GATESHEAD.- After its great success in New York and Los Angeles, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead announces the UK premier of A Voyage of Growth and Discovery, a remarkable collaboration between renowned American artists and longtime friends Mike Kelley and Michael Smith. A Voyage of Growth and Discovery centres on Baby IKKI, a character developed by Smith for over thirty years. Here the pre-lingual man-child, dressed in a nappy, sunglasses and baby’s bonnet, visits the Burning Man festival in the remote Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Infamous for its carnivalesque atmosphere and existence beyond wider societal norms, the annual event is an “experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance.” Alone in his journey, yet alongside thousands of revellers, the part-comedic, part-forlorn IKKI navigates ravers, erotic