It Requires Getting Lost is the result of a unique partnership between the Roberts Institute of Art (RIA), Venture Arts and Castlefield Gallery. Three artists working in the North of England –– Gregory Herbert, Malik Jama and Jocelyn McGregor –– have been invited by the partner organisations to work in dialogue with one another and in response to major works from one of the UK’s most significant private collections, the David and Indrė Roberts Collection (managed by RIA). These major works, co-selected by all involved, will be featured in the exhibition.
Spending time with the collection commenced a research period designed to support Herbert, Jama and McGregor to develop new work for the exhibition at Castlefield Gallery. These new works will be exhibited alongside the works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Noémie Goudal, Pierre Huyghe, Leon Kossoff, and Wolfgang Tillmans from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. Sharing and exploring together has shaped Hebert, Jama and McGregor’s development process.
The artists have together experienced one another’s sources of inspiration, including places and spaces where humanity and nature come into contact in unexpected ways. To date these have included Anderson boat lift, a wishing well in Alderley Edge and Yordas Cave in Ingleton. Guiding the artists’ research and overall exhibition are shared interests in the complex entanglement of human and non-human worlds, and testing the boundaries between the natural and artificial, making and material, intention and accident.
Selected and commissioned works featured in It Requires Getting Lost will span film, photography, painting, sound, projection mapping, and sculpture. A diverse group of works, together they point to what can be discovered in embracing the unknown. The exhibition will ask if we can resist the drive to want to be all knowing and to have all the answers, and instead accept not knowing. What might we learn? If we ‘get lost’, might we discover, see, and hear anew, including what nature has to share with us?
It Requires Getting Lost will take over Castlefield Gallery, with the works and installation playing with the context of the venue’s architecture, creating a cave-like, subterranean feel. Conceived as a dark, underground space, the exhibition invites us to leave behind the hard-edged clarity of categories and distinctions and descend into a place of murky yet wondrous possibility.
The exhibition proposes that in the dark of not knowing we might actually find hope, and that with humility we can better respond to the challenges of our changing world. The exhibition’s title is taken from a phrase used by philosopher and activist Bayo Akomolafe from an interview the artists and partners read together during the project. It suggests that getting lost together can catalyse true transformation and deeper understanding of the many paths we can take to live more responsively and responsibly in a world that is continually changing.
The whole project has been infused with positivity and curiosity from the start, offering the artists an opportunity to visit outdoor locations from Hulme Community Garden Centre to Stonehenge as well as exploring some of the most significant works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries in the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. Their time together will lead to an exhibition that invites us to wonder amongst art works that encourage us to be at ease with the unknown and to embrace the unfamiliar offerings of our natural world.
Gregory Herbert says: “During this residency, Malik, Jocelyn, and I explored our practices through visits to wishing wells, caves, ponds, bridges, canals, and the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. These trips have given us the space to reflect on how our work connects with each other and the collection, whilst also building an ongoing conversation about our entangled relationship with the earth.”
Malik Jama says: “We went on walks together, taking pictures and talking to each other. I’ve liked it and made two new friends. We’ve been to Stonehenge, seen great art at the David and Indrė Roberts Collection’s big warehouse. I saw art that looked like a cave in a car park by Noémie Goudal and I liked her waterfall too. I’ve liked taking pictures, walking around seeing things, and I’ve done projection mapping in the cave. I’m happy it happened.”
Jocelyn McGregor says: “I have really valued being able to get to know Greg and Malik and their practices, as well as being an art fangirl with the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. Us artists have been able to share core inspirations with one another through group visits, and collectively feed into the curation. This means that both our work and the exhibition are developing in this harmonious way, it’s like having a conversation through art-making.”
Exhibition Title: It Requires Getting Lost
Exhibition dates: Sunday 1 November 2025 – Sunday 22 February 2026
Venue: Castlefield Gallery, 2 Hewitt Street, Manchester M15 4GB
Tel: 0161 832 8034
Email: [email protected]
Opening Times: Wednesday – Sunday, 12 noon – 5:30 pm
