Newhaven Open: Emmanuelle Catherine, Cynthia Fan, Gwen Siôn, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck, curated by Clare Patrick
Water ways
Water ways is a group exhibition, gathering installations by Emmanuelle Catherine, Cynthia Fan, Gwen Siôn, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck – four artists whose transnational practices span the UK, France and further. Responding to the site, the works will shift, grow and fade across the month, mirroring the evolving rhythms of Newhaven’s coastal industries and the English Channel. Navigating land and water, Water ways speculates on transitory conditions through temporal installations, exploring themes of migration, ecological rooting and shifting balances of power.
Investigating the material potential of plant forms, Cynthia Fan’s delicate glass sculptures act as both vessel and armature, reflecting processes of botanical hybridisation and collection histories. Through poetry and vertical Creole garden installations, Emmanuelle Catherine explores ephemerality as an attentive form of adaptability and care. Tracing watery routes and sonic histories, Gwen Siôn’s audio-visual work makes visible the process of witnessing tidal narratives that resonate across dispersed coastal communities. Linking oral storytelling through disappearing dialects and growing practices, Johanna Tagada-Hoffbeck’s book project and documentary honours linguistic heritage, ties to land and rituals of healing.
Through expansive practices of (re)rooting, the exhibition invites a contemplation of journeying experienced along and through the water ways of plant structures, agricultural teachings, and personal histories. Here, photography functions as an interstitial space, for reconsidering surfaces mapped and remembered. Rather than imposing a fixed sense of collectivity, Water ways offers confluences to find ways to gather on shared ground.
Curated by Clare Patrick, a curator, writer and educator based between France and the UK, the exhibition creates a space for dialogue between artists working across different geographical and cultural contexts. Together, their practices consider how environments hold memory and knowledge, while asking how we might understand, inhabit and reimagine places shaped by movement, histories and changing ecologies.
Artists
Emmanuelle Catherine
Emmanuelle Catherine is a Caribbean floral artist and researcher based between Paris and Amsterdam. Originally from Martinique, her work is influenced by the island’s landscapes, material cultures and postcolonial ecologies. Her research into the Creole garden considers living sites of resistance, knowledge and transmission, while engaging with the chlordecone contamination in Martinique. Through floral arrangements, photography and installation, Catherine works with plants as carriers and witnesses. She is currently developing this research through the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam.
Cynthia Fan
Cynthia Fan is a London-based South African artist, working between plant research and floristry, treating arrangements as sculptural studies in line, balance and negative space. Her work weaves together scientific inquiry and visual expression, considering networks of interaction between plants, human beings and their environments. She has presented work internationally – both solo and through the collective PEAR_ED and has curated at Ensō House in London. She has presented at the London Design Festival, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Moly-Sabata.
Gwen Siôn
Gwen Siôn is a Welsh multidisciplinary artist working with sound, DIY electronics, moving image and installation. Exploring relationships between sound and environment, mythology and ritual, Gwen uses non-traditional composition as a means of mapping the cultural, ecological and socio-political significance of space. Gwen has worked throughout the UK and internationally, gaining support from Arts Councils Wales and England, PRS Foundation, Opera North, Sound UK, Ty Cerdd, StokkoyArt Norway, University of the Arts London, BBC, Netflix, Leland Music, LMVH, and Liquid Listening.
Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck
Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck is a Strasbourg-born, Oxfordshire-based transdisciplinary artist. With semi-autobiographical work, she interacts with the environment and others plays a central role, reflecting on the fragility and beauty of life. She has published extensively with InOtherWords Imprint Publishers, Chose Commune, Nieves, Jane & Jeremy, Hato Press, and Pon Ding. Her work has been exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery, Kate MacGarry, Camden Art Centre, Nidi Gallery. She is a 2024 Portrait of Britain award winner and presented at major institutions, including Tate Modern and Design Museum.
Clare Patrick
Clare Patrick is a curator, writer, and educator researching transdisciplinary and migratory practices through environmental histories. She is a 2026 FLUXUS Art Projects Curatorial Awardee, the 2025 Marie-Solanges Apollon AWARE researcher, supported by BAN x Tate and Paul Mellon Centre. Her exhibitions have taken place across South Africa, the UK, France, Ireland, the US, including with The Architectural Institute Paris & RIBA 2025/26 series, The Yale Art Gallery, and The Listening Biennale, Berlin. Her work has featured in ArtForum, Contemporary & and British Journal of Photography.
Venue
BN9 Marine Workshops, Newhaven
BN9 Marine Workshops,Railway Approach,
Newhaven,
BN9 0ER
Opening times
Please note: opening times vary on certain dates. See exceptions below.
Friday 2 October 2026 Saturday 31 October 2026
| Monday | Closed |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | |
| Friday | |
| Saturday | |
| Sunday |
Exceptions to opening times
Private View Thu 8 Oct, 6–8pm
