Back in May 2022, Socially Engaged Photographer in Residence Gwen Riley Jones wrote the following blog, reflecting on her meetings and conversations with members of Salford Youth Council. Gwen met with Salford Youth Council throughout 2022, connecting with the young people, using the Art Collection as a catalyst for conversations and activities, and working on several projects with the Youth Council. You can find more details about Gwen’s work throughout her residency here.
At the culmination of her residency, Gwen’s work with the Salford Youth Council has been captured in our latest exhibition on campus. ‘Some Days I Feel Triangle’ continues in the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery until April 28th 2023. We are sharing this blog ‘from the vaults’ with you now because it is from the discussions with members of Salford Youth Council captured here that the exhibition draws its name, and many of these early ideas about how art can be a tool for expression and wellbeing underpin Gwen’s work with the Youth Council.
For all the details on Some Days I Feel Triangle at the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, click here.
I love the chats that we have at Youth Council, the group are so intelligent, honest and open. I am always blown away by the insights they share and how much I relate to their explanations of the world. The group have respectful, insightful conversations and operate as a whole group in a way that some adult professionals unable to do successfully. I would like to figure out what their secret is, how do they do it – older adults have so much to learn from young people.
In this conversation we were talking about the purpose of art. As usual, some members of the group chatted while others noted down thoughts on the conversation roll. Here are some highlights:
Music creates an emotion and creates ART
To evoke a thought/an emotional response from someone
To explore emotions, to show pain
To show different points of view in life
To express yourself
Art can be a safe space for people to express themselves
Art is a way for someone to expand and communicate their visions physically and emotionally
To make a safe space to relax in and a place where the artist can escape
To get different ideas out into the world
To explore
To explore hypothetical scenarios (what if?)
Harley said: ‘the most important reason to explore and self-express emotions through art is it’s an easy way to bring ourselves to confront those emotions especially when dealing with negative emotions, like sadness and depression’. Amber agrees.
I asked, ‘is it easy?’
‘It is comparatively easy – you can confront them and come to terms with them, Harley said.
Alex shared ‘I can never cry about stuff that’s going on with me, but if I watch a movie then I can cry. It’s similar to that.’
Amber, Ollie and Harley: ‘I can’t cry’…
…but I find when I get something down in an artistic form, whether that be words or drawings, it helps me more easily to organise my thoughts and understand what I’m feeling.
[I’ve only cried at one movie – INSIDE OUT (Pixar).]
Harley: ‘Emotions are abstract things. It might be hard to put into words.
So it might be easier to put the emotion in to a picture or something more metaphysical…
> sounds
> colours
> shapes >>> I’ve genuinely said to someone I feel very triangle today’
Δ
Amber and Alex: ‘YES, I always say I feel beige’
Ollie: ‘How do I just understand I’m feeling very triangle today?
When you said it, I just got it.
I understand why I got beige, but not triangle.’
Some Days I feel triangle, a digital collage created by Gwen Riley Jones in response to a conversation with Salford Youth Council and Some Days No.03, 2002 by Wang Ningde, part of University of Salford Art Collection
We asked Gwen to refelct on this blog ‘from the vaults’ in spring of 2023, after her exhibition with Salford Youth Council opened. Here are her thoughts looking back almost a year on:
This conversation resonated with me throughout my time with the Youth Council. I made this digital collage (above) while I was thinking about and processing what they said . The conversation made me think about this artwork Some DaysNo.3, 2002 by Wang Ningde, which I had been discussing with another group of young people. We discussed that it wasn’t clear how the subject of the image felt – happy, sad, indifferent, dreamy – everyone saw something different.
Feelings and emotions can look, feel, and are experienced differently by everyone. They can be hard to describe, hard to put in to words, and there is no right or wrong, you feel how you feel. Art can help us explore and confront our emotions, and find new ways of expressing them. Feelings and emotions pass, some days you feel one thing, some days you feel another. This is how we came to the title, Some Days I Feel Triangle. How do you feel today?
More more information on Some Days I Feel Triangle, click here.
