Leading contemporary artist David Panos to open new work in Northampton

A new audio-visual installation, Gothic Revival by Jarman Award-winning artist, David Panos,will open at NN Contemporary Art's temporary project space at Unit 9, Vulcan Works, Fetter Street, Northampton, on 23rd November. Free to view, the work will be on show from Wed-Sat each week, from 11am-5pm, until 20th January 2024.

Part film, part musical score, Gothic Revival is a poetic exploration of place; a cinematic tapestry that interweaves digitally manipulated footage with film, sound recordings and fragments of video collected in Northampton.

Exploring the connections between Northampton’s Gothic Revival architecture and the legacy of its post-punk music scene, which birthed the band Bauhaus, the award-winning contemporary artist explores the descendants of such an ‘alternative scene’, documenting local band Raven Rust, whose rehearsal of Bauhaus’ most famous track, Bela Lugosi's Dead, recurs across the piece. The film raises questions about the preservation of cultural traditions, the decline of communal spaces, the clash between progressive and conservative values, and different attempts to create spaces that do not conform to market-driven rationality.

Commissioned in the run-up to the opening of 24 Guildhall Road, Northampton’s major new capital project – a five-storey cultural hub with multimedia galleries, artist studios and a civic reading room, – Gothic Revival will be presented as the final installment in Sensing Place, the gallery’s year-long contemporary art programme that explores connections between individuals and the environments that we share.

Find out more about the work on NN Contemporary Art's website.