It attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors as it hosted the world famous Turner Prize earlier this year, but now Turner Contemporary is hoping for virtual visitors as it keeps its doors shut in line with government restrictions.

The Margate gallery has created a virtual tour of its ground-breaking exhibition We Will Walk – Art and Resistance in the American South which gives visitors a walk-through experience as though they were there.

The exhibition is the first of its kind in the UK to reveal the little-known art shaped by the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s and was opened in February.

Filming of it was then organised quickly with Modus Films before the gallery closed on March 18.

The virtual tour, which can be seen via the gallery’s website and YouTube channel while the gallery is closed, is led by lead exhibition curator Hannah Collins with co-curator Paul Goodwin and features soundbites from civil rights photographer Doris Derby and writer and critic Greg Tate, which were recorded in March. There is also music from musicians supported by Music Maker Relief Foundation.

We Will Walk brings together sculptures, paintings, quilts and installations by more than 20 African American artists from Alabama and the Deep South. The exhibition addresses issues of race, class and resistance through a diverse range of works developed outside of the mainstream.

The exhibition was conceived and developed by artist/photographer/film maker Hannah Collins, who made extensive journeys over three years through urban and rural Alabama, interviewing makers and taking photographs of their work and the circumstances in which they were produced.

The artists in the exhibition lived through the Civil Rights struggle and its aftermath, often in conditions of poverty. Some works show the impact of segregation and racial terror, characterised by the remaking and re-use of materials.

A series of quilts from the isolated hamlet of Gee's Bend in Alabama also feature in the show, made by descendants of people enslaved on the Pettway plantation. These world-famous quilts have a distinctive style and are often made from recycling old clothing such as jeans.

The exhibition also features a series of guitars by Freeman Vines, including one made from the wood of an old hanging tree. Vines’ work became more explicit in its imagery of pain and death as he discovered the story of Oliver Moore, the man who was lynched from the tree.

The exhibition includes a specially created soundtrack by African American musicologist Professor Calvin Forbes, some of which is included in the virtual tour.

See the virtual tour from the gallery's YouTube channel here:

To find out more go to turnercontemporary.org

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