{"id":11470,"date":"2026-11-03T22:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T22:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/?p=11470"},"modified":"2026-11-03T22:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T22:33:11","slug":"exhibition-review-vibration-calibration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/?p=11470","title":{"rendered":"Exhibition Review – Vibration Calibration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few weeks ago I saw some posts online about an exhibition that would be happening soon which features a collaboration between two people I know that work in the University. Tom Hicks is a librarian and also known as Black Country Type on instagram where he photographs images of buildings and scenery in and around the Black Country, whilst his friend and collaborator Claire Buckerfield also works at the uni but uses photographs for inspiration for drawings made of tape. Industrial tape, insulation tape, washi tape and all manner of other sticky backed plastic that creates a representation of the buildings she has seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition was to be in the New Art Gallery Walsall and it was called Vibration Calibration. Tom actually had asked me if I might take some photographs or video of the show and the gallery from outside the building using my drone. The day came for the show’s private view so I drove over to Walsall and parked in the car park of the retail park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrying my DJI Mini 4 Pro over to the benches near the canal which sits alongside the gallery. I checked the Drone Map to ensure that there were no restrictions to flying in the area.There weren’t so I launched the aircraft and sent it up high to capture a few images of the whole building and then had a look at some windows and their surroundings. I thought that I might be able to see some of the exhibition through a window but I was unable to see anything that looked like an exhibition of Tom and Claires work. I changed sides and went around the different faces of the building but most of the windows seemed to be blocked with wooden panels or blinds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As I went back to the last side I spotted that there was someone in the window and he had noticed my drone so had begun posing in the window and dancing around. It was obviously Tom and I could make this our on the small screen of the controller so I took a couple of still photographs of him but didn’t capture any video. As I was cruising around the rest of the windows I also noticed that there was someone else in a corner room which was a studio. The person in the window was making a cup of coffee and at one point I think took her phone out to take a picture of the drone. It was Laura, also a lecturer at the university who is currently on a residency at the gallery. Overall it was difficult seeing anything through the windows as the bright sunshine was causing the whole of the town to be highly visible and reflect in the glass. I figured that it might be easier in the darkness when the light inside would help counteract the reflections of the lights in the town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Catching A Bus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After emptying a battery here I packed up my drone and went over to the Walsall Bus Station which I have made photographs of in the past but from underneath the canopy. The roof is an oval shape painted white with red highlights and a series of holes through the roof to allow light in to the apron where the buses move around below. There were some nice vistas here showing people waiting for buses or walking along through the ovoid aperture to get to the bus or their next destination. The roof was full of odd bits of material and I noticed that underneath all of the chippings and stone that was sprinkled around there were some tiles or what appeared to be the original roofing material. There were electrical boxes, designed to be watertight but left open exposing the contents of the connections therein and barrels of liquid that appeared to be used as some sort of ballast to prevent a part of the roof from lifting in the event of a strong wind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I did a few short videos and photographs here before the battery was down to about 25% and figured that I’d make my way back to the art gallery to prepare for the show. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Karaoke Woes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once in the area though I noticed that the doors were shut tight and it wasn’t yet dark enough to put up the drone to capture some views in through the windows. I then subjected myself to some of the worst singing I’ve ever heard in my life, not forgetting I’ve heard myself sing in the shower. Stepping into The Met bar I confirmed that it was a karaoke evening, walked to the bar as far away from the speakers as possible and ordered a Guinness 0.0, taking it outside next to the canal to drink. There were some people wandering past shouting at their kids to keep away from the canal or perhaps threatening to throw their offspring into the green algae covered water. After a while I noticed that there was a cafe or something opposite called Retro Realm and it looked like an arcade in the style of the places I’ve previously been in Bury and also Milton Keynes. Still with some time left I headed over to check it out and the staff gave me a tour around the boiling hot spaces downstairs showing me all of the old cabinets containing classics such as 1942, Tekken and countless other fighting games, also a big row of driving games and even a full simulator style Afterburner game. I might pop back here at some point in the future, possibly when I’m not wearing a lovely warm jacket and have a go at this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the time got closer still probably about 5:45pm I headed towards the doors and there were a couple of other people waiting. A short while later and there were more eager patrons waiting to head in before the doors opened bang on 6pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Into the ground floor with everyone and the staff at the gallery helped everyone get into the lifts to the 4th floor where the Vibration Calibration show was accepting visitors. I had a quick look at the merch for sale in the gallery shop before heading to the lifts and upon alighting at the 4th floor I met Tom and Claire then proceeded to enter the gallery via the lurid Fuchsia Pink entrance.. There was a cool shop sign with the logo on it, illuminated and hanging on the front. