Posts in Art Archive Category

Everything I Have Is Yours is an ambitious film and sound work by Eileen Simpson and Ben White (Open Music Archive) that looks back to the first decade of the UK pop charts (1952-62). Working with a group of older musicians – many of whom are the ‘original teenagers’ of the Greater Manchester music scene, now in their 70s and 80s – the film focuses on this diverse group as they re-engage with public-domain samples from the formative era of the ‘birth of pop’, and incorporate these timeless sounds into new musical creations. When the musicians play, they individually and collectively interact with digital technology, recalling archive sounds ripped from 1950s and early 1960s shellac and vinyl chart hits. As the group trigger these sounds from the past, the camera continuously tracks its way through the assembled musicians, echoing the circular loops of the music itself.

JULY 2020

We are excited to announce that the full film of Everything I Have Is Yours is released online on 1st July, 2020.
Shared under a Creative Commons license, (CC by 4.0), EIHIY is free to watch online – and to download, share and remix.

Visit the #EIHIY page to view and find out more.

Extended details about Everything I Have Is Yours, including an associated publication, can be found here.

Exhibition Dates: Thursday 4 July – Sunday 3 November 2019
Opening hours: Tuesday – Friday 9.30am – 4.30pm; Saturday & Sunday 11.30am – 4.00pm
Venue: Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Salford

Everything I Have Is Yours has been commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, Contemporary Art Society, University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery. An edition of the film will enter the University of Salford Art Collection. To coincide with the launch of Everything I Have Is Yours, Castlefield Gallery will present Eileen Simpson and Ben White: Open Music Archive, the first UK survey show of the artists’ work from Friday 14 June – Sunday 18 August 2019.

Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, the Contemporary Art Society, University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery through ‘Equal Shares’ 2019

Presented by Contemporary Art Society, Mbili Foundation and the University of Salford.

Supported by: Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University, Salford Museum & Art Gallery.

Outreach & engagement programme supported by: Public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England, the National Lottery Community Fund, The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, Castlefield Gallery Commissioning Patrons, Jo and Allan Melzack.

Community partners: Age UK, Great Places Housing Group, Northwards Housing, Salford Community Leisure.

Funders: Film and Video Umbrella and Castlefield Gallery are funded by Arts Council England as National Portfolio Organisations. Castlefield Gallery is funded by Manchester City Council as a Cultural Partner. 

A free lecture and panel discussion from photographers Craig Easton, Michelle Sank and Jillian Edelstein about their contributions to the multimedia project Sixteen, which explores the dreams, hopes and fears of sixteen year-olds across the UK.

Sixteen is an age of transition, of developmental, and of social change. At this time of increasing national and international anxiety, these young people are shifting from adolescence to become the adults who will live in a politically reshaped country, divorced from the European Union.

This event is especially for local photography students (whether at Uni, college, sixth form, or independent) and anyone who is interested in socially-engaged photographic practice.

Date: Friday 15 February, 2 – 4pm
Venue: Lady Hale Lecture Theatre, University of Salford, M5 4NT
Admission: Free, booking required.

The lecture will be immediately followed by public previews of Sixteen at: New Adelphi Gallery and Atrium, University of Salford – 4.30pm, Friday 15 February 2019. HOME, Manchester, 7.30pm, Friday 15 February 2019.

Artists: aaajiao, Miao Ying, Lin Ke, Liu Xin, Lu Yang and Ye Funa

A new group exhibition which navigates the messy vitality of China’s online realm – a space where artists can engage, play and debate.

This exhibition features works by six leading new media artists, including a new co-commission by University of Salford Art Collection and Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), by artist Miao Ying; and also work by aaajiao an artist already in our Collection.

Focusing on a younger generation of artists – the first to have grown up with mass digital technology – Chinternet Ugly invites the viewer to explore the complex and contradictory nature of China’s hyper-regulated digital sphere from the perspective of some of its most dynamic and engaging artists.

For further information visit Chinternet Ugly.

Launch: Thursday 7 February 2019, 6 – 8pm
Exhibition dates: Friday 8 February – Sunday 12 May 2019
Exhibition opening times: Tuesday to Sunday, 10am – 5pm (closed Mondays)
Venue: CFCCA, Manchester

Chinternet Ugly has been co-curated by Marianna Tsionki, Research Curator, University of Salford and CFCCA and Dr Ros Holmes, Presidential Academic Fellow in Art History at the University of Manchester.

To mark the 100-year anniversary of The Representation of the People’s Act, in March 2018 Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, launched a new exhibition by Ruth Barker & Hannah Leighton-Boyce which now tours exclusively to Glasgow Women’s Library in 2019.

