I travelled to The Bowes Museum to interview artist Pippa Hale, and after my long drive down was delighted to be able to take off my shoes, leap and pratfall about and let off a bit of steam inside a soft-play reimagining of pet figurines from Joséphine and John Bowes’ prolific collection of paintings, ceramics, textiles and other objet d’art. Hale and I sat in our socks for a relaxing chat about this super engaging, squishy exhibition.
Lesley Guy: It’s really nice in here!
Pippa Hale: It’s a bit of a different vibe from what you’d normally expect here at the Bowes Museum.
LG: We should probably describe our setting before we proceed.
PH: So, we’re in the temporary exhibition space up on the first floor, up the very grand staircase, through some of the collections and then into this riot of colour. The space is all painted bright pink and green, and as you walk in, the first thing you’ll probably notice is these giant beanbags, twelve giant cats and twelve giant dogs that are based on objects from the museum’s collection. I’ve picked two ‘hero’ objects: there’s Cat (c1825) and Dog (1768), made in different ways for different audiences. Dog is made of Berlin porcelain. It’s probably been fired three times, it’s been hand painted, it’s a high-status dog – a King Charles Spaniel, it’s sitting on a nice stripy cushion with gold tassels and was very much intended for the wealthy elites. Cat, on the other hand, was made in a Staffordshire factory, so was mass produced, probably painted by children and women. It is a low status object, destined for markets and fairs. I chose these two because they are so different and provide access points to different histories.
LG: These hard, shiny objects have been transformed into warm friendly schmoos!
PH: Yes, it’s an interactive exhibition in three parts, trying to engage people with a hands-on experience. The beanbags are really big; you have to physically engage with them. You can lie on them, climb on them, jump on them. There are other activities as well – round the corner, we’ve had little Cat and Dog replicated: they were 3D scanned by Durham University, and we’ve had some moulds made and they’ve been slip-cast in a pottery in Stoke on Trent. So, people will be able to come and paint them in a series of workshops. The idea is to paint your own pet in the style of Cat or Dog. And then, for context, there’s a small exhibition of objects from the collection of pet figurines, and shown alongside those are some loaned by local people – so, breaking down the barriers between what is seen as legitimate and relevant and asking important questions like, ‘What is culture in the twenty-first century?’
LG: It’s really interesting this relationship between the museum and local people. Audiences have probably changed a lot since those early days when John and Joséphine Bowes opened the museum to share their collection…
PH: Well, I’ve dragged my kids around galleries and museums all their lives, bless them, and they’re kind of quite passive experiences, and you end up spending more time on the creative family activity bit. A lot of my practice is around history and how you connect people and places and make it relevant. History is really important because it tells us all about who we are, where we came from and why things are the way they are – but how do you make that interesting, even fun and exciting for children and young people? Or even for adults? So that’s where this idea came from of taking something very small, old and untouchable, and probably quite expensive, and tipping that on its head and making it massive, soft and playable.
LG: I think it is a very generous project, for those reasons. You’ve invited people in and made their relationships with their domestic objects, knickknacks, or with their pets, important. But then it’s also super generous to invite us to leap around and hug the artworks, allowing visitors the outlet of a physical experience, because it’s all very hands-off in museums usually…
PH: It is, and museums are having to reevaluate how they engage people, so there’s a shift isn’t there, from conservation and the preservation and presentation of objects, which is really important, to the stories we tell about those objects. Think about the backdrop we live in now, with social media, online gaming and the rise of AI. Those sorts of things are supposed to bring us together, but actually what we need as human beings is that physical social interaction in the same space, and those opportunities seem to be falling off the edge of a cliff! There’s a reason there’s an epidemic of anxiety and depression amongst children and young people, it’s because they’re not getting those connections. So I think museums have a really important role to play in reconnecting people with each other.
LG: Do you think in some way this could be a healing exhibition?
PH: Yeah – I think one of the reasons we have pets is that they are a calming influence on our lives. And we sometimes substitute pets with soft toys. There was a stat out there the other week about a shocking number of adults who sleep with their soft toys – this idea of having something that provides comfort and companionship. So we were thinking about other ways to animate the exhibition; maybe we’ll do story time on the bean bags, or let’s give them all names, all these crazy creatures, build relationships with them, have them in a circle for a tea party…
LG: You could have a sleepover.
PH: Oh! That would be amazing. It would be really comfy.
LG: These ones you’ve painted already look gorgeous. Are there going to be workshops where people can paint on these giant vinyl sculptures? I’m imagining acrylic paints with big brushes…
PH: Yeah, they’ll take them downstairs into the Create space. It’s a lovely bright space that really shows the direction the museum wants to go in.
LG: Can you imagine doing this project somewhere else?
PH: Hmm, possibly. But what I like is going into new places and somehow getting under the skin; so, working with collections or archives, talking to local people, talking to the staff who work there and then making something specifically. I don’t tend to repeat things; I like to make new things.
LG: You have a diverse practice but play seems to be a recurrent theme.
PH: Yes, since having kids our experiences as a family were diametrically opposed – on the one hand we’d be taking them to soft play areas and play grounds, which contain this sort of static, nailed down equipment in primary colours, and then on the other hand, going to galleries and museums where everything is amazingly inspirational but you can’t touch any of it. It’s really frustrating, so I wanted to think about how I could bring those two things together and make something that was conceptually interesting, aesthetically adventurous but that was accessible and playable and fun and trying to hook people in in a different way. And it’s not just for kids – all the adults who have been in here have been just as delighted, because we don’t often get a chance to play, we don’t get permission as adults, so being able to come and bounce around on a load of beanbags, I mean, what’s not to like about that?
Lesley Guy is an artist and writer based in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Pippa Hale: Pet Project is on at The Bowes Museum from 26 July to 1 March 2026.
This review is supported by The Bowes Museum.
Published 18.08.2025 by Benjamin Barra in Interviews
1,335 words
