Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes

When: 24 May 2025 to 07 September 2025
Where: The Box, Tavistock Place, Plymouth PL4 8AX
Time: 10am - 5pm
Cost: Admission free. No need to book.
Suitable for: Any age

Surrealism was one of the most influential artistic, intellectual and literary movements of the 20th century, and continues to inspire artists working today. This major exhibition marks 100 years since its origins in 1924 when poet and critic André Breton first published the ‘Surrealist Manifesto’.

Forbidden Territories, which is organised by The Hepworth Wakefield, will take you on a journey through imagined universes, dreamlike scenes and bizarre features, looking at how Surreal ideas can turn landscape into a metaphor for the unconscious, fuse the bodily with the botanical, and provide a means to express political anxieties, gender constraints and freedoms.

It brings together an array of British and international artists including members of Breton’s original 1920s circle such as Salvador Dalí, Eileen Agar, Lee Miller and Max Ernst, later Surrealists such as Leonora Carrington, Edith Rimmington and Desmond Morris, and modern and contemporary artists like Ithell Colquhoun, Wael Shawky who recently exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and Cornwall-based Ro Robertson.

Come and experience a ‘Summer of Surrealism’ at The Box: taking a fantastical journey through this amazing exhibition, plus our associated programme of events, family workshops and 'Surreal Estates' - the end result of our 2025 Children and Young People’s Art Competition.

Open 10am-5pm Tuesday-Sunday and selected Bank Holidays.

Image credit
Nicolas Party, Landscape, 2022 (detail). Courtesy of the Artist and The Modern Institute Webster Hamilton Ltd., Glasgow. Photo Adam Reich.