Rebecca Chesney: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Curator’s Event | 19 - 27 August | Appointment Only | The Birley, Preston

RSVP: wcbritart@gmail.com

R. Chesney The Last Island 2026. Collage (detail). 200cm x 200cm

The Working Class British Art Network will be hosting a special appointment only curators' event 19 - 27 August with Rebecca Chesney at The Birley, Preston, including an in-conversation with  Beth Hughes, Fri 21 August 2026, 1 - 3pm. The event brings together Rebecca’s recent collages, embroideries and sculpture, imagining a series of possible future landscapes.

Rebecca Chesney is a climate, class and land artist whose current projects include 'I May Never See You' - at Hospitalfield, recent recipient of the International Carlo Scarpa Prize - and Take Some Time/The Folly in the Meadow, a duo exhibition with Lubaina Himid at Ushaw House and Gardens opening in November.  Beth Hughes is Curator and Creative Producer for Lubaina Himid Projects and writes on contemporary art and working-class culture. Her research explores how class is represented within publicly funded art collections in the UK, and she leads the Working Class British Art Network

The Birley will also be open to the public from 27 to 29 August, 11am–4pm, and curators are very welcome to visit on these dates too. 

For those who would like to join us on Fri 21 for the in-conversation, we will travel to Manchester afterwards for the opening of Nothing Gold Can Stay at Texture, from 6–9pm. Featuring work by Damaris Athene, Ruth Murray, Nastassja Simensky and Zoë Wilkinson, the exhibition explores transience, impermanence and the cyclical nature of time.

Rebecca Chesney is represented by AWITA members Cassinelli Mills.