Here is a Gale Warning: Art, Crisis & Survival (March 22 – June 29, 2025) at the University of Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard gallery brings together eight artists - Pia Arke, Justin Caguiat, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Candace Hill-Montgomery, Tomashi Jackson, Tarek Lakhrissi, Cecilia Vicuña and Anne Tallentire, who each explore ‘crisis’ in our everyday lives. The exhibition is titled after Finn-Kelcey’s video documentation of the unfurling of a flag over Alexandra Palace in North London with the message ‘HERE IS A GALE WARNING’. By allowing her work to be controlled by the wind, Finn-Kelcey relinquishes absolute artistic power and embraces the forces of nature.

As the audience moves through the exhibition, this emphasis on materials and forces becomes even clearer. Tallentire’s Look Over 4 (2025), traces the floor plans of an apartment in Manor Place, a 10-minute walk from the gallery, built as part of Cambridge’s 1976-77 King Street Redevelopment to provide affordable housing in a city now notorious for its inaccessible housing market.

In another room, the lingering smell of Justin Caguiat’s oil paints further enhances the immersive experience. More than just occupying the gallery’s white walls, Here is a Gale Warning, reminds us of contemporary art’s ability to preserve history and memory while helping us navigate the crises of our times. In an interview with STIR, Amy Tobin, curator and Associate Professor in Modern and Contemporary Art at Cambridge University, gestures to climate change as the exhibition’s unifying theme. In contending with wildfires, extreme storms, raging wars and precarious ceasefires, the show invites us to “feel together”, addressing notions of anxiety and fear while deepening broader societal connections. Through art, Tobin reminds us that while we are responsible for our actions, we are part of complex historical structures. Excerpts from a conversation with her below.

Rhea Mathur: What was the starting point of this exhibition – were you looking to create an exhibition around climate change?

Amy Tobin: When I went to Candace Hill-Montgomery’s studio, I saw the weaves she has been working on since 2013 and I thought they were unusual in the way they process things in the world. She places high-quality weaves on hangers made from found objects – often things that have washed up in the extreme weather that has [lately] hit Long Island. But some [objects] had also been found by her father, who grew up on an old plantation farm and gathered objects related to histories of enslavement. I was struck by how these works speak to history but also landscape and ecology and how these different ideas of landscape are under pressure. I suppose it all started with her.

I am also generally interested in group shows. Mirroring Kettle's Yard house and the many different themes of artworks it hosts, I think it is good to shift focus away from individual artists and towards understanding them in relation to each other and within a longer historical framework.

Rhea: What is a key theme that is important to you in this exhibition that you hope the audience can recognise?

Amy: There is an opportunity here for a very different show that offers advice or a way to resolve things or plans a utopia and requires a true intervention into the climate crisis. However, instead of trying to brainstorm ways to escape our mess, I want us to acknowledge that we are in this moment and live among these crises.

It is also important to recognise that this situation is not the sole responsibility of our generation or future generations. These artists and practices remind us that many generations are culpable for this. While we can all act individually, only structural change can truly make a difference. [Walter] Benjamin writes that “there is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism”. We have to remember the struggles that have gone into getting here and keep pushing forward to create meaningful change.

Rhea: Was there a conscious effort to start with a space of familiarity and ease in a conversation about our environment?

Amy: Familiarity is a really nice way of putting it. I wanted the materials to be easy to approach. I didn’t want contemporary art to feel alienating or strange, so I picked works where you could immediately grasp onto something, like the shoelaces in Candace’s work, before you understand what the work might be alluding to.

They all exist together in this space. We all exist together in the world and we have to find ways to bridge the distance.

Rhea: Given the information overload surrounding environmental and climate issues, how does this exhibition engage audiences who may be experiencing mental fatigue or saturation on these subjects?

Amy: To combat this fatigue, I included works with a sense of liberation whose beauty can just be enjoyed.

For example - Tarek Lakhrissi’s Unfinished Sentence (2019), made from 10 suspended metal spears and a soundscape from the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess (1995) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). The work creates an elegant yet contemplative atmosphere, with the beautifully designed spears hanging from chains, the clanging of metals in the background symbolising a battle. Even if you don’t know or understand everything, the work evokes emotion and feeling.

Rhea: How does the exhibition converse with Jim and Helen Ede’s house, a space adjacent to the gallery?

Amy:  Jim and Helen really believed that their contemporary art – what we now think of as modern art – was for everyone. This ethos really inspires me and I always try to think like them. Our exhibitions are designed to bring people together and while contemporary art isn’t always seen as such, we are looking to transform these exhibition rooms into inviting spaces for vibrant discussions and gathering, and hopefully, that is what these eight artists [coming] together also achieve.