As the Tokarska Gallery called out for submissions for its first open exhibition to fill the galleries wonderful bright and angled space – the response was from a plethora of artists from around the corner, further in London, dotted across the country and even from abroad. The call out seemed to have taken a life of its own, a life that pumped from the exhibitions thematic heart, Cities: All Dimensions. Selected by art director and curator, Nadiya Pavilv-Tokarska, it is a theme as contained as it is expansive, the dimensions of cities truly transcend everyday perception, from aesthetic edges and industrial horizons to social reflections and cultural constructs.

No-One To Bestow by Emma Scutt is a paternalistic gifting from grandfather to granddaughter of an exquisitely constructed space. A doll’s house has walls, and even furnished, is essentially empty, a blank canvas, a stage set awaiting happening. Any tenants, cast members physically present within, are likely to be psychologically absent, awaiting animation. This most potent of female childhood vessels is its own interior world. It has boundaries, is physically complete, existing independent of exterior space. The effect of the charming constraint of this vessel for the child, who is physically present and psychology engaged, is to enable unconstrained play and experimentation. It is a safe space for the child (here female), to inhabit. She can be her own protagonist(s), imprinting aspects of the self on her own cast of character vessels to animate them. So, stuck space elicits, releases endless fluid imaginings which blur the boundaries between imagined and real space, and flow and leak whither they may, as story.