New Order

New Order (2015 - ongoing) is a collection of artworks including prints, projections, installations, flags, banners, wall vinyls, and performance interventions.

These works evolved from a 2015 artist residency in Rio de Janeiro, held just before the collapse of the Brazilian Government following a series of political and corporate corruption scandals. Longhurst worked with the rhythmic gymnasts of the Vila Olímpica da Mangueira - a social project in a Rio favela - exploring the cultural influence of samba on their performance, and the broader politics of their situation. Together they developed a new body-scanning technique to visualize movement, resulting in an archive of images of the body in motion.

Work made specially for exhibitions in Belfast, Glasgow and Perth draw on this archive. New Order (Brazil) - small abstract prints direct to aluminium - are made for Belfast Titanic. Momentum (toward a fiscal crisis), a proposal for a series of framed prints is adapted for the Kelvin Hall flagpoles, revealing the abstract dynamics of a body in motion. Other body scans are transformed into banners, wall vinyls, and cangas - Momentum (melting point) - for the exhibition New Order I Other Spaces, and for the opening event performance interventions What is to be done? in Glasgow and Perth.

New Order has been made possible through the generous support of Arts Council England; British Council; Centro de Memória do Esporte [CEME], Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre; Festival 2018, Glasgow, for the inaugural European Sports Championships; Scottish Gymnastics.; and Vila Olímpica da Mangueira, Rio de Janeiro.