Posts in Art Archive Category

Lightwaves returns to illuminate Salford Quays – home to MediaCityUK, for 10 unforgettable days (6 – 15 December). On Friday 6 December, there will be two free artists’ talks by filmmaker Anthony Barkworth-Knight and ATOMIC 3 (multimedia installation, architectural lighting and performing arts).

2.30pm – Antony Barkworth-Knight – Homage to the Rain: An insight

Antony Barkworth-Knight is a filmmaker from Manchester, UK.

Working across multiple disciplines he creates eclectic work spanning artist film, documentary, music videos and live performance. Central to his work is a strong interplay between audio and visual elements.

Antony will be talking about his new work Homage to the Rain, co-commissioned by Quays Culture and University of Salford Art Collection for Lightwaves 2019.

The new film celebrates rainfall around the world, bringing together globally crowd-sourced footage of rain set to an original score. Through the prism of the phenomena of rainfall we see how people are living around the world in 2019: What are our homes like? What environments do we live in? Our clothes; our culture; our surrounding landscape; our way of life; how is it transformed when it rains?

3.30pm – ATOMIC 3 – Living Connections

Stories, in the broadest sense of the word, shape the meaning and momentum of everyday life. Thousands of years ago, sitting around a campfire, people were telling stories to try to make sense of the chaotic world they lived in. This warm light was bringing them together day after day, human connection being essential to our survival. Communities were built around public places like this campfire. In the past decades, our public places have somehow been forgotten, due the type of urban development aiming toward more private spaces. And people now prefer to connect in the virtual world, through social network, thus contributing even more in the disappearance of the public component in our cities.

How can light based immersive multi-sensory environment play a role in helping people rediscover their public places? Can interactive installations be part of the placemaking principles used to strengthen the connection between people and the places they share? This presentation will cover this subject through case studies of past projects and the design process behind them.

Date: Friday 6 December, 2.30 – 4.30pm
Venue: South Room at The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ
Admission: Free, no booking required.

Peer to Peer brings together fourteen of the most influential cultural leaders in China and the UK, with each nominating a photographer who they feel is at a crucial point in their career in terms of international significance.

Co-curated by Lindsay Taylor, Curator of the University of Salford Art Collection, with Thomas Dukes, Curator at Open Eye Gallery and Serein Liu, an independent curator based in Shanghai, Peer to Peer is a core project of LOOK Photo Biennial 2019 and will also be shown at Shanghai Centre of Photography in December 2019. The exhibition platforms artists on the verge of major international recognition.

Two of the artists from the exhibition will each receive a £5,000 commission towards producing new work for the University of Salford Art Collection.

For further details visit the Peer to Peer exhibition page.

Exhibition dates: Friday 18 October – Sunday 22 December
Opening hours: Open Eye Gallery: Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 5pm and
St. George’s Hall: Monday – Saturday, 9.30am – 4.45 pm
Venues: Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and St. George’s Hall (Heritage Centre entrance), Liverpool .

Launch: Thursday 17 October 2019
5 – 6pm, St. George’s Hall:
Refreshments and speeches from 5pm.

Speeches from: Nick McDowell, Director of International at Arts Council England, Paul Grover, Liverpool China Partnership, and Jasmine Peng from Branding Shanghai. The two new commissions for University of Salford’s Art Collection, selected from the Peer to Peer exhibition, will also be announced by John McCarthy, Executive Director of Marketing and External Relations, University of Salford.

From 6pm: head to Open Eye Gallery to see the rest of Peer to Peer, and join the launch party for the broader LOOK Photo Biennial.
Free, but please RSVP at Eventbrite.

Afterparty: 8pm doors open for the Redeye, The Photography Network 20th anniversary party & LOOK Photo Biennial afterparty at Constellations, with speeches at 8.30pm. RSVP for the afterparty at Eventbrite.

Collaborative Endeavours is a one day symposium featuring guest speakers from across the arts, design and community sector.

