.
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas is organised by Tate St Ives in collaboration with the Whitworth.
List of artwork titles shown in the video, along with music credits, can be found in the video description on YouTube.