Rural Walsall

Using painting, prints and drawings from the gallery’s collections, Rural Walsall aims to challenge the popular perception of the Borough as an industrial area with a long history of factories and pollution. The show comtemplates the destruction of Walsall’s medieval oak forests and questions the nature of ‘rural tranquillity’ through twentieth century artists’ visions of the bustling canal networks. In addition to historic material the exhibition featured maps, photographs and multimedia works. Artists Jo Roberts and Roger Westwood were commissioned to make new work responding to the historical pictures and Walsall’s changing scenery.