How We Live Now: Making Spaces in the North East with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative

An exhibition, presented in association with Newcastle Contemporary Art, exploring the work of 1980s feminist architecture co-operative Matrix, alongside contemporary projects looking at gender, accessibility, equality and discrimination in the built environment.

Originally curated by Jon Astbury and Jos Boys for the Barbican Centre in London, the exhibition is built around an installation of work by the radical 1980s feminist architecture co-operative Matrix, whose four founding members met while students at Newcastle University. Featuring rare films, drawings, photos, architectural models, as well as posters, practice documents and press clippings, the installation explores Matrix’s approaches to design that aimed to empower groups often excluded in the design of buildings, including Black and Asian women’s organisations, community and childcare groups and lesbian and gay housing co-operatives, to explore more inclusive ways of designing, building and occupying spaces.

In the exhibition's restaging at Newcastle Contemporary Art, the Matrix installation becomes a jumping off point for a display of contemporary projects from the North East of England, which engage with the spatial implications of questions around gender, accessibility, equality and discrimination.

Developed in a range of different forums – research, arts, architecture and community activism – the projects are united by a desire to analyse the causes of discrimination in the built environment and effect change. Featured projects include Running as Feminist Activism – Sarah Ackland; Embodied Knowledge of the City – Natalie Bamford; Listen with Mother? – Louise Mackenzie, Kaajal Modi and Ruth Morrow; Women, Children and Play on Streets – Alison Stenning and Sally Watson; Is There a Right Time? Through The Eyes of Young Fathers – Michael J Richardson and Albert Potrony; Undutiful Spirit – Rossanna Morris, Harriet Sutcliffe and Gayle Miekle; Dwellbeing – Julia Heslop; and Fenham Pocket Park Project – Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo.