Still. Stray. Stowaway.

Blenheim Walk Gallery is pleased to present 'Still. Stray. Stowaway.', a solo exhibition by Paula Chambers, curated by Marianna Tsionki. Her sculptural practice interrogates the domestic sphere as a contested site of feminist resistance, material transformation, and personal negotiation. In 'Still. Stray. Stowaway.', Chambers presents a constellation of sculptural assemblages, interventions, and installations that evoke the instability of domestic life and the porous boundaries between public and private spaces.

The exhibition continues her practice-led research into feminist and domestic materialities. Chambers brings together new works alongside previously exhibited pieces developed through her nomadic strategy of transporting artworks in a suitcase. This method allows for site-responsive installations that question the rigidity of institutional frameworks and challenge the notion that art must exist within prescribed, stable environments.

The title 'Still. Stray. Stowaway.' encapsulates the exhibition’s core concerns. To stay still is to remain motionless, to resist erasure, to occupy space with quiet defiance. To stray is to drift beyond imposed boundaries, to reject containment. To stow away is to navigate invisibility, to move illicitly, to claim space through subversive means. These three states reflect the material and conceptual conditions of Chambers’ sculptural practice, which embraces disruption, mobility, and feminist storytelling. Through this exhibition, Chambers deepens her investigation into gendered labour, material displacement, and domestic rebellion, testing new configurations and creating a space where feminist resistance takes physical form.

The sculptural objects in the exhibition occupy space with an air of transience. They appear as though they might wander off, dissipate, or return to their previous states as abandoned domestic objects. Their presence is non-imposing yet insistently there, reflecting Chambers’ own experience of navigating space. These works are made to be disassembled, packed up, and reconstructed, following an ethos of adaptability and minimal use of materials. Their scale and adaptability reinforce a model of making that is ecological, economical, and mobile, allowing for ease of transport and reconfiguration across different contexts.

Chambers’ feral objects refuse domestication. They resist assimilation into ordered, functional spaces and instead exist on the periphery of consumer culture, occupying a liminal space akin to flea markets and other sites of second-hand exchange—places where objects shift between states of value, use, and neglect. These transitional spaces disrupt conventional cycles of consumption and mirror the unruly presence of Chambers’ sculptures, exposing the tenuous line between care and disuse, order and disarray. Working with collected and repurposed materials sourced across Europe, Chambers engages with the aesthetics of wear, transformation, and precarity, evoking the unstable nature of domestic life. Together, these works interrogate the tension between restriction and escape, domesticity and dispossession.

Exhibition preview and performance: 22 May 2025 5:00pm-7:00pm

You are invited to join us for a performance event developed out of ideas around the agency of found and domestic objects. Activated by human facilitators, sculptural works in the exhibition will undertake a choreographed series of gestures and actions which explore the boundary between the animate and the inanimate. The event is co-created with Paula Chambers, Leeds Arts University Fine Art students, Nicola Dale (Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Fine Art, Leeds Arts University), Amelia Crouch (Lecturer, BA (Hons) Fine Art, Leeds Arts University), and Marianna Tsionki (Associate Professor and University Curator, Leeds Arts University).

Location: Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk, Leeds LS2 9AQ

Free entry. Booking not required.

In conversation: 4 June 2025 5:00pm-6:30pm

Location: Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk, Leeds LS2 9AQ

Artist Paula Chambers will be in conversation with art historian Alexandra Kokoli. Together, they will discuss key themes in 'Still. Stray. Stowaway.', including feminist material practices, the politics of domesticity, and the mobility of sculptural form. The conversation will offer insights into Chambers’ working process and the conceptual frameworks that shape her practice.

Booking is essential as places are limited. Click here to book your place.

Performance: 17 September 2025 5:30pm-6:00pm

Location: Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk, Leeds LS2 9AQ

This is the repeat of the performance from the exhibition opening night. Booking not required.