Presentations and full room discussions will take place throughout the day, chaired by staff from Open Eye Gallery and University of Salford, with speakers including artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White (Open Music Archive), artist David Blandy, photographer Emma Case and John Maguire from the Big Local initiative My Clubmoor, as well as designer Danielle Molyneux from Studio Dotto, and cultural organisation Venture Arts.

The event is aimed at artists, students and arts practitioners interested in exploring collaborative modes of practice. What does collaboration bring to the creative table, and to what extent does this approach to working support the cultural sectors role within society today?

This year’s event will therefore focus on practitioners and institutions who use collaborative and partnership models of working, from concept through to delivery. The symposium will share diverse approaches to collaborative practice, acknowledge and discuss challenges but also possibilities of working in this way.

Date: Tuesday 29 October 2019, 9.30am – 4pm
Venue: Salford Museum and Art Gallery
Admission: Free, booking required through Eventbrite.

This event has been programmed in partnership with University of Salford’s Art Collection, Open Eye Gallery and Castlefield Gallery and connects to the current Open Music Archive commission, Everything I Have Is Yours at Salford Museum and Art Gallery, who also kindly host the event on the day.

Cheng Ran is a video artist working and living in Hangzhou, China. His latest work Diary of a Madman – Manchester Plan, New Bees, is a multi-channel installation filmed entirely in Greater Manchester and is the outcome of a short residency with Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) earlier this year.

Interested in the idea of ‘otherness’, Cheng uses cinematic techniques to look at the ways we experience new cities and their unfamiliar geographies and living spaces. His first solo exhibition in the UK explores the city of Manchester from the perspective of a visitor and a stranger, drawing attention to the myths and fabrications that inform our understanding of place.

“Cheng’s Diary of a Madman series, is an ongoing project that was initially developed during a residency at the New Museum in New York in 2016 followed by two further chapters in Tel Aviv and Hong Kong. We are delighted to have collaborated with Cheng Ran on this exciting new chapter that links with the city and people of Manchester,” said CFCCA’s Senior Curator Marianna Tsionki.

#ChengRan

Exhibition Preview: Thursday 24 October, 6-8pm
Exhibitions dates: Friday 25 October 2019 – Sunday 12 January 2020
Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 5pm
Venue: Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester

Cheng Ran: Diary of a Madman, Manchester Plan is a co-commission between the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, videoclub and the University of Salford Art Collection.

On 6 December our latest co-commission with Quays Culture Homage to the Rain will have its world premiere at Lightwaves festival at Salford Quays.

Homage to the Rain is an artist’s film to celebrate rain around the globe and explore how we react to it and how it changes our lives.  The short film on a loop set to an original score will be created by filmmaker Antony Barkworth-Knight, musicians Rob Turner, Sam Healey, Conor Miller and digital strategist Rebecca Rae-Evans.

The group are currently asking people from all over the world to send in their videos shot on a mobile phone of rain.  To have the opportunity to be part of Homage to the Rain, please complete the following form and send your video by wetransfer to Homagetotherain@gmail.com  Alternatively, please email Homagetotherain@gmail.com and the team can send you a link to upload your file. For examples of content please visit the official Twitter, Instagram or join the Facebook group.

“We are reaching out to people all over the world to send in their videos shot on a mobile phone of rain,” explains Rebecca who has a long history of using social media to bring people and content together.

“Through the prism of the phenomena of rainfall we will see how people are living around the world in 2019; what are our homes like? What environments do we live in? Our clothes, our culture, our surrounding landscape, our way of life. How is this transformed when it rains?”

When all content has been collected, the artists will work together to create an immersive audio visual piece that looks at atmosphere and themes found in these global videos of the rain.

The artists hope to create a celebration of rain which also reflect the global community and where we are as people in the human race in 2019.

Screening: Friday 6 – Sunday 15 December 2019
Screening times: Monday – Friday 6 – 10pm & Saturday – Sunday 4 – 10pm. The film is shown on a continuous loop.  
Venue: The Egg Space, MediaCityUK campus, University of Salford

Homage to the Rain will be a short film on a loop set to an original score. After the Lightwaves premiere, it will be released globally online, and an edition of the film will enter the University of Salford Art Collection.

