A Gap in the Clouds
David Shrigley, A Gap in the Clouds, 2020. Print, 75 x 55cm. Courtesy the Artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York.
On view until 8 February 2026 at at Heong Gallery, Cambridge University
Wednesday to Sunday / 12pm - 5pm
Curators: Elisa Schaar and Adina Drinceanu (IKT Member)
This exhibition explores how modern and contemporary artists use landscape as a way to navigate the relationship between our mental lives and the world around us. Neither distant views nor simple reflections of the mind, the works in the exhibition treat landscape as an active, imaginative space where inner and outer worlds meet, reflect, and reshape each other.
Spanning a wide range of media, geographies, and perspectives, including those shaped by war, displacement and ecological precarity, the exhibition brings together works that engage with different kinds of landscape: figurative and abstract; real, imagined, and remembered; intimate or vast; welcoming or alienating. Each piece offers a space where mental states — ranging from melancholy and anxiety to calmness and resilience — are explored, confronted, or transformed. Through images of shifting weather, changing seasons, and diverse terrain, the works show how inner and outer landscapes are always in flux. Here, landscape emerges as a vital space of emotional resonance, reflection, and creative possibility.
Artists: Ai Weiwei, Anas Albraeche, Etel Adnan, Francis Alÿs, Yto Barrada, Giorgio de Chirico, Patricia Domínguez, Latifa Echakhch, Andreas Eriksson, Rachel Howard, David Jones, Kim Bohie, Koo Jeong A, Peter Lanyon, André Masson, Edvard Munch, Paul Nash, Nengi Omuku, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, David Shrigley, Alice Visentin, Frank Walter, Zheng Bo.
In collaboration with: David and Indrė Roberts Collection, Estorick Collection, Ingram Collection of Modern British Art, Jerwood Collection, Kiang Malingue Gallery, Lisson Gallery, mor charpentier, Nicoletta Fiorucci Collection, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Trinity College Library.
Exhibition Panel Discussion, A Gap in the Clouds
Jan 30 from 5pm to 6:30pm GMT
Interdisciplinary panel discussion based around the themes of the exhibition at The Heong Gallery, A Gap in the Clouds.
Artists have long turned to landscapes to explore the relationship between our mental states and the world around us. From real to imagined landscapes, their works invite us to notice how environments mirror and shape our inner weather. What can we learn from these artworks about navigating the shifting terrain of our own minds?
This interdisciplinary panel brings together psychology, film studies, creative writing, art, and Qi Gong traditions to respond to works from the exhibition A Gap in the Clouds. Panelists will explore what these artworks reveal about the relationship between mind and environment, what resonates with – or challenges – established ways of thinking, and what new insights we might gain.
From the calming effects of nature on our minds and the ways landscapes stir memory, imagination, and emotion, to the distresses of war and environmental destruction, landscapes shape, challenge, and unsettle our mental and emotional states. This panel combines research, creative practice, and embodied experience to investigate these effects.
Earlier in the day, a Qi Gong session – an extension of a work by Zheng Bo in the exhibition – invites participants to experience firsthand the dialogue between inner and outer landscapes through multiple senses.
Open to the public, the panel, together with the Qi Gong session, offers a unique opportunity to explore what we can learn from art and artists, and how landscapes shape and reflect the way we experience the world.
Panel participants:
Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson
Olga Koroleva
Nengi Omuku
Professor Barbara Sahakian
Yvonne Salmon
Moderators:
Elisa Schaar
Adina Drinceanu (IKT Member)