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Heading into the entrance way there was an introductory sign with the notes on the exhibition and on the opposite side of the gangway was a mesh cover with what appears to be a power supply of some sort within it, covered in LEDs throwing shadows onto the surrounding wall. It was designed to look like a box on the wall that you might see on the back of a shop or car park that contained important electronics to manage the environmental HVAC components or something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From here it was heading towards a huge logo taped onto the very garish green painted wall and then into the gallery proper. In the windows opposite a large red metal screen painted in a shocking scarlet colour with the pattern seemingly laser cut to represent the old concrete blocks that would make up walls around gardens of properties over three decades ago. These breeze block type bricks were fashioned with a cross in the centre and this joined to the the outer edge by four middle joining pieces. It was a staple of the areas where I grew up in Shrewsbury, almost a stylistic way to make a wall that allowed light through but acted as some sort of physical barrier. After a couple of years though they always tended to become brittle and were very easily damaged with another brick or even a broken bike frame. I never did this, as I was too scared to get into trouble, but I’d seen many other people partake in such behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The red screen sat in the window opening where there was a bay to sit on like the other windows that had been left free and open. On the right hand wall was a large grid of Tom’s Black Country Type prints, all square and on board that was mounted very close to the wall, with no frames or obviously visible method of fixing. Possibly a velcro affair like Command Strips or something like that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To the side of this there were four of Hicks’ prints each framed in a vacuum formed frame made of white thermoplastic. The method to make these frames were taught to us in secondary school and whilst we were not very successful at the time, I’ve learnt more about the technique since from Adam Savage on his YouTube channel. Here though, the frames that had pulled around a buck using the vacuum method had not been cut free of it’s surrounding “waste”. Normally a model formed would be trimmed to remove the excess material but Tom has left it all on there as a visible clue to the industrial processes still in use today and I think it really works well. The larger surrounding piece of plastic is a reminder of the history of the places that appear in the photos mounted within them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But this wasn’t just a BCT exhibition, it was also to show Claire Buckerfield’s work which uses industrial tapes to create illustrations of buildings and scenes that she has seen in the black country. In this exhibition though, Buckerfield has created a similar work on a cutout piece of acrylic or perspex. It is covered in tape with the edges finished in a neon colour also. The colours that she employs are not for the faint hearted, bright and loud hues emanate from the wall holding the shelves that display the cutout buildings against the white painted wall. It is a huge body of work and would no doubt have taken some enormous effort to complete, the guide in the gallery also had an example of one that could be touched and held to see the weight of it and feel the texture of the tapes affixed to the material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Each of the separate works were placed on the shelves leaning against the wall, overlapping in many cases that gave me the perception of looking across the rooftops of an industrial estate or part of a city with many varied buildings from the old sawtooth roofed factories to the modern office block with a huge triangular point to distract from the fact it is a boring box with a flat roof. The colours of the work are what appears in the entrance halls, the merch, the exhibition catalogue and even the collaborations. While Hick’s works are full of exuberant colours, there is a muted tone to them as if they’ve faded over the last five decades that they have been up and used. It’s a different feeling looking at these colours, Hick’s seem more nostalgic and sadder whilst Buckerfield’s present a more optimistic approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the left wall past Buckerfield’s shelves of goodness is a collaboration space, three large works consisting of a mixture of resources. Two of them are prints containing elements of different pictures made by Hicks, fashioned into a digital collage by Buckerfield and then some of her tape applied to one of the edges that appear in the image. Once these are printed and fixed to the wall, they were covered by a powder coated steel mesh grill that prevents access to see the work in one attempt, and also casts a shadow of a cage onto the image behind it. It’s as if the work is being denied attention from the viewer and maybe representing the inaccessibility of the environment being explored. It’s another interesting link to the industrial heritage being portrayed too with the steel frames being tricky to make and then to be finished so well with the paint speaks of a lot of attention to detail and a hint of the skills still in the manufacturing industry in the Black Country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The third work on this wall is another steel mesh frame but this time instead of being one solid front it is split into open gates with an unlocked clasp allowing the viewer to investigate the item. The item in question is a large piece of acrylic with an illustration of a building’s (the art gallery) internal services and layout. Coloured lines route across the items like a mad visio document that joins up the HVAC, power, Lifts and all manner of other electrics. There is a representation of a toilet block in there too, and even the exhibitions logo. At the bottom of the Vibration Calibration Initialisation Substation are some push buttons and a key switch, the switch looks to be turnable to BCT or CB as if to show only the parts of the work that the corresponding artist was involved with. The buttons didn’t work and the LEDs on the Status panel in the top left remained unchanged. I’m not sure if we were supposed to touch the buttons but I saw multiple people doing so, as did I. It’s an open invitation and