Committed to pursuing meaningful and long-term collaborations with artists and other initiatives locally and abroad, Drop City was founded in 2014 in the English city of Newcastle upon Tyne as a platform for collaborative process, taking on various models and roles: gallery, host, publisher, guest.
Drop City’s continuously responsive approach to its programming structure and locations fosters the emergence of new perspectives and paradigms of cultural hospitality, always contextually responding to the needs of a given location. Following one year operating from a ‘typical’ white cube space in Newcastle upon Tyne, Drop City embarked on a series of collaborations with partners across Europe as well as maintaining a three year running programme in its new host city Düsseldorf. As of 2019 operating on an occasional basis from the inner-city garden at the home and studio of its founders, artist Eleanor Wright and curator Sam Watson, Drop City encourages new developments in contemporary art stemming from the practices of artists and other practitioners, and explores their meaning within the realm of art and beyond.
Research, dialogue, solidarity and reflection lie at the centre of Drop City’s approach to working with artists. Intertwined with the presentation programme, an intimate public programme is organised, consisting of performances, screenings, artist talks, publications, lectures with regards to the practices of Drop City’s collaborating artists.