Happenstance's curator, sculptor Bob Sloan, has it that the exhibits in the church-like space of the Engine Room have come together without theme, without prescription. Perhaps. But, if so, then the 22-person show makes for interesting comparison with the open competition Perspectives at the OBG, where Sloan remains on the board. Together, they amaze by confirming how much young and medium-term quality of expression can be put together at one time in this city.
Tom Bevan's ceramic tiles divert, while Philip Napier's free-standing heat exchanger pours cold water on, and then ices up, the brass trombone of a city much fatigued through being accustomed to blowing its own.
Owen Crawford contributes a rough-hewn, life-size figure in a blue dress, distinguished as male by faint phallic protuberance. Were he to duff up its totemic head he would have a more effective parable.
Below Susan Phillips's small, hollow female and male torsos, terracotta bells which ring sharp and flat, respectively, Eilis O Baoill would have us plant the actual seeds of the plant "Honesty" in garden pots. Across the room, past Angela George's barrow tomb of discarded soles, monument to the souls of AIDS victims, Adrian O'Connell has fixed a stairway of complete and incomplete, but chained away, Zimmer frames. Surely an essay on the troubled health service.
And what of the "Troubles"? Amanda Dunsmore runs two TVs with advertising and politics voice-overs interchanged. Gavin Weston's black-humoured triptych is of knitted balaclavas set as in a museum or police station trophy room. The middle one bears the big ears and shiny nose of a Mickey Mouse.
Until November 21st.