Grand Union is delighted to present ‘Groundings’, a new commission by artist Shenece Oretha. Supported by an intergenerational network of gardeners, the exhibition will seek to repair our severed relationship with the land by melding ancestral, embodied and collective methods of stewardship.
The exhibition’s central installation will take the form of a gallery garden, featuring a series of sonic sculptures animated by the materials and knowledge systems emerging from Birmingham’s post-industrial growing sites. A rhythmic sound composition will emanate from three floating pieces of ‘ground’, comprising rusted steel plates that support and rattle spent plant material salvaged from allotments and local growing sites. Throughout the exhibition, audience members are encouraged to walk around the reverberating garden, picking up portable oil drums, upon which they can sit and gather together.
Drawing from Caribbean methodologies that transform tools of industry and warfare into sonic instruments, the suspended grounding plates will resonate a defiant expression from the earth itself. Dried upright bamboo, thick entangled clusters of grasses, fragmented seedheads, soil and seeds will vibrate together as a percussive band that amplifies a celebratory chorus of human and non-human rhythms.
Exhibition Launch: Friday, 6 November 2026, 5–8pm
For more information about the night and to see what else is happening in Digbeth, please visit the Digbeth First Friday website here: https://digbethfirstfriday.com/
Exhibition Continues: 7 November 2026 – 6 March 2027, Wednesday, 2–5pm, and Thursday to Saturday, 12–5pm.
Please note that the exhibition will be closed for Winter break between Saturday, 19 December 2026 – Wednesday, 13 January 2027.