About

Aspex Portsmouth is a visual arts and educational charity bringing new art and ideas to the heart of the city.

Located next to Portsmouth’s historic waterfront in the Gunwharf Quays complex, Aspex lets visitors immerse themselves in contemporary art and culture within its vibrant gallery space.

There is a diverse programme of art and community exhibitions; events and activities (including workshops and lates); a shop featuring a collection of prints, gifts and more; and an independent cafe.

Aspex Portsmouth is free to visit and donations are warmly welcomed. You can find out more about the gallery and plan a visit by heading to: aspex.org.uk.

Underland: Hannah Bestley Burt
23 October 2024 - 26 January 2025

In the intricate world beneath our feet, a vast network of mycelium (the vegetative root-like structure of a fungus) flourishes, forming the unseen backbone of our ecosystem. Mycelium serves as a communication network for plants and trees but also as an active participant in nutrient exchange, illustrating its own agency within the ecosystem. It plays a significant role in "farming" trees, highlighting how its mutualistic relationships benefit others to better sustain itself.

Sprouting, fruiting bodies of fungi, such as mushrooms, represent both the decomposition of old systems and the quiet persistent growth that often thrives in the wake of destruction.

Through a series of woven wall hangings, blooming slime moulds, and soft sculptures, Hannah Bestley Burt invites us to celebrate the uncanny beauty of this overlooked form of life — platforming the unseen, the tiny, and the often misunderstood understory of nature.

With an enduring focus on fungi, Hannah combines basket weaving, loom-based constructions, and embroidered embellishments, creating a body of work which explores profound connections and symbiotic relationships. By employing techniques of double and triple weaving and then bending and stretching the wool, she crafts meandering filaments and fusing networks that echo the growth patterns of mycelium.

Soft sculptures are created through coiled basket weaving methods, drawing inspiration from the shapes and patterns of fungi and other non-plant, non-animal organisms.

Each piece allows art and nature to merge. It strengthens themes of connection, transformation, and regeneration in the natural world.

Fascinated by interconnectedness, Underland reveals how mycelium operates as a complex organism in its own right and serves as a powerful metaphor for community.

Just as mycelium forms intricate colonies that support and sustain life, the essence of these relationships is captured through Hannah's poetic organic forms. The delicate threads symbolise unity, reminding us that our actions contribute to a larger collective.

We are invited to consider the parallels between fungal networks and human society, urging reflection on the ever changing nature of our own relationships and the impact of our actions on the world. This prompts us to examine how society can persist, grow, fracture and repair throughout our daily lives — a reminder that we are all part of a larger system, bound together by the threads of life.

Colony - The Platform Graduate Award
25 October 2024 - 12 January 2025

Colonialism continues to oppress and exploit people. For thousands of years, colonies have spread across civilizations, bringing chaos, coups, corruption, civil wars, violence, and the destruction of indigenous cultures. In nature, colonies like beehives and ant nests show how insects form communities to survive. This division and control of land is a shared issue in both social and insect studies. Using these two diverse perspectives, Aspex Portsmouth's latest exhibition explores the (im)balance of colony formations.

A minefield stretches over the gallery floor; a beehive is suppressed through an industrial installation; tourism is documented and reflected on. How are colonies documented, formed, erased, hidden, and preserved? Enter this space in which artworks spread freely across and outside the gallery to think about and better understand the rationales and repercussions of contemporary coloniality.

The Platform Graduate Award presents the work of nine artists launching their artistic careers following graduation. Part of a regional initiative established by CVAN South East (Contemporary Visual Arts Network South East) in 2012, Platform aims to support emerging talent at a key moment of transition. This year’s award features exhibitions at three partner organisations across the South East and West, including Aspex Portsmouth; Modern Art Oxford; Phoenix Art Space in Brighton; and Box Gallery at the University of Plymouth.

Aspex Portsmouth’s artists for 2024 include: Ian Golding and Jessica Babbini-Baker (Winchester School of Art, Southampton University); Ben Ng (Solent University, Southampton); Isobelle Munckton and Hima Bijoy (UCA Farnham); Danielè Balsyte and Ellie Svrlanska (University of Portsmouth); and Prajvi Mandhani and Lynne Williams (University of the Arts Bournemouth).