The Glasgow exhibition consists of the specially commissioned work by Barker and Leighton-Boyce, including new work not previously displayed. It will also be accompanied by newly commissioned writing, Affinity, from the award-winning writer, Scottish Maker and University of Salford Chancellor and Writer in Residence, Professor Jackie Kay. The poems will be on our website from Monday 4 February.

Castlefield Gallery worked with Ruth Barker (Glasgow) and Hannah Leighton-Boyce (Manchester) during 2017-18, supporting both artists to undertake research residencies: Leighton-Boyce in Scotland with Glasgow Women’s Library, and Barker in Greater Manchester with the University of Salford. Over the course of their residency periods, Barker and Leighton-Boyce exchanged ideas and thoughts, whilst delving into hidden histories and epic stories. Leighton-Boyce became interested in the relationship between the body and the archive, her new works echoing her experiences of working at Glasgow Women’s Library, specifically through her decision to work with salt, drawing on its inherent properties of healing, energy, and the charge of ‘coming together’ she encountered at the library. Barker primarily works in performance and performative-writing and has an on-going engagement with the ‘voice’. Motherhood, illness, and the economic conditions of contemporary Britain, Barker feels, are rapidly coalescing to render her publicly mute.

In developing their bodies of work the artists collaborated with others, including Barker with University of Salford student  Alena Donely (now one of our Graduate Scholars) and a group of pupils from Clarendon Road Primary School, Salford, whilst Hannah took advice from scientists from the University to cast new sculptures out of salt.

The tour is a partnership project between Castlefield Gallery, the University of Salford Art Collection and Glasgow Women’s Library. Works by the artists will be acquired into the University of Salford Art Collection.

For further details visit the Glasgow Women’s Library website.

Preview: Thursday 31 January 2019, 5.30 – 7.30pm. Premiere of Affinity by Jackie Kay at 6.15pm
Exhibition dates: Friday 1 February – Saturday 23 March 2019
Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday, 9.30am – 5pm; Thursday 9.30am – 7.30pm and Saturday 12 – 4pm
Venue: Glasgow Women’s Library, 23 Landressy Street, Glasgow, G40 1BP

Inspired by works by artists Ruth Barker and Hannah Leighton-Boyce, the award-winning writer Professor Jackie Kay created three newly commissioned poems, Affinity I, II & III.

Ruth Barker & Hannah Leighton-Boyce, 2018. Glasgow Women’s Library exhibition brochure.

Photographers: Robert C Brady, Linda Brownlee, Lottie Davies, Craig Easton, Jillian Edelstein, Stuart Freedman, Sophie Gerrard, Kate Kirkwood, Kalpesh Lathigra, Roy Mehta, Christopher Nunn, Kate Peters, Simon Roberts, Michelle Sank, Abbie Trayler-Smith, plus the first of four specially selected students, David Copeland, MFA candidate at Ulster University.

In a major new touring exhibition leading contemporary photographers join forces to present the multimedia project Sixteen, exploring the dreams, hopes and fears of sixteen-year olds across the UK.

Photographer Craig Easton (alumnus of University of Salford) conceived this ambitious project following his engagement with sixteen year-olds at the time of the Scottish Referendum. It was the first, and as yet only, time that these young people were given the vote in the UK. Building on the success of that work he invited 16 of the UK’s foremost documentary portrait photographers to collaborate with young people across the country to make a visual vox pop on what it means to be sixteen now.

Sixteen is an age of transition, of developmental, and of social change. At this time of increasing national and international anxiety, these young people are shifting from adolescence to become the adults who will live in a politically reshaped country, divorced from the European Union.

Working with photography, film, social media, audio recordings and writing, the project brings together the faces and voices of more than a hundred young people from diverse communities across the United Kingdom. Locations span large conurbations such as London, Birmingham and Manchester, the South West, Northern Ireland, the Scottish Islands, and post-industrial areas of the North.

The photographers open up conversations with these young people about their hopes and fears, and who or what sustains them, giving prominence to voices rarely heard. The project explores how social background, personal histories, gender, beliefs, ethnicity, and location all might influence aspiration.

Public Preview:  Friday 15 February 2019, 4.30pm New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery & Atrium, University of Salford, and 7.30pm at HOME, Manchester

Prior to the preview: Sixteen: talk and panel discussion
Photographers Craig Easton, Michelle Sank and Jillian Edelstein discuss their contributions to the multimedia project Sixteen.
Date: Friday 15 February, 2 – 4pm
Venue: Lady Hale Lecture Theatre, University of Salford, M5 4NT
Admission: Free, booking required.

