Commission: Looking Forwards to the Past: Winchester Discovery Centre
In 2007, Hampshire County Council commissioned Alice Kettle to create a major public artwork for the soon-to-open Winchester Discovery Centre. To realise the project, Kettle transformed the Guildhall Gallery in Winchester into a working studio for seven months. Throughout this residency, more than 7,000 visitors observed the piece as it evolved, offering a rare insight into the process behind a work of this scale and complexity.
Looking Forwards to the Past (2007) emerged as an immense, multi-layered composition, rich in surface texture and suffused with colour and light. It is a narrative work which shows the scattered imagery of a historical city and its attitude to the present and vision of the future. Measuring 16.5 metres in length and 3 metres in height, it stands among the largest embroidered works ever undertaken by a single artist.