In the Spring of 2022, Socially Engaged Photographer in Residence wrote the following blog post, detailing her first few meetings with Salford Youth Council. Now, a year later, our latest exhibition ‘Some Days I Feel Triangle‘ showcases the brilliant collaborative work Gwen and the Youth Council have done over the past 12 months. We’re resharing this blog today to look back at the early beginnings of Gwen’s work with the Salford Youth Council ahead of the exhibition launch next week!
Some Days I Feel Traingle opens on 1st February until the 28th of April 2023 in our New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery.
Join us for the preview! Come down to the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery from 5:30 to 7:30pm on the 31st of January to celebrate the exhibition launch. All are welcome, refreshments will be provided, and there will be an opportunity to make your own badges to take away with you!
Gwen gets to know members of Salford Youth Council. Their conversation begins by discussing ‘What is NOT art?’
Getting to know each other – the importance of listening
In November I started attending meetings of Salford Youth Council (SYC), a youth voice group for anyone aged 11-21 who lives, is educated, or works in Salford. The group meet on a weekly basis, to plan events, work on campaigns, and promote positive stories of young people in Salford. SYC are the home of the Young Mayor and Member of Youth Parliament for Salford.
When I first joined the group I began by listening, and joining in conversation when appropriate. I was there to get to know the group, its members and to start to understand how the groups works.
SYC were working on a range of projects, including how to tackle hate crime, child obesity and sexual harassment in schools. They began work on a photo project for Holocaust Memorial Day, they had to take images and write a caption to the prompt – ‘One day…’. The group came up with some brilliant images and captions. I joined in to review the images each week and then the group would go out and take more images. Some people knew how they wanted to caption their images, but sometimes the whole group would collaborate to produce a caption that everyone agreed on. One member of the group is a wordsmith and wrote incredibly poetic captions for other people’s images.
The images were shared at an event as part of Holocaust Memorial Day remembrance in Salford. You can view the images being read by member of the group, and Salford Young Mayor, Rosie https://twitter.com/salfordyouth1/status/1486807661211537411
Original drawing of the work ‘ART’ by Chinaleigh
Questioning is so important – what is NOT art?
In January I started working directly with members of the group. In the first session we had Amber, Alex, Chinaleigh and Ollie. As a place to start from I asked them ‘What is NOT art?’ which prompted a passionate and wide-ranging discussion. I recorded the conversation and have written up what they said. The group also had a roll of paper to write their responses or draw on if they preferred to contribute that way.
Chinaleigh said ‘everything in the world could be art in its own way’
Ollie said ‘nothing is art – literally nothing. Nothing is not art, but nothing is also art.’
Alex said ‘absence of anything is art, if someone can find some kind of meaning to it or feels something then it’s probably art.’
We agreed that anything can be art – so I took them back to the original question – what is not art?
‘I was going to say things that you can’t feel or see, something that doesn’t make you feel something’
‘You can put a filing cabinet in an empty room and someone will find a message in it.’
‘Is destruction art?’ – ‘I think the general consensus is yeah’
Amber said ‘my favourite artist uses the pain he has gone through in life to create his art. I think that’s really cool’.
I asked can the messages in the making of the art be different to the message the audience gets from the art?
‘Everyone can bring their own meanings’
Chinaleigh said ‘so like a poppy, people could say it’s for rememberace and stuff for the soldiers, but it could also be red for blood’.
One the walls of the room we were sat in were some medical drawings, so I asked is medicine art?
‘It can be. Science is a pretty artistic thing. Science is art – you have to draw everything out like lungs and things’
‘But when you think about it, everything is art, cos art is such a varied thing’.
What makes good art or bad art?
‘That is really subjective’ (x2)
So, thinking about the University of Salford Art Collection, I asked them, if you were in charge how would you decide which art is good art and which art is bad art?
‘If you want to reach as many people as possible, the people deciding should be a group with totally different interests and stuff’
‘You need a variety of people deciding, unless there is a theme’.
Creating through conversation
While we were talking, Chinaleigh, who is a cadet and had come straight from training, she was dressed in a green camouflage uniform, drew this brilliant graphic image of the word ‘art’. I love it and have made it into a sticker for her and to share with the groups.
Image of ART sticker on Gwen’s Socially Engaged Photographer in Residence Journal
The University of Salford Art Collection are seeking BA or MA students from the School of Art, Media and Creative Technology, to produce 2 new portraits – one of outgoing Vice-Chancellor Helen Marshall and one of new Chancellor Lucy Meacock.
