ACAVA artist Natasha McHugh presents WASTE, a debut solo exhibition at Spode Works Studios, developed during a year-long fellowship with The Portland Inn Project. The work explores sustainability, resistance and material waste through print, textiles and photography.

The exhibition brings together research and making developed over the course of the fellowship, where McHugh worked alongside communities through workshops and local engagement, alongside sustained experimentation in her own practice. Across analogue photography, print and textile processes, different strands of work were allowed to inform and reshape one another over time.

Rather than focusing on fixed outcomes, WASTE considers how materials and ideas shift through use, repetition and reworking. It reflects both individual and collective processes of making, shaped by collaboration, conversation and place.

WASTE sits within ACAVA’s artist studio network, which supports artists to develop their practice through studio provision, peer exchange and public presentation opportunities. Spode Works Studios provides a context where experimentation and community engagement can develop side by side.

WASTE runs 22–24 May 2026 at Spode Works Studios, Stoke-on-Trent.