RELAY [02] is the second stage of a group exhibition in two parts, co-curated by hardcopy* and Thomas Griffiths. Staged across two cities that share a common industrial heritage – Sheffield and Middlesbrough – the exhibition brings together a diverse range of concerns, considering how objects and surfaces carry layered histories and reveal the residues of industrial processes, environmental change, and human activity.
hardcopy* is a publishing and curatorial platform established by Nick Kennedy in 2024, that commissions, produces and distributes editions made in collaboration with artists. Each artist included in RELAY is a past, present, or future hardcopy* collaborator.
Brinkmann’s practice deals with the relationship between bodies, objects and space. Working with light, sound, found and fabricated elements, she considers how infrastructures might be reframed or acted upon, shifting our orientation to the environments we inhabit. For RELAY [02], she has responded to the context of the exhibition as a space to intervene in -re-versioning themes and materials from previous pieces to negotiate dynamics of dominance and compliance, openness and negation, stubbornness of purpose and looseness of association – with the final stages of the work being developed directly on site.
Griffith’s work draws on concepts of control, desire and danger, through the use of objects and symbols. Infused with the nuances of working-class culture and queer discourse, they reimagine the narratives of commonplace objects through these lenses. Griffiths’ new sculptural work expands on notions around barriers within the public domain. Objects hidden in plain sight, obstructive and used as a form of control become defunct – illuminated as a spectacle. Recognisable in their unaltered form – inescapable material connotations are cast – but subtle alterations made by Griffiths give these familiar forms an uncanny quality and prompt a shift in conversation and judgement.
Dawson’s practice is influenced by the materials and objects found in public and shared spaces alongside objects that reference collective experiences. Her new stitch works, Just Passing (2022) and Just Passing II (2026), respond to a chance encounter with, and subsequent return to, the site of a roadside memorial. Artificial flowers are bound to a lamppost with cable ties, replaced, bleached, and renewed. Rendered in stitchwork, the work references the traditional craft technique and aesthetics of church kneelers, present in more formal sites of devotion. The work captures the careful maintenance and layered history the found memorial holds, responding with a reciprocal act of care and devotion.
Clarkson’s work explores contemporary office work as a condition that shapes everyday life. Working with sculpture and photography, he draws on his own personal experience of cognitive labour to examine how work structures time, attention and how its logics extend beyond the workplace. Clarkson’s new sculptural work takes the form of an abstracted desktop, discarded and left behind. It’s surface slowly gathers fallen leaves, as if depositedover time. The sculpture considers redundancy as both a material and conceptual condition, holding a moment in which work has ceased but its structure remains. Referencing drought-induced leaf abscission, or “false autumn”, an untimely, stress response rather than a seasonal inevitability; the work draws a parallel with institutions once thought stable, now caught in repeated cycles of restructure. As economic conditions tighten, roles and resources are shed; human labour, like the leaf, becomes expendable, cast off to sustain the system despite being one of its most vital parts.
RELAY [01] was presented at Gloam Gallery, Sheffield, in November 2025 and included work by Tony Charles, Rachel Deakin, Nick Kennedy, and Will Hughes. Limited edition prints and multiples are available through both Platform A and hardcopyshop.com, with new artist editions to be released throughout the exhibition.