Exhibition Dates: Monday 18 February – Friday 10 May 2019
Opening hours: Monday – Friday 10am – 4pm
Venue: New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery & Atrium, Salford M5 4BR

Thanks to a National Lottery grant from Arts Council England Sixteen will tour nationally, starting in February 2019 with exhibitions in North West England and in March at FORMAT19, Derby.

HOME, 16 February – 17 March 2019
2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester M15 4FN

Manchester Central Library, 17 February – 15 April 2019
St Peter’s Square, Manchester M2 5PD

42nd Street & Horsfall Space, 16 February – 8 March 2019
87-91 Great Ancoats St, Manchester M4 5AG

Touring to: FORMAT international photography festival, Derby, 14 March – 14 April 2019

Widnes Vikings Rugby Club, Opening May 2019
Lower House Lane, Widnes WA8 7DZ

Online: Twitter @sixteentouring / Instagram @sixteen_touring

FREEPORT: Terminal MCR is a new exhibition, taking place at our MediaCityUK campus, presented by our partners Abandon Normal Devices (AND).

In a time when free movement, free trade and freedom of communications apparatus are subject to intense political machinations, FREEPORT: Terminal MCR explores citizenship in the age of the internet.

Accompanying this temporary showcase of newly commissioned artworks and screenings, there will be a series of talks entitled FREEPORT: Critical on Friday 15 February (1 – 4.30pm), which will delve further into the artworks. For further details on the talks and speakers visit FREEPORT:Critical.

The new works shown at University of Salford, MediaCityUK in FREEPORT: Terminal MCR will also be on display on AND’s new digital art distribution platform – nnn.freeport.global

Further details visit FREEPORT: Terminal MCR.

Exhibition dates: Tuesday 12 – Saturday 16 February 2019, 11am – 5pm
Talks: Friday 15 February 2019, 1 – 4.30pm, free but booking recommended.
Venue: University of Salford, MediaCityUK

As part of Open Eye Gallery’s Open Source programme, current Graduate Scholar Jesse Glazzard will be exhibiting Queer Letters on their digital screen. The series is made up of intimate portraits and short interviews with people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, sharing advice alongside individual stories of struggle, celebration and personal sense of identity.

Open Source is part of Open Eye Gallery’s responsive programme, which offers the gallery’s on and offline resources for others to use. There is no theme and no limit to number of submissions, but the gallery encourage projects that engage with themes explored in their exhibitions. The aim of the platform is to make lesser-known artists more visible. For more information visit Open Eye Gallery’s website.

Artist’s website.

Exhibition dates: Thursday 1 November  – Friday 30 November 2018
Opening hours: Open daily 10am – 5pm
Venue: Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool

Artists: Han Feng, Wang Ningde, Ma Qiusha, Tian Taiquan, Yan Xing, Lu Xinjian, Liang Yue

The Chinese Contemporary Art collection has been developed since 2013, mainly in partnership with the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) and Open Eye Gallery. The artists range from emerging through to established, and come from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the diaspora. It is a broad collection with a variety of themes.

The collection was first shown in its entirety from 9 February – 3 June 2018, at PRESENCE: A Window into Chinese Contemporary Art in St George’s Hall, Liverpool as part of the city’s China Dream season. Following the popular tour, a selection of works are now on display in Salford until January.

Download the handout to read more about the artists and works:
In Focus Chinese Contemporary Art exhibition handout

Exhibition dates: Monday 12 November 2018 – Friday 1 February 2019
(closed Monday 24 December 2018 until Wednesday 2 January 2019)
Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 10am – 4pm.
Venue: New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford

Artists: Maurice Carlin, Cecile Elstein, Michael Green, Kip Gresham, Richard Riley, Paul Ritchie, Alan Whitehead

Selected works from the Push and Pull exhibition, previously shown in the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, will be on display in the Council Chamber of the Old Fire Station, University of Salford.

The exhibition draws together prints made in and around Salford and Manchester from the late 1970s to the present day, including works made at the Manchester Print Workshop, Hot Bed Press and Islington Mill alongside new work by University of Salford graduates.

The artists in this exhibition experiment with process, pattern and repetition, as well as considering physicality and the body. They interrogate both the methods and labours of printmaking practice as well as the labours of existing and surviving as an artist/worker today.

Exhibition dates: Wednesday 21 November 2018 – March 2019
Opening hours: Viewings by appointment only, contact artcollection@salford.ac.uk 
Venue: Council Chamber, The Old Fire Station,University of Salford, M5 4WT

We are pleased to announce that Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson’s ambitious video work Song for Armageddon, co-commissioned by University of Salford Art Collection and Forma, will be screened at Glasgow Cathedral as part of their annual festival this year.