Like many Universities, Salford has a long tradition of commissioning portraits of Chancellors, Vice Chancellors and other important University leaders. Historically this has been externally commissioned oil portraits – however in 2014 the process was reinvented to celebrate the talent and creativity of our students.
Each commission includes an artist fee of £1000 and a budget of up to £500 towards production costs, plus project support from the Art Collection Team.
The successful candidates will be expected to work closely with the team to develop a fitting concept and final image. We are seeking 2 dedicated and motivated students, who can work professionally and efficiently to given deadlines. The team are open to both traditional and experimental approaches to capturing a portrait. Previous awards have focused on photographic work, however we will consider other mediums where appropriate. The final work will be displayed on campus and be acquired into the University’s permanent collection.
Previous awards include Jamie Wilson (2014, BA Visual Arts), Claudia Alonso (2015, BA Visual Arts) and Rory Mullen (2015, MA Visual Arts) – see images below.
Jamie Wilson, Irene Khan, 2014. Photographic Lightbox. Image courtesy the artist.
Claudia Alonso, Jackie Kay, 2015. Digital Photograph. Image courtesy the artist.
Rory Mullen, Portrait of Chancellor Jackie Kay, 2015. C-type print. Image courtesy the artist.
About Helen Marshall:
Professor Helen Marshall joined the University in 2013 as Deputy Vice Chancellor, then became Vice Chancellor in 2015. She leads the Executive Team, who manage and oversee the running of the University and the effective delivery of strategic objectives – everything from academic development and student experience to business and enterprise partnerships. She is a Professor in Law, with a background in education. She retires in Summer 2023. Find out more at: https://www.salford.ac.uk/news/university-salford-vice-chancellor-announces-retirement
About Lucy Meacock:
Lucy Meacock joined the University in Summer 2022 as the seventh Chancellor. This role is the ‘ceremonial head’ of the institution – presiding at Graduation ceremonies, representing the University externally, and advocating our mission, vision and values. Lucy has forged a successful career in the media, including over 30 years presenting on Granada Reports for ITV. Find out more at: https://www.salford.ac.uk/news/university-salford-names-lucy-meacock-next-chancellor
About the University of Salford Art Collection:
The University of Salford Art Collection has existed for over 50 years, and includes more than 800 modern and contemporary artworks. It exists for the benefit of students, staff and the general public, and is displayed both on campus – e.g. at the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery – as well as regionally, nationally and internationally through partnerships and loans. We commission new work, support artist development, contribute to teaching and learning, programme exhibitions, events and engagement opportunities – and more. Find out more at: https://artcollection.salford.ac.uk/
Key details:
Timescale:
Applications by midnight, Friday 3rd February
Shortlisting week commencing 6th February
Interviews TBC mid-February
Commission takes places February to April
Final submission by end May
Production/printing June
Unveiling/display – July
Fee: £1000 fee (Approx 5 x days at £200) plus up to £500 towards production (e.g. printing, framing). Students must have the right to work in the UK.
How to apply:
Please supply: 1) A short statement explaining your interest in this opportunity and how you might approach the commission (half page or 500 words maximum)
2) Your artist CV
3) Up to 4 images to support your application
4) A link to your website (if applicable)
Please send your application in standard file formats (e.g. Word, PDF and JPEG).
Please do not send any additional documents. Do not send very large files or Wetransfer/Dropbox transfers, as these may not reach our inbox.
Include the subject line “Application for Vice Chancellor Portrait 2023”.
No late submissions will be accepted. Please get in touch if you have any access needs regarding the application.
All applications (and any enquiries) to be emailed to:
Hybrid plus Blackpool, Blackburn, Wirral, Salford, Liverpool
Programme Manager, Is Anybody Listening? Our Time, Our Place
February 2023 – May 2024
Click here to download the full person specification.
Context:
It is a significant occasion for a Northwest artist,Craig Easton, to win Sony World Photographer of the Year (2021) with his series Bank Top, created in Blackburn, as well as second place in the documentary category for Thatcher’s Children, made in Blackpool. Due to Covid19, we were unable to celebrate this achievement within his home region.
