Cat Phillipps and Fran Copeman, Land at the Space Pop Up, Hackney, East London, February 2026 – Something happening over the road at the criminally underused Space Pop Up space adjacent to the artist-mocking of those big yellow London Needs Artists signs that Space still have in the windows of that big gallery they closed. London needs spaces for adrtists to show work on their own terms .
The pop up art space only ever seems to be (occasionally) used by fashion brands, most of the time the shutters are down and the hire prices way beyond the pockets of most working artists around here, frustrating to see it stood there empty and shutters down most of the time (it is directly over the road from us here), enough of that, we’ve said it all before, many many years of being based right over the road from the Hackney branch of Space has left us feeling rather cynical about most of what we see going on on the other side of Mare Street.
Enough, we’ve said it before, once again it feels like clapping with one hand and this weekend it seems a couple of artists have talked their way in to the space for a short sharp weekend of actual art. Cat Phillipps and Fran Copeman are presenting something called Land. It opened on a well attended rather wet Thursday evening, once again a little too crowded to really see the work properly, so back to the space on Friday for a proper look…
Three ambitious installation pieces if we include the piece that forms the entry into the small space, two large powerful pieces within the gallery and as we said in the preview, this one looked interesting as they were installing earlier in the week –
“Cat Phillipps and Fran Copeman use printmaking to reimagine ideas around land. Appropriating, redrawing, and deconstructing photographic images both artists present how land is imagined, claimed, and contested. Pushing the boundaries of scale and space within printmaking, Cat and Fran respond to this moment of historical turmoil, establishing a visual resistance to corporate power and land grabs. For Land they bring together two new large-scale works alongside a small publication”.
I like what they’ve done together, is like the right word? It isn’t really about liking, it isn’t about nice art or the emotion of colour or texture, this is art as statement, as question, as challenge.
Fran Copeman is an artist with an expansive practice incorporating installation, drawing, print, video and sound. She explores social and political intersections in the context of land access, protest and ritual. Cat Phillipps is an artist specialising in radical print techniques and photo-constructivism. With solo and collaborative practices as kennardphillipps (with Peter Kennard) Cat makes work for the street, the gallery, publications and public institutions.
The two of them together make for a powerful combination, it isn’t really clear where one artist starts and the other ends, that’s no bad thing. It isn’t about likes but I do like this, I do like the way it all looks, there’s some intriguingly powerful work in the frames on the wall, it is the two big installations that are taking up most of the floor and wall space and most of the attention. It does feel right here, here where the land grabs in this part of Hackney and the unaffordably fancy new builds push past the homeless of St. Mungo’s, where the one time launderettes are now fancy coffee shops, but we’re not really talking local land grabs here even if that goes look like bit of antisocial anti-rough sleeper pavement down there on the floor. No, we’re talking bigger, universal, anywhere, everywhere and we’re also talking a powerful way to use print, to use the art of print making, we are talking a rather powerful exhibition, we’re talking bit questions or at least big commentary, we are talking a rather powerful, positive show and art as something a little more than it often it. Do try and see it, it is only on for this weekend…
The Space Pop Up space is found (right over the street from the Organ bunker) at 129 Mare Street, Hackney, London, E8 3RH. Land runs from 18th Feb until Sunday 22nd Feb 2026, the space is open 12.30 until 6.30pm each day.
THE ORGAN 