End of the Game Exhibition

Through a combination of documentary images, artefacts and film clips, along with Roger Ballen’s photographs and installations, the exhibition attempts to record and highlight the historical significance and context of the ‘Golden Age’ of African hunting expeditions by colonialists and powerful Western figureheads — such as Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, King Edward VIII and Hemingway — which took place from the mid 1800s onwards. In true Ballenesque form, the artist’s approach delves into the deeper, psychological relationship that man has to the natural world.

The exhibition chronicles the practice of unrestrained hunting which has contributed to the ecological devastation we are currently facing. The popularity of hunting for sport accelerated the destruction of the continent’s wildlife at the turn of the 20th century — a trend which continues to this day.

“It’s serious without being earnest; playful without being fickle; and unlike any other museum show. As the centre’s title promises, here things are topsy-turvy, inside out and the wrong way round, and in the case of the subject of this first show’s concern, that’s wish fulfilment of the best kind.” — Tymon Smith, Sunday Times