Baltic invites audiences to explore the future with new science fiction-themed exhibitions

Science fiction takes centre stage at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art this summer as the gallery welcomes two new exhibitions from artists inspired by the future, mythology, and the physical environment.

From Saturday 5 July, artist Harold Offeh will transform the ground floor gallery of Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art into a sci-fi playscape, creating collaborative encounters between audiences and artists.

Also opening on Saturday 05 July, London-based Spanish artist Saelia Aparicio will use installation, sculpture and murals to weave together narrative, science fiction and ecological speculation to explore the complex entanglements between bodies, environments and systems of care. The new exhibition at Baltic is the largest commission to date for the multidisciplinary artist.

The following weekend on Saturday 12 July, visitors to Baltic will be able to explore both exhibitions and enjoy the gallery’s annual Art Car Boot Fair, which features 50 stalls of local artists and makers, as well as artist-led workshops and pop-up performances.

Offeh’s exhibition The Mothership Collective 2:0 invites visitors of all ages to imagine potential futures by visiting stations throughout the exhibition, each one drawing on sci-fi, futurisms and utopian thinking. Using sound, text and objects, visitors will be encouraged to explore their creativity and have collaborative encounters that explore what different futures might look like. The project will revisit concepts the artist explored in The Mothership Collective in 2006 which saw Offeh invite fellow artists, dancers and musicians to create work with members of the public inspired by ideas of Afrofuturist mythology in the music and performances of George Clinton and Sun-Ra.

The exhibition at Baltic will be informed by collaboration with communities in the North East and, throughout the exhibition, invited artists will work with members of the public to activate the space from the perspective of their own practices. It will invite and support exploration of future possibilities for play and interaction. Inspired by repurposed and recycled materials, the space will be defined by play areas investigating landscape and habitats, identity through costume, patterns through sound and sensory experience, prophesies and prediction through writing. Visitors will be encouraged to make noise, interact with the exhibition, and explore through play.

Artist, Harold Offeh, said: “I’m excited to be revisiting and reconceiving The Mothership Collective with the Baltic. The project is an invitation to play, make and speculate about future possibilities and desires. We want to make space and the conditions for creativity, curiosity and joy as fundamental to any form of change.”

Aparicio’s exhibition, A Joyful Parasite, sees the artist makes use of found and re-used materials – including glass, steel, wood and human prostheses – even re-using the gallery space’s previous paintwork and hand-writing on the walls to avoid single use vinyl.

The installation features new sculptural works and animated figurines that evolve from the artist’s long-standing interest in the porous boundaries between humans and their environments.

Drawing from science fiction, biology, and bodily memory, A Joyful Parasite questions ideas of cohabitation, adaptation and dependency in a time of ecological urgency. Human and non-human elements forge connections between bodies and ecosystems, while mythology and folklore shape a fictional world, presenting hybrid bodies built upon semantically loaded material where what is human or not blurs. Metamorphosis and rebirth create links between animal, plant and human forms which inhabit the space.

Baltic’s Summer Sizzler on Saturday 12 April, which includes the Art Car Boot Fair, will also feature risograph printing workshops with Foundation Press (booking required); a performance by community pop-up choir, The Good Apple Singers; a zine workshop with artist Sofia Barton; and Baltic’s regular Kittiwake Talks. Local favourite Deep North will also be serving up coffee and artisan doughnuts throughout the day.

Harold Offeh: Mothership Collective 2:0 and Saelia Aparicio: A Joyful Parasite open on Saturday 5 July 2025 and run until 1 February 2026 at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. For more information, visit www.baltic.art

Baltic’s Summer Sizzler takes place on Saturday 12 July from 10:00-18:00. Full details, including specific event timings, can be found at www.baltic.art

Saelia Aparicio: A Joyful Parasite is commissioned by Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, in partnership with Southwark Park Galleries, London, and The Burton at Bideford. A Joyful Parasite is made possible thanks to the support of Foundation Foundation and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E).