Lindsey Mendick: Regrets, I’ve Had a Few

An exhibition that explored hindsight, nostalgia and folklore through ceramics and textiles. Lindsey Mendick was selected through an open call for a commissioned solo exhibition that launched SPACE’s new gallery in Ilford in December 2019. As part of the commission, Mendick led a series of ceramic workshops for Ilford’s +65s.

For her commission at SPACE, Mendick worked with a group of Ilford-based older people to explore hindsight, nostalgia and folklore through ceramics. Together they built clay effigies in the shape of the advice they would have given their younger selves. For the exhibition – constructed as a stage for storytelling – the artist collaborated with her mother, a talented children’s clothes designer and seamstress, and together they created fabric adornments for the works. Sophie Collins was commissioned to write an essay on the exhibition and work of Lindsey Mendick.

Lindsey said: “I’m absolutely ecstatic to be selected for the open call artist commission at SPACE. To be able to work with members of the older community in Ilford to create the inaugural exhibition is such a privilege and exciting opportunity!”

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Lindsey Mendick (b 1987, lives and works in London) received an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London. She creates installations centred on her skilled work in ceramics and includes banner painting, sewing, metalwork, furniture making and sound. Her autobiographical works are often confessional, referencing the horrors and emotions of adolescence while narrating her experience as a female artist. Drawing from classical painting, mythical women and pop culture iconography, her gothic-like work tells a defiant story that is at once both vulnerable and resilient. She was the recipient of the Alexandra Reinhardt memorial award in 2018 and was also selected for Jerwood Survey 2019. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include: Castor Projects, London; Hannah Barry Gallery, London; The Turnpike, Leigh; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Vitrine, Basel; Visual Arts Center, Austin, Texas; Oriel Wrexham, Wales; STCFTHOTS, Leeds and One Thoresby Street, Nottingham. She has previously been commissioned to make new projects that included ceramic workshops at Kunstraum, London; The Turnpike Pottery, Leigh and for the Cheltenham Council.

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Sophie Collins grew up in Bergen, North Holland, and now lives in Glasgow. She is the author of Who Is Mary Sue? (Faber, 2018) and small white monkeys (Book Works, 2017), and editor of Currently & Emotion (Test Centre, 2016), an anthology of contemporary poetry translations. Her translation from the Dutch of Lieke Marsman, The Following Scan Will Last Five Minutes (Pavilion, 2019), was published earlier this year. She is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow.