Debra Welch: All Things Are Yours

1 May-31 May 2019

Overview

Chelsea Space is pleased to present a solo show by artist Debra Welch. This exhibition focuses on the closure of her old school in Portsmouth, King Richard School, previously Paulsgrove Secondary Modern Boys & Girls School. Situated on a large post-war council estate in Paulsgrove, Portsmouth, it served families who lived there for over 60 years, becoming a central pillar to the local community. Welch sensed a melancholy around this closure and in 2016 began a process of communicating with the school, the community and the local authorities, recording a collective memory. This evolving research culminated in the artist documenting the building in its last days before demolition in 2018. ‘All Things Are Yours’ (a motto taken from one of the school's emblems) brings together new video, sculptural and photographic works made over the duration of this project, while Welch spent time between London and Portsmouth.