London: 'The Weight of Being: Vulnerability, Resilience and Mental Health in Art'

In London currently, 20th - 23rd I was on my way to Bankside Gallery and walking by Temple Place, #2 to be precise, on a board outside I read:

'The Weight of Being: Vulnerability, Resilience and Mental Health in Art'

Taking in the mental health and illness of artists, gender, domesticity, industrial and political struggle, COVID, and Gaza I spent and enjoyed a two hour detour. The building is also amazing. The exhibition is on until 19 April 2026, closed on Monday's and today 21st February. Before I share some text from their website, the interior of the building was a 'virtual' experience, but without the technology. Helpfully, the exhibition is spread across several rooms.

'Curated by Angela Thomas, this new exhibition explores artistic expression and mental health. Through depictions of deeply personal and collective experiences, it examines the powerful ways in which artists capture vulnerability, resilience, and their search for solace.

Including the work of a diverse range of twentieth century and contemporary artists and their varying perspectives, The Weight of Being showcases how artists have captured the psychological and emotional impact of societal pressures, resilience in the face of adversity, and existential uncertainty.

Alongside dozens of artworks drawn from galleries and collections across the UK, the portraits, landscapes, and figurative studies of the lesser-known artist John Wilson McCracken (1936–1982) are woven throughout. Denied the opportunity to return to the Slade School of Art following a period of hospitalisation for mental health reasons, McCracken spent much of his career in Hartlepool, producing work that reflects a profound sensitivity to the emotional and social pressures of his time. Shaped by personal and collective struggles, his art offers a deeply human perspective on the exhibition’s themes, revealing how external forces imprint themselves on the mind, body, and creative spirit.' Continued . . .

The building as a whole - Two Temple Place is owned and run by a registered charity, the Bulldog Trust. 

I will definitely (hopefully!) visit again, on the way or returning from the South Bank of the Thames. The video below presents key aspects of the building's amazing interior and history:

Yuki Kihara: Darwin in Paradise Camp - The Whitworth, Manchester

3 October 2025 – 1 March 2026

'A visually stunning exhibition centring Indigenous, queer worlds by Japanese-Sāmoan artist Yuki Kihara.

The Whitworth is proud to present Yuki Kihara’s acclaimed installation Paradise Camp (2022), first presented at the Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion in the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, and a new video work, Darwin Drag (2025).

Kihara delves into art histories and archives to unpick the effects of colonialism on the peoples and ecologies of the Pacific. Her visually compelling projects centre and empower the Fa’afafine and Fa’atama in Sāmoa, traditional yet marginalised third gender communities to which the artist belongs. In this exhibition, Kihara focuses on two celebrated Western figures – French modernist artist Paul Gauguin and evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) – who each shaped Western understandings of the Pacific.

Paradise Camp responds to famous paintings of Tahiti and its people by French modernist artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Through archival research, Kihara links Gauguin’s paintings to colonial photographs taken in Sāmoa. Described by Kihara as an act of 'upcycling', she recreates Gauguin’s compositions in a series of 12 resplendent high definition photographs, shot on location in Upolu Island. Collaborating with Fa’afafine models and production crew, Kihara repurposes these cultural artefacts to speak to, and from, queer Indigenous worlds in a profound gesture of reclamation.'

My source:

Josh Lustig. Yuki Kihara, Gallery, FT Magazine, November 22, 2025, #1152. pp.12-13.