New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery: 16 September 2019 – Friday 17 January 2020
Exhibition extended: Council Chamber, University of Salford – from Tuesday 28th February 2020. See below for visitor information.

He was a wild one draws together British music photography from the 1950s and 1960s, from the Open Eye Gallery archive in Liverpool and the University of Salford Art Collection.

The works in this exhibition have been selected by local residents from across Greater Manchester; all of whom were young people during the era. Working with Creative Producer Liz Wewiora, members of the Cross Acres Community Centre and the Many Hands Craft Collective have researched and discussed the archive images through a series of workshops; and have shared their personal memories and recollections of the vibrant music scene of their youth.

Photographs from Open Eye Gallery include works by Harry Hammond and the F Beat Archive. London-born Hammond (1920 – 2009) was the primary photographer for the New Musical Express (NME) magazine from the early 1950s – covering every trend from swing, jazz and skiffle to ballads and calypso. He quickly embraced the emerging rock-n-roll scene and became best known for this body of work, capturing the iconic energy, fashion, styles and personalities of the time.

From the University of Salford Art Collection, photographer Harry Goodwin (1924 – 2013) followed a similar trajectory. Born in Fallowfield, Manchester, Goodwin worked as a scene-shifter at the BBC Manchester Studios, alongside photographing beauty pageants and boxing matches. This led to an opportunity in 1964 to join BBC’s Top of the Pops as a photographer, where he captured almost every single Top 30 Act until 1973. Through the following decades he continued to capture some of the biggest acts of the time – including The Beatles playing at the Apollo, Manchester, and Blondie headlining at the University of Salford’s Maxwell Hall.

The project is part of Together We Move, an ongoing community engagement programme which celebrates Everything I Have Is Yours – a new artists’ film commission by Ben White and Eileen Simpson (Open Music Archive) currently on display at Salford Museum & Art Gallery (until 3^rd Nov). The film, co-commissioned by the University of Salford Art Collection, looks back to the first decade of the UK pop charts (1952 – 62).

Council Chamber, The Old Fire Station, University of Salford

Due to popular demand, a selection of the photographs from He was a wild one will be exhibited at our Council Chamber building in an extended run. This iteration of the exhibition also includes contemporary music photography from current BA Photography students, submitted in response to the show.

Dates: From Tuesday 28th February 2020
Viewings: by appointment only
Admission: Free
Venue: Council Chamber, The Old Fire Station, University of Salford, M5 4NL

New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery
Dates: Monday 16 September 2019 – Friday 17 January 2020 (date extended)
Opening hours: Monday – Friday 10am – 4pm.
Christmas closure: Wednesday 25 December 2019 – Wednesday 1 January 2020.
Admission: Free
Venue: New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford, University Road West, M5 4BR

#hewasawildone #togetherwemove

Thanks to:

Open Eye Gallery for their partnership and archive loans, Northward Housing & Age UK for supporting the community engagement programme, and University of Salford student Ruby Ramelize for her support during the workshops.

Part of Salford Museum and Art Gallery’s Arts Academy programme. Learn new skills to further develop your creative talents, whilst responding artists’ film Everything I Have Is Yours.

Date: Sunday 27 October 2019, 12 – 2pm
Venue: Salford Museum and Art Gallery
Admission: £8 or Free to Together We Move volunteers, suitable for ages 12+. Book at Eventbrite.

This event is now sold out.

Music Memorabilia and Print Workshop offers you the chance to explore and creating your own music memorabilia products celebrating the music culture from 1952-1962. The session is delivered by local artist Sally Gilford who specialises in print making and design.

To coincide Eileen Simpson and Ben White’s (Open Music Archive) Everything I Have Is Yours, an artists’ film that looks back to the first decade of the UK pop charts (1952 – 62), Salford Museum and Art Gallery is hosting a series of free workshops and events for the public to get involved in.

