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An exhibition of works by David Johnson, Emma Louise Dickson, Simon Croft, Harri Harrison, Phil Illingworth and Xavier White

The Barn, St Paul’s Walden Bury, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, SG4 8BP 9-16 May 2026 Opening times: 10am-4pm daily Working with the architecture of a restored 18th-century barn in the grounds of St Paul’s Walden Bury, near Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, local blind artist David Johnson has created a site-specific installation that gives expression to the blind experience of being in enclosed space and the built environment. To this end, he has constructed a series of lattice work, web-like planes made from stretched cord attached to vertical and horizontal timbers. A loose arrangement of warp and weft has created very open and irregular textile patterning that has far more air than fabric within. These structures are arranged around the interior space of the barn as well as, on occasion, moving beyond the perimeter walls. They divide up the space into irregular areas and channel visitors’ movements in unexpected ways, with the main door leading to a cul de sac, forcing the visitor to retrace their steps and re-enter through the smaller back entrance. The open, porous construction of the stretched cord lattices means that the sight lines and the acoustic character of the space is nuanced. The cords themselves create shafts of solid light. Interacting with Johnson’s lattice work, five selected artists are showcasing works which resonate with the themes of the disrupted, disabled experience, an integrated sensorium, and the fragility of life and all we take for granted. Emma Dickson’s weaving and block print transform small organic forms into large geometric works that encourage people to find the majestic in the miniature. The pieces explore colour and pattern often unseen or overlooked in the apparently ordinary nature that surrounds us. While these pieces are flat, visitors are welcome to explore the tactility of the pieces. Phil Illingworth’s three-dimensional paintings challenge space and presumption based on appearance. The pink tips of the spikes in Carry Moonbeams Home In A Jar offer an intentional contrast to the genuine threat. The Martyrdom of St Agatha has previously been experienced by touch by a visually-impaired visitor, who knew the piece was striped because of the nearly intangible difference in feel between paint of one colour and another. Finally, 3,2,3 is an experimental drawing which takes the notion of the transformation of an object from three dimensions to two, and then back into three dimensions (animal > hide > object). The drawing is suspended chrysalis-like by the same thread which stitches the sides together. Please feel free to touch these works. Xavier White’s precarious Verrelic Spires, made from recycled found glass, echo the fragility of a life held in the balance. As a brain injury survivor, White strives to creatively explore mind-expanding concepts in his practice. His slowbiles, which hang from the beams above, mirror the chandeliers already in place, and dance in the light as their slinky springs coil and recoil. Both of White’s series are tactile, as he hands the works over to the public to influence their fate. Simon Croft’s oversized fairy wand (not to be touched due to the sharpness of the mirror fragments) sits in one of the enclosed spaces created by Johnson’s lattice. The words, its title, Be Careful What You Wish For, hang nearby, made of layers of dried PVA – to be touched, but to be eroded in the process. Inside Out, Outside In, a set of mirror-mosaiced Russian dolls, sit nearby, again speaking to the fragility and self-reflexive nature of identity. Who sees what and when? And if you cannot see? Contrasting starkly with Croft’s wand are Harri Harrison’s much smaller wands made from natural materials found on walks in the urban landscape. Their work explores notions of place, community, grief, gratitude, and belonging, offering an invitation to reconsider our relationship to nature and future communities. What does it mean to have a ‘sense of place’, and what happens when this is disrupted? Further works by Johnson are dotted around the space, including Feedback and Severely Sheep Impaired (after a poem by John Darker). Please note, all the works in this exhibition are audio-described, and the audio-description can be listened to by pressing the button beside the work. Anna McNay, curator, said: ‘When putting together this exhibition I was driven primarily by the search for good quality art, but it is amazing how many artists and works turned out to have embedded stories of adversity or disability. I hope this experiential exhibition will provide insight into the quotidian of so many people.’ David Johnson said: ‘A weaver’s loom with a complex and disrupted arrangement of warp and weft provides a powerful metaphor for the altered aesthetics that blindness and disability afford us. This exhibition within an exhibition gives free rein to how altered bodies and altered minds rearrange the world and reflect it back to anyone prepared to embrace difference.’ Saturday 9th & Monday 11th – Saturday 16th: entrance free, 10am-4pm; entrance to garden £8, 10am-5pm, see stpaulswaldenbury.co.uk Sunday 10th: entrance with ticket to NGS open garden only, see stpaulswaldenbury.co.uk