There’s so much to unpack in Mike Nelson’s installations and his ‘Hybrid Scripts’ show at the NGCA features two of his seminal early works.

Mike Nelson’s ‘Lionheart’ (pictured) marks a moment in British history at the beginning of New Labour and the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union. The installation depicts a drifter’s camp. Nelson: “The material of Lionheart is built from the discarded clues to a world at a certain point in time – the colonial flotsam and jetsam of the British car boot fused with the furs and traps of Eastern Europe.” Equally as arresting is ‘Taylor’, which makes reference to George Taylor, the marooned astronaut from the film ‘Planet of the Apes’, who tried in vain to escape Earth only to find himself in a more dystopian time. Mike Nelson is a twice Turner nominated artist and ‘Hybrid Scripts’ is his first solo show in the region for 30 years.

Mike Nelson: Hybrid Scripts, until 21 January, NGCA, Sunderland, sunderlandculture.org.uk