1/4
1/4
Take a Close(r) Look
Take a Close(r) Look
January 30, 2026
Jacky Longstaff: from the series Burden
The showcase marks the start of the gallery’s new “pairing” format, comprising a juxtaposition of two concepts and artistic positions. Photographers Jacky Longstaff and Marcella Müller have known each other since their student days in Derby, UK. Even though Longstaff now lives in Newcastle and Müller in Stuttgart, the artists have frequently gone on joint trips since the 1990s – resulting, amongst others, in the two showcased projects, Burden and Randräume.
In Burden, Jacky Longstaff shines a light on Lynemouth Bay – a stretch of coastline in North East England with a complex history of industry, pollution, and partial remediation. For the past five years, Longstaff has repeatedly photographed this unsettling yet fascinating landscape, where layers of industrial debris, household waste and pollutants are being exposed through continuous erosion. In the early twentieth century, the two local coal mines – the Lynemouth Colliery and nearby Ellington Colliery – used to tip their debris on the shore, thereby extending the coastline with mining refuse and industrial waste. From 2023 to 2025, remedial work took place to restore part of the coast. Burden captures the tension between allure and aversion: the (at times almost eerie) beauty of the depicted scenes never detracts from the reality of the environmental damage.
Marcella Müller’s concept, meanwhile, centres on peripheral areas (“Randräume”) in a variety of regions – including the English coast. Her landscape shots show everyday spaces that have been furnished with, for example, picnic benches, playground equipment, or objets d’art. These manmade environments were created in accordance with regulated ideas of recreation, fun, and functionality. Müller’s images are infused with a calmness that borders on stagnation; and yet, despite this inherent stillness, the power of transience cannot be concealed.
Katrin UllmannIn Burden, Jacky Longstaff shines a light on Lynemouth Bay – a stretch of coastline in North East England with a complex history of industry, pollution, and partial remediation. For the past five years, Longstaff has repeatedly photographed this unsettling yet fascinating landscape, where layers of industrial debris, household waste and pollutants are being exposed through continuous erosion. In the early twentieth century, the two local coal mines – the Lynemouth Colliery and nearby Ellington Colliery – used to tip their debris on the shore, thereby extending the coastline with mining refuse and industrial waste. From 2023 to 2025, remedial work took place to restore part of the coast. Burden captures the tension between allure and aversion: the (at times almost eerie) beauty of the depicted scenes never detracts from the reality of the environmental damage.
Marcella Müller’s concept, meanwhile, centres on peripheral areas (“Randräume”) in a variety of regions – including the English coast. Her landscape shots show everyday spaces that have been furnished with, for example, picnic benches, playground equipment, or objets d’art. These manmade environments were created in accordance with regulated ideas of recreation, fun, and functionality. Müller’s images are infused with a calmness that borders on stagnation; and yet, despite this inherent stillness, the power of transience cannot be concealed.
Jacky Longstaff: from the series Burden
Jacky Longstaff: from the series Burden
Marcella Müller: from the series Randräume
Marcella Müller: from the series Randräume