Visual Arts

Botany Bay, a new exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery by international artist Roger Palmer explores themes of colonialism, migration and maritime trade and connects Leeds with other points around the globe. 

Ranging from traditional chemical photography, to digital moving images and incorporating a sculpture in neon, all the work is exhibited here in Leeds for the first time, and is one of two inaugural shows that mark the re-opening of the gallery after lengthy refurbishment.

In one gallery two works connect places through naming. A large-scale neon wall sculpture, 'The Remains', recalls a link between the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and the site of the first colonial settlement in Australia, Botany Bay, which as well as a penal settlement became the local name for this part of the canal as it was the point where the first imports of Australian wool arrived in the Leeds for nearby mills. Historical events also contribute to 'Königsberg', in which photographs made in Tanzania and Russia are connected through a single word. 

Roger Palmer: 'Black River'

Nine black and white photographs taken in Colombia, Egypt, Jamaica, Namibia, Panama, Scotland and the United States represent, on their detailed sliver gelatine printed surfaces, an unremarkable moment through which the viewer is invited to unravel and navigate topographic, climatic and cultural information.

A picture made close to the Suez Canal hangs close to a screen on which two images made on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal dissolve into each other and a painting of the canal in 1893 - John Atkinson Grimshaw's 'Knostrup Cut, Leeds, Sunday Night'.

In a separate gallery 'Caledonia', a DVD projection of still photographs with accompanying soundtrack, recalls a 17th century attempt to establish a Scottish colony between Atlantic and Pacific oceans in present-day Panama. Over two years from 2004, Palmer journeyed between Scotland and the Caribbean, photographing the erosion of the word Caledonia by the sea after writing it on beaches in Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica, Panama, Scotland and USA with herbs and spices he'd carried with him.

A newly-published limited edition artist’s book ‘K’ accompanies the exhibition. Roger Palmer is Professor of Fine Art at the University of Leeds. Further information about the exhibition is available at the artist's website:

'Botany Bay' is currently open to the general public and continues until Sunday 12 August 2007 at Leeds Art Gallery on The Headrow.