one that is difficult to walk past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that this control panel is open and accessible, where usually these types of panels are behind locked doors, is almost too good to be true. It is also weird that this is accessible whilst the prints are not, it feels counterintuitive and reversed from the norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Diversion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At some point I bumped into Steve Marland and his mate Rob who had been out in Wolves and Walsall earlier taking photographs of modernist architecture amongst other things. I’ve bumped into Steve once before but missed out on his walk and talk around the Shirehall in Shrewsbury back a couple of years ago. It was a nice chat and then we went our different ways once again, hopefully I’ll see him if he does a photowalk again in the nearby area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As it had gone dark now I headed outside with my drone and launched it at the side where I’d seen Tom before, I also knew now that the exhibition was only on the 4th floor so could concentrate my flying and photographing to this area. There were some nice views into the windows that also had the red screen in, at the people all milling around and talking about the works of art in the gallery so I made a few photographs and then a couple of short videos of flying across the face of the building and then flying outwards from the building to show the gallery in its surroundings. There was also a view the other side where you could see the pink entrance to the exhibition but this was a particularly dodgy area to film as it was a bit blustery, there were low walls and the patio area had furniture on it that made it easy to crash the drone. I was super careful and I needed to be as the collision detection cameras were alerting me to the fact that it was too dark for them to work effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With a few nice views and pictures I headed back inside and on the way I stopped and picked up a catalogue, I would have also purchased a T-Shirt but for the fact that they only went up to XL and I’m at least a XXL. They looked great with some of Buckerfield’s work printed on the front and rear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole exhibition seemed like a success and it is on until the end February 2027. I liked the industrial nature of the works, harking back to my time on the shopfloor of the factory where I still work. The control panels and metal grilled frames, the vacuum formed plastic frames and the perspex\/acrylic of the works with tape on all fit really nicely together with the Black Country aesthetic. The vibe of the gallery was also cool, with the very bright colours and lighting tying it all together nicely it felt like a suitable venue for the display of these works. Congratulations to Hicks Buckerfield and the New Art Gallery Walsall for a lovely exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve since passed on the videos of the drone flights to Hicks as he has an idea to use it in a video about the exhibition to be published at a later date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To see the work displayed in different methods is interesting and inspiring. The vacuum formed frames were particularly notable and I liked the way it linked the images to the subject matter. The inclusion of other physical props too like the sculpture of the control panel, the wall box and even the lit up sign on the front of the pink entrance. It all knitted the show together along with the bright colours that permeated every room. Tom and Claire’s works were all mounted in unconventional ways, some on shelves, some behind grills and some stuck directly to the wall. I can see the use of metal work being a positive if I was publishing photos of my workplace or the history of the factory but for my childhood revisited project I don’t think that many of these methods would suit it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom said it had taken two years from the beginning to the opening of the show and I can see why, there are some great collaborative works that he and Claire worked on together and even the graphic design of the Catalogue, and the small Guide To Observations that accompanied the exhibition were very well done. I think this work was down to Alfie Hicks, Tom’s son and he was responsible for the design of the book Black Country Type 2 also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the catalogue and small guide were valuable additions and I could see these working well in any exhibitions that I do in the future. I will bear that in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was good to fly the drone around the gallery too, trying to get some experience and also capturing some good photos of the windows on the building. The small videos worked well too and I’ll be pleased to see them used by the videographer who was capturing the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flying around the bus station was also a worthy way to spend a bit of time. The views through the holes on the roof were a pleasing site and I’m glad I was able to interleave this flight in between the two at the gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago I saw some posts online about an exhibition that would be…<\/p>\n

Read more..Exhibition Review – Vibration Calibration<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[864,1256,11,13,2342,1257,1255,693,5,691,1091,8],"tags":[49,1119,921,2688,1118,622,191,621,1117,322,854,351,444,451,2689,1116,476,478,2687,2463,504],"class_list":["post-11470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist","category-artwork","category-colour","category-digital-photography","category-drone","category-gallery","category-painting","category-photographers","category-photography","category-printing","category-review","category-street-photography","tag-art","tag-buckerfield","tag-bus","tag-calibration","tag-claire","tag-exhibition","tag-film","tag-gallery","tag-hicks","tag-new","tag-photographs","tag-photography","tag-station","tag-street","tag-substation","tag-tom","tag-unibob","tag-university","tag-vibration","tag-walsall","tag-wolverhampton","excerpt","zoom","full-without-featured","even","excerpt-0"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11470"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11512,"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11470\/revisions\/11512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobgriffithsphoto.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}