There will be an introductory welcome to Salford Museum and Art Gallery and screening of the Everything I have is Yours film. Please note Sally will then walk everyone over to Islington Mill Artist Studios for the main workshop. This is a short 5 -10 minute walk. You will also be able to take your memorabilia products away with you on the day.

Date: Saturday 12 October 2019, 1.30 – 4pm
Venue: Salford Museum and Art Gallery and Islington Mill.
Admission: SOLD OUT

For access information at Islington Mill please contact jennifer@castlefieldgallery.co.uk or phone 0161 832 8034

This workshop is part of the current Together We Move engagement programme, supported by Arts Council England project grants, the University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery.

Curated by Ying Kwok
Artists: Luke Ching, Cao Fei, Simon Faithfull, Mishka Henner, Lizzie King & Craig Tattersall, Thomson & Craighead, Sun Xun, Lu Yang and Liam Young

Taking the Leap is an exhibition of work selected from the University of Salford Art Collection by celebrated independent curator Ying Kwok. The exhibition will take place at PHOTOFAIRS, Shanghai.

Taking the Leap – a brave, risky or challenging move away from one’s comfort zone – is the theme for this exhibition. Curator Ying Kwok, an internationally celebrated Hong Kong independent curator, selected works by artists that are innovative and confident in their creative strategy and design. The theme also aligns with the University of Salford Art Collection’s own leap to diversify the Collection – particularly in relation to Chinese contemporary art and digital art.

For this inaugural exhibition in China we will be exhibiting our first co-commission with Cao Fei (Haze and Fog) and our latest co-commission with multimedia artist Lu Yang. Visitors will be greeted by a site-specific installation by Lu Yang, specially commissioned by the University to accompany a new, unique print The Great Adventure of Material World #1 by the same artist, that will be premiered at PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai before entering the University Art Collection. In a special screening room there will be the opportunity to view Cao Fei’s celebrated Haze and Fog , co-commissioned with the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in 2013.

Taking the Leap demonstrates the strong partnerships between the university and arts organisations in the UK – including the installation by Luke Ching, originally co-commissioned for LOOK 17 with Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, and four prints from Where the City Can’t See project by Liam Young, originally co-commissioned with the AND Festival in 2017. Other digital works include a video by Simon Faithfull, an animation by Sun Xun and lightboxes by Thomson and Craighead based on computer viruses. The collection also regularly works with artists in the North West of England, represented by a large photograph by Manchester based Mishka Henner and a collaborative work by University of Salford alumni Lizzie King working with Technical Demonstrator Craig Tattersall, commissioned in 2015.

Exhibition Dates: Friday 20 – Sunday 22 September 2019
Opening hours:  Friday 12 – 6pm VIP Preview; Saturday 12 – 17pm and Sunday 11am – 6pm           
Venue: PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai, Shanghai Exhibition Center. 

In addition to the presentation there will be an In Conversation event at 5pm on Saturday 21 September. Chaired by Ying Kwok the panel will include: Lindsay Taylor (University of Salford), Sarah Fisher (LOOK Photo Biennial/Open Eye Gallery), Lu Yang (artist, Shanghai) and Wu Chi-Tsung (artist, Taipei/New York). The discussion will look at the different aspects of commissioning artists for public collections.

Join music journalist Paul Morley as he delves into the themes behind Everything I Have Is Yours, with the artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White (Open Music Archive), plus an audience Q&A.

Galleries open until 5.45pm for anyone who wants to watch Everything I Have Is Yours before the in conversation event.

Paul Morley’s text in response to Everything I Have Is Yours.

In addition to interviewing the artists Morley discusses the history of the UK charts, sampling culture and music distribution in a post-internet climate.

Date: Wednesday 2 October 2019, 6 – 8pm
Admission: Free, booking required via Eventbrite
Venue: Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Salford

Part of the current Together We Move engagement programme, supported by Arts Council England project grants, the University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery.