you will be cancelled
you will be cancelled
About the Show.
Claire Ong explores communication, primarily through textiles. The work is the result of slow laborious ritual, through which she examines political speech. Ong’s work lays bare statements by rendering them permanent with context removed. This work is a reaction to the conflict in Gaza, the veil of official announcements and charged rhetoric within the public sphere.
Ong’s work you will be cancelled considers the exclusion of Palestinian voices from decisions shaping their lives. The column of red lace-like fabric, constructed from more than 10 kilometres of thread, carries the transcript of Donald Trump’s September 2025 twenty-point Gaza peace plan. It appears vibrant and monumental yet is deliberately hollow. Words shift in and out of legibility. Through tensions between beauty and emptiness, visibility and erasure, the work considers political promises, power and absence.
11 Days takes the words of Lynn Boylan, Member of the European Parliament for Dublin, spoken in Strasbourg 11 days after the October 10th 2025 ceasefire announcement. Ong transforms Boylan’s speech into an intricate textile referencing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh. Its familiar fishing-net and olive-leaf patterns are disrupted: text replaces the nets, while missiles take the place of olive leaves.
Curated by Sue Loughlin, MOTHEROTHER is an artist-led network supporting artist-parents and carers through collaboration, advocacy and peer support. Exploring care, identity and contemporary art, MOTHEROTHER creates space for practices and experiences that are often underrepresented.
you will be cancelled
Location: The Auxiliary Project Space, 31 Station Street, TS11SR
Dates: Thurs 24 Sept - Sat 3 Oct (closed Mon & Tue)
Hours: Daily 10am-5pm (Sun 12-4pm)
Access: Step Free
Artists: Claire Ong
-
Claire Ong is an Irish artist based in Newcastle upon Tyne, exploring rhetoric through multiple techniques and materials, primarily textiles. Using screen printing, stitch and repurposed samplers, she exposes how political statements are laid bare when made permanent and context removed.
She presents a modern narrative in a traditionally female medium, playing with repetition, innuendo and layered meanings, crossing between the boundaries of graffiti and fine textiles.
Claire has exhibited widely including at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Scotland and is a 2026 finalist in Seaton Delaval Hall’s North East Emerging Artist Award.