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Michael Pennie Gallery: 2026–27 Exhibition Programme

Wednesday, 23 September, 2026

The Michael Pennie Gallery at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿’s Locksbrook Campus will host an ambitious programme of exhibitions throughout the 2026–27 academic year, bringing together artists, students, researchers and collaborators from across the University and beyond. Open Monday - Friday from 10am - 5pm, it spans architecture, landscape, environmental questions, digital practice, drawing, participation and sustainability, the programme offers opportunities to connect contemporary art with teaching and research across BSU schools. 

The programme opens with The Indeterminate Building (18 September–9 October 2026, opening event 17 September, 5pm), marking three significant anniversaries: 50 years since the Herman Miller Action Factory opened, 10 years since its transformation into Bath School of Art and Design, and the first year following the death of its architect, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. Archival material, oral histories and new commissions will explore the building’s changing identity and its role as a place of making. Extending beyond the gallery, the exhibition will engage the wider Locksbrook site and neighbourhood, considering architecture, heritage, adaptive reuse, community and the built environment as creative material.

Next is the Porthleven Prize 2026 (23 October–6 November, opening event 22 October, 5pm). Now in its 13th year, the refreshed prize is open to students across all courses and year groups. Its new two-part residency model combines a programme in Bath with a fully funded residency in Porthleven, Cornwall, for eight finalists. The resulting work explores landscape, place and creative process, while bringing together staff and students from across disciplines. The exhibition highlights residency as a creative methodology, alongside accessibility, professional development, student enterprise and site-responsive practice.

Nuclear Waste: Myth, Matter and Time (13–27 November, opening event 12 November, 5pm) brings together artists Aimee Lax and Nic Pehkonen to examine the unresolved challenge of nuclear waste storage. Drawing on research at sites including Hinkley C and Finland’s Onkalo repository, the exhibition uses installation, drawing, film and speculative objects to explore deep time, environmental responsibility and imagined futures. Materials such as bentonite provide a connection between nuclear technology and everyday ceramic practice. The exhibition will also include a screening of Michael Madsen’s Into Eternity.

In December, Hauntology (4–18 December, opening event 3 December, 5pm) by Hannah Moesing-Staff and Kyle Roberts will transform the gallery through projection, light, sound, digital animation and interactive elements. Inspired by Mark Fisher’s concept of hauntology, the exhibition explores nostalgia, memory and the uncanny experience of inhabiting spaces that seem suspended between past and future. An accompanying Locksbrook Lates event will bring together BSU music students and external collaborators for live visuals and sound.

The new year begins with Rejection (15–29 January 2027, opening event,14 January, 5pm) by David Janes. Drawing on the realities of professional creative practice, the exhibition considers rejection as a distinct and often overlooked part of an artist’s career. Applications, unsuccessful pitches, archival material and new works become part of the exhibition itself, challenging conventional ideas around failure, resilience and artistic success. Audience participation will extend this premise into the gallery.

The Freelands Fellow Exhibition by Jo Lathwood (5–20 February, opening event 4 February, 5pm) focuses on sustainability, reuse and the afterlife of materials. Through drawing, sculpture and installation, Lathwood explores cycles of destruction, renewal and transformation, informed by a personal sustainable manifesto centred on borrowing, sharing, reuse and materials that can biodegrade or have a remedial purpose. The exhibition also considers site-responsive practice, alternative economies of making and the relationship between artistic production and ecological responsibility.

From 5 March to 9 April (opening event 4 March, 5pm), Drawing Together: The Bath Academy of Art at Corsham will explore the legacy of one of the institutions that preceded ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿. Developed by BSU Collections with Chippenham Museum and the Young Gallery, the exhibition brings together artworks, archives and museum collections alongside contemporary student responses. Marking 80 years since the Academy moved to Corsham, it considers drawing, art education, institutional history and the continuing influence of the Academy. Student-led research and collaborative curating are central to the project.

The programme concludes with The (R)eluctant Performer (16–30 April, opening event 15 April, 5pm) by Anna Lucas, Adam Gillam and Alice Walton. Emerging from the collaborative event Doing Together 2026, the exhibition revisits participatory photographs and films made at Locksbrook. Concealment, reflection and performance become ways of examining collaboration and presence, while video, photography, objects and a live link create an immersive environment. The project also explores the relationship between teaching and learning, positioning the gallery as both studio and shared space.

Together, these exhibitions demonstrate the Michael Pennie Gallery’s role as a space for experimentation, interdisciplinary exchange and engagement with contemporary issues. Across the 2026–27 programme, students and staff can encounter diverse approaches to making and research — from archives and oral histories to immersive technologies, ecological materials, participation and speculative futures — while connecting creative practice with the wider intellectual and social life of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿.