Tag Archives: collective

The Welcome..this is what real community can feel like.

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Its been an honour and privilege being a member of The Factory Assembly for the past two years, working with so many wonderful people to create The Welcome at Aviva studio. The whole program was spectacular in not only embodying and representing the spirit of community, diversity and joy which we as a group felt was the essential part of what the welcome needed to be but also in engendering that spirit in Aviva studio and letting all the people of Manchester know that this building is theirs…this space is ours!.

Looking back now it is difficult to put into words just what a massive amount of work this has taken over a long period of time. We started work on this back in lockdown and have met, first online, and then in person to develop and shape an event which we felt would engage all sections of Manchester (no mean feat!) and allow people to experience this building in a different and unique way.

The end result was something more special than we could have imagined and succeeded in all of our aims. I was genuinely overwhelmed by the number of visitors who came and enjoyed Aviva for the first time or were given places to make their own. Highlights for me (and this is a drastically pared down list) were:
Inside Out This is Manchester– seeing the faces of so many people who make up this city and region represented in such a beautiful way and being able to see those people share this with friends and family (myself included) was magical.
Street Culture Takeover: A fantastic opportunity to really open up the space to a younger crowd and represent the vibrant street life which is is a core part of Manchester identity. Huge thanks to Ste Wing and his team for amazing work on this. It was special.
Deep Flow: This was a truly mesmerising and fully emotional collaborative movement piece created by a number of groups across Manchester and the fantastic Company Chameleon. Not only was it a stunning end to the festival but it also showed just what is possible when you empower people to create something new but also just what is possible in the space. I tried in some way to sum it up in this poem and video responding to a deeply moving performance.

Nothing can really come close to expressing the gratitude and love I feel for all the members of the The Factory Assembly and the amazing team in Factory International who made this possible, nor can I sum up well just what I have learnt from this process except to say this: we came together and created something wonderful and in the face of troubling times, this was a beautiful things to do.

There are loads of fabulous images of the events on the Factory International Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/factory_international/
and some great insights into the whole process as part of the great BBC documentary Imagine The Factory: Made in Manchester

The T-shirt as cultural keystone.

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I am really pleased and excited to be showing a new piece as part of an amazing group exhibition opening at Rogue Studios on Saturday 30th September 2023.

Tees is a group exhibition curated by Mike Chavez-Dawson and Co. exploring the t-shirt as an artform, a form of self expression and a symbol of protest. As someone who regularly used to make their own t-shirts as a quick and easy response to political moments or to quickly realise an artistic idea, I have long be fascinated by the flexibility of the t-shirt as a direct form of self expression; the idea of wearing your heart or your politics on your sleeve (or more accurately on your chest) holds a universal appeal. There are some amazing artists included in this show including Peter Blake, Jeremy Deller and Bob and Roberta Smith to name just a few, more excitingly there are a massive range of artists who have taken this brief and ran with it in every direction all at once! I will be reading a new piece ” The Complete and Unabridged History of Fire” at the preview at 3.30pm on 30/9/23 Be there, buy the t-shirt!

Huge thanks to the team who created the wonderful images:

TEES shoot sponsored by NORTH – great team headed
by Lucy Cameron – creative producer – @lucyy_cameronn @representedby.me

Ona Greenwood – stylist – @onagreenwood @representedby.me

Chris Harvey – photographer – @chrisharveyphoto @representedby.me

Jack McCarthy – Digital assistant – jmcc_rthy @representedby.me

Ryan cooper – videographer – rmcvideography @representedby.me

Aly Steer – HMUA – @alysteermakeup.me
@representedby.me

Harriet Crossley – styling assistant – hlc_styling – @representedby.me

Modelled by Ellie Sammer @elliesammer

Big up to Sam & Karen from Represented by Me for the support. @representedby.me

And Rogue Artists’ Studios (location), and the artists 🙌🙌🙌

You are very welcome!

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We’re celebrating the opening of our new space with a spectacular series of events and performances chosen by the people of Greater Manchester – and everyone is welcome!

Since getting involved in the Manchester International Festival by hosting a festival in my house Future Feast back in 2019 and then being a co-creator of Looking Forward To Tomorrow (Environment Day and Equality Day) in 2021, I have been very lucky to join an amazing group of Greater Manchester Residents to form the Factory Assembly responsible for designing, planning and delivering The Welcome . The Welcome is a nine-day series of events  (11th-19th November) to welcome all the people of Manchester into Aviva Studios, the brand new arts and culture venue for Manchester located behind the Museum of Science and Industry on the old site of Granada Studios (my one time former employer!). Huge events, family friendly workshops and talks are all available for everyone to access and come and make Aviva studios theirs. It would be wonderful if you were able to attend some of the events as there really is something for everyone and it looks set to be an amazing and immersive cultural experience. The Factory assembly is a fantastic group of people who it has been and incredible privilege to work with and go on the massive journey with but nothing would be possible without the hard working team who work full time at MIF and Aviva Studio- their support, care, patience and dedication to realising this project in the way is was conceived and developed has been phenomenal and illustrated just what can be achieved when an organisation really invites in and supports people. I could not be prouder.

If you build it…

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It’s has been a long time in the making and Pomona seems an awfully long time ago but fellow artist and writer Lee Ashworth and myself have finally got around to putting together our new exhibition “Living and Dying in Our Grandfathers’ Houses” which will open on 24th May 2018 at Insitu in Manchester. Preview is 6-8pm

We have been working on this for a long time and unlike the Pomona exhibitions the source material is much more emotionally and physically close to us as it relates to shared experiences, family memory and place. It is also the first exhibition under our joint working title The Manchester Art Authority

I don’t want to give to much away as we would like the work to speak for itself. The exhibition runs from the preview on the Thursday night, all day Friday and all day Saturday.

After the burning…comes the work

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This is a short video about my involvement in this years Manchester Artists Bonfire. More information about the bonfire can be found at
http://manchesterartistsbonfire.blogspot.com/

and also at
Manchesterartistsbonfire@groups.facebook.com

Video

I would like to say a big thank you to all the organisers and participants in this event, it was a very special experience and I was glad to be part of it.