(Not yet) famous five

Ben Langworthy I took it with me 2010 (work in progress)

"In 2001, six friends attempted to capture Drake’s Island...." Ostensibly offering five responses to a significant "coming of age journey" centred on an iconic landmark in Plymouth, 'The Sutton Youth Initiative' is an exhibition that looks at myth, narrative, adventure, memory and history.

A visit leaves you feeling a little unsure of your footing - and that's almost always a good thing in art. The work seems to occupy a state between playfulness and seriousness, as if contrasting carefree youth with the responsibilities of adulthood.

I hope I'm not giving anything away when I say that the story of capturing Drake's Island is a bit of a red herring: the group didn't even know each other in 2001. The narrative that is offered, then withheld, and that ultimately turns out to be fiction, lends the show an air of furtiveness, guilt and secrecy. And the gap left by the absence of facts seems to have allowed each of the artists to reflect on something personal and resonant.
 

In the days leading up to the show, Ben Langworthy completed a feat of endurance by dragging a small sailing boat attached to a length of rope across the city from Sutton Harbour to the gallery. I took it with me suggests a memory that he was reluctant or unable to leave behind as he made the transition to a new state (sea to land/youth to adult). Lucy Brennan's 180 drawings of different views of Drake's Island suggest a similar inability to let go, this time enacted in an obsessional, repetitive activity.

Bryony Gillard takes a lighter approach, playing with the idea of adventure and endurance as she trains to swim the distance to Drake's Island and back in a specially designed 'codskin' swimsuit. Meanwhile, Scott Daniels' Ducks and Drake's is a grainy film (imbued with the nostalgic feel of old home movies) of the friends skimming stones towards their unreachable destination.

I was particularly taken with  Beth Emily Richards' Skipper, which manages to be both intensely local in its content and universal in its themes. A recorded interview with her grandfather - in which he talks about the unreliability of historical accounts, the importance of adventure, his grief for his dead wife and his love of bowls - is set against a video of a match at Plymouth Hoe Bowling Club. (It was, of course, Sir Francis Drake, who insisted on completing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe before engaging the Spanish Armada in battle.)

This mellow voice of experience provides a rich context for the whole show, contrasting the satisfactions of an ordinary life well lived with the vaulting ambitions of explorers and adventurers.

The Sutton Youth Initiative, until 27 November, Plymouth College of Art Gallery, Tavistock Place, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AT.

See also www.e-leven.co.uk for a partner exhibition by Jonty Lees.