Easton tackles stereotypes and responds to the negative way in which the main-stream media often portrays Northern communities. The relevance of Easton’s work has resurfaced in a new light as communities endure the cost-of-living crisis and face new challenges and segregation. Is Anybody Listening? is a touring exhibition. Our Time, Our Place is an engagement programme and symposium. Is Anybody Listening? Our Time, Our Place is delivered in partnership with University of Salford, LeftCoast, Open Eye Gallery, Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery and the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum.
A consultation with Salford Youth Council shows that 70%+ of participants said that they want to “capture their own world through photography”. One participant remarked: “‘Coz you grow up there they decide that’s what you are going to be. There is always a community to be found. Even in the most run-down areas there is always something there… The people make the place; the place doesn’t make the people.”
Our Time, Our Place aims to do exactly that: give young people the skills and support to see the value of their story and learn how to preserve and share it from the inside out ess through the adoption of a logic model to set out activities, resources and planned outputs and outcomes (or impacts)
Purpose:
The contractor will develop a monitoring and evaluation framework, collating and analysing data against the aims and objectives of the programme. The programme aims to engage a diverse audience and develop connections between heritage and people. The contractor will assess how Is Anybody Listening? Our Time, Our Place engages people to take steps to involve themselves more deeply in the issues and communities of their lived experience. The contractor will develop a logic model and delivery plan leading to an unbiased, robust evaluation report for our major funder, The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Key Responsibilities:
The contractor will work closely with external stakeholders, participants and colleagues to devise, plan and undertake/coordinate the evaluation.
Develop, plan and embed a monitoring a framework for continuous programme evaluation.
Use appropriate and methodical ways of asking questions that provide robust evidence which could cover well-being, demographics, economic, social capital, learning journeys, rise to action and quality.
Embed evaluation into the heart of programme liaising with venues, community groups and young people.
Gather baseline data at the start of each project and comparison data set to demonstrate change over time.
Monitor progress through the adoption of a logic model to set out activities, resources and planned outputs and outcomes (or impacts).
Communicate any deviations from strategy, objectives and respond to evidence gathering gaps/omission/ issues through timely meetings.
Provide detailed and transparent summaries of the research methods used to collect data in relation to the numbers of people that have engaged with / or tried to engage with evaluation activity including limitations, statistical tests and response rates.
Analyse and interpret data to provide evidence on outcomes highlighting areas of strength, future development, areas to improve.
Provide clear conclusions and recommendations to help enable stakeholders to identify and apply any lessons learned.
Produce a timely, clear and sufficient report evaluating project aims, objectives, effectiveness, efficacy and sustainability to inform funders, present and future meeting Heritage Fund submission requirements.
Please send a CV and covering letter no larger than 10 MB to craigeaston.isanybodylistening@gmail.com by noon on Friday 3rd February 2023 . Please tell us how you meet the experience, skills and qualities outlined in the Contractor Specification. Please propose how you would split the fee into materials and time if applicable. This should be no longer than 2/3 pages in either Word or PDF. Please keep your CV 2/3 pages of A4 and include two references from recent or current employers/ clients. All applications will be acknowledged with an email receipt. Should you be shortlisted, you will be invited to interview on Wednesday, Feb 8th. Your application will be assessed against how you meet the experience, skills and qualities outlined in the Contractor Specification through your application and interview.
Timeline
Open Eye, Liverpool – Exhibition and engagement programme
January 2023 – April 2023
LeftCoast and Blackpool School of Art – Exhibition and engagement programme
April 2023- June 2023
Blackburn Museum and Arts Gallery – Engagement programme
June 2023- July 2023
University of Salford -Exhibition and engagement programme
September 2023- December 2023
Williamson Art Gallery and Museum – Exhibition, engagement programme and symposium
January 2024 – March 2024
Fee
A total of £9292 is available. This includes your fee, evaluation materials, public liability insurance, expenses, site visits, meetings,observation sessions,, administration, meetings, VAT. The fee will be released in tranches upon competition of agreed milestones.
Click here to download the full person specification.
