Event description

Past and Future Pact is a new body of work by artist Jill McKnight comprising sculpture, works on paper and video inspired by Sunderland’s industrial heritage.

The artworks were produced using art and design facilities at University of Sunderland while artist-in-residence for AA2A and DePOT (Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time) between 2023-24. The resulting body of work explores the identity of Sunderland 30 years on from mass closures across many heavy industries.

At its peak, many local industries supported one another – the mines and shipyards were supplied by satellite industries, such as ropemaking, glassworks, paintworks and metalworks – relying on each other for survival. Women played an instrumental role in Sunderland’s industrial economy, with numerous factories employing a high level of women. Several of the artist’s family were employed at Plessey’s telecommunications plant, referenced by the motif of the telephone in her ceramic works.

McKnight has brought together research from many different sources – the archives of Sunderland Antiquarian Society, the National Women Against Pit Closure 40th Anniversary Commemoration event held at Durham Students’ Union, displays within Sunderland’s museums, online groups, relatives, friends, residents and students – with their voices bringing Sunderland’s history to life engrained within the fabric of the works.

Past and Future Pact tells a story often marginalised in the visual arts, a story of female working-class labour articulated through a body of work drawn from careful research and oral accounts.

About Jill McKnight

Jill McKnight (b. 1990, Sunderland, UK) is an artist working across sculpture, works on paper and moving image. Central to her practice is exploring working-class, feminist and artistic lineages to tell stories that would otherwise be lost or overlooked. From starting points of archival research, interviews, family and community knowledge, recent work has sought to platform working-class experience.

In 2024, McKnight was artist-in-residence for AA2A (Artists Access to Art Colleges) residency at University of Sunderland and remote artist-in-residence for the DePOT (Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time) international partnership. In 2021-22, McKnight was artist-in-residence for Collections in Dialogue, a co-commission between Leeds Art Gallery and the British Library, culminating in the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition Desire Lines at Leeds Art Gallery. McKnight has previously exhibited at institutions including Yorkshire Sculpture Park; South London Gallery; The Art House, Wakefield and Wysing Arts Centre. McKnight was awarded a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award (2020) and selected as a Yorkshire Sculpture International Associate Artist (2019).

Main image credit: Jill Mcknight, Workers at British Ropes, Sunderland (Roker Avenue), 1950s, 2024, Drypoint on paper. Courtesy of the artist.