Miscue
Mac Collins
13.09.2025–11.10.2025
Slugtown is pleased to present Miscue, an ambitious solo exhibition by British visual artist Mac Collins.
In Miscue, Collins will transform the gallery into an immersive abstraction of a traditional pub. Initially informed by The Limekiln pub in Nottingham, Collins is interested in the point where cultures collide and merge, and both the camaraderie and conflict that can occur in civic spaces. An amalgamation of pub and social club references will influence the installation with a colossal and distorted pool table confronting viewers as they enter the space. Contrasting the sleek table, upholstered panels adorn the surrounding walls, enveloping the space in ubiquitous textures synonymous with public house environs.
The pool table is a ubiquitous staple in English pubs. The centre of a choreographed ritual of play and connection, the pool table is the site of soothing actions, resonant sound and jovial exchange. Yet, despite being a social game, it has always been a contested site for the micro-politics of bravado and ownership – perhaps even more contested than ever. The culture also holds connotations of violence, with the objects and equipment used to play the game often doubling as lo-fi weaponry in popular culture and the public imagination. It is this duality that interests Collins; a space for comradeship, yet a material culture co-opted to symbolise social conflict.
For the central lustred and polished hardwood sculpture, Collins takes the symbolism and objecthood of the pool table, and abstracts it to the brink of recognition. His design considers the formal qualities and ritualism of pool; the measured movements around the table, and the order-chaos-reorder loop from breaking to re-racking. By taking the forms, pulling them apart, and reconstituting them into a warped and altered state, Collins comments on morality, perspective, and fractured social connections. The sculpture’s symmetrical form, with repeated details that appear systematically and rhythmically across it, results in an object that is at once alluring and confrontational.
Flanking the sculpture are a number of faintly recognisable upholstered panels often utilised as backrests for bench seating. Their busy fabric patterns possess a utilitarian function of camouflaging stains and spills whilst simultaneously reflecting the identity and history of their particular establishments. Within the installation the soft, curvilinear forms of the panels contribute to the material interrogation of pub spaces, and how symbols become embedded within British memory and identity.
Continuing Collin’s forensic material investigations, additional works within the installation form a constellation of references to the game of pool. Standing vertically on the ground, two identical pool cues are impaled into the top of a large cube with a gentle concaved surface, resembling a giant cue chalk. Cast in aluminium the totemic sculpture’s surface retains the history of its use as well as the process of its fabrication.
Whilst the exhibition is uniquely personal to Collins, the installation grapples with the widespread erasure of civic spaces – a problem nationally, but especially pertinent to the immediate vicinity of Shieldfield, where following the closure of a large number of pubs in recent memory has left the area with few spaces to gather and commune. Miscue explores the effects these closures have on communities and groups, and broader touchpoints of polarisation, fragmented memory and social structure.
The exhibition has been generously supported by Arts Council England and Henry Moore Foundation.
Mac Collins (b.1995, Nottingham, UK) lives and works between Newcastle and Nottingham. He graduated with a BA in 3D design at Northumbria University in 2018. Collins has undertaken residencies at The New Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK (2021) and Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2019). Recent exhibitions include: Bold Tendencies, London, UK (2025); Take a Seat, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA (2024); By Design, Denver Art Museum, Denver, USA (2024); Black Star, Strada Gallery, New York, USA (2024); Dancing Before the Moon, British Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, Venice, Italy (2023); Global Tools, Side Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2023); To Be Held, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, UK (2023); Stems Gallery, NADA Miami, Miami, USA (2022); Open Code, Primary, Nottingham, UK (2022); Radical Acts, Harwood House Biennial 2022, Harewood House, Leeds, UK (2022); Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2022); Mac Collins: The Ralph Saltzman Prize, The Design Museum, London, UK (2022). Recent awards include: The Ralph Saltzman Prize, the Design Museum, London, UK (2022); The Emerging Design Medal, London Design Festival, London, UK (2021).
Collins work is held in permanent collections both nationally and internationally including; Denver Museum of Art, Denver USA; Harewood House Trust, Leeds, UK; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA; The Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany; and The Design Museum, London, UK. He currently holds the position of Lecturer at Northumbria University and sits on the board of Trustees at Primary, Nottingham, UK.