Comments Off on Opportunity: Is Anybody Listening? Our Time, Our Place Evaluator (Freelance)
The University of Salford Art Collection is set to launch a touring exhibition at galleries across the Northwest. Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening? is supported by The NationalLottery Heritage Fund, and will showcase two award-winning series of photographs, alongside an engagement programme for young people called Our Time, Our Place.
A long-time advocate for authentically representing communities in the North, Easton’s exhibition seeks to challenge stereotypes and raise aspirations of young people within the region.
The new touring exhibition Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening? launches this Thursday 12th of January at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, before touring to Salford, Blackpool, and Birkenhead. Click here, for the full details of Is Anybody Listening? in Liverpool.
Alongside the exhibition, the engagement programme, Our Time, Our Place, which also includes Blackburn, will empower young people to discuss current issues, explore their own history, and share it through pathways in photography and associated practices.
For all the information about Is Anybody Listening?Our Time, Our Place, and to stay up to date with the latest about the programme, click here.
Craig Easton, Mohammed Afzal, ‘Birdman of Bank Top’, 2020. Courtesy the artist.
Is Anybody Listening? Our Time, Our Place is presented by the University of Salford and generously supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Comments Off on Announcing – Craig Easton: Is Anybody Listening & Our Time, Our Place
How can art be a catalyst for social change? During her 12-month residency with the University of Salford Art Collection, socially-engaged photographer Gwen Riley Jones worked closely with Salford Youth Council to explore art, creativity, and positive social action.
During the year they explored a number of priorities together: from health, wellbeing and the benefits of connecting with nature, to allyship, representation and positive self-expression. The title ‘Some days I feel triangle’ comes from the group’s conversations around the ways we try and creatively communicate thoughts, feelings and emotions.
The gallery display includes selected artworks from the University of Salford Art Collection, which inspired their journey and conversations together – using art for ‘thinking, talking, looking, sharing and debating’. Alongside are stories and images from the group’s projects – along with prompts, cards, badges and stickers for visitors to take away.
The socially-engaged artist in residence project is a pilot project delivered by the University of Salford in collaboration with Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, and with the support of Salford City Council’s youth service.
An accompanying events programme will be announced soon.
Comments Off on Exhibition coming soon: Some Days I Feel Triangle – Feb – Apr 2023
A unique 18-month opportunity to make and exhibit new work in response to the climate crisis, net zero research, and the future of housing at the world-leading Energy House 2.0 facilities in Salford. A selection of new work made will also be acquired by the University of Salford Art Collection.
University of Salford Art Collection, in partnership with Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester announces two new artist residencies at the Energy House 2.0 research facilities at the University of Salford.
We are now inviting applications for the first residency, in collaboration with Open Eye Gallery, for artists working with photography. This residency will run from January 2023 until June 2024.
The second residency, in collaboration with Castlefield Gallery, will be open to all artists working in the field of visual arts. It will run from summer 2023 until December 2024. We will recruit for this in March 2023.
For the first Energy House residency with Open Eye Gallery we are inviting expressions of interest from photographers, or artists using photography, based in the North of England. It is anticipated that the successful artist will have the opportunity to work with scientists, technicians and other specialist staff to make new work which explores positive solutions to the climate crisis net zero research and future of housing.
We are open to a range of practices and approaches, and will work closely with the selected artist to develop the project over 18 months. We are looking for creative / innovative responses and a demonstratable interest in/commitment to the residency themes.
About Energy House 2.0:
Launched in February 2022, Energy House 2.0 is a unique research facility, with two environmental chambers each able to accommodate two full sized detached houses. The research team can recreate a variety of environmental conditions – from extreme temperatures (-20˚C to +40˚C) to simulate wind, rain, snow, and solar radiation – in order to test out the latest innovations in the built environment. The £16m facility, part-funded by the European Research Development Fund (ERDF), is the largest facility of its type and plays a key role in accelerating progress towards low carbon and net zero housing design building upon the success of the original Energy House Laboratory which opened in 2012.
The residency will include access to the Energy House 2.0 facilities and the following live research projects:
EHome 2 a research project run by Saint-Gobain UK and Ireland, in partnership with Barratt Developments, to create a blueprint for future homes.
Future Home an experimental eco house built by Bellway a housebuilding company.
This residency builds on our pilot residency Are You Living Comfortably? by McCoy Wynne which was presented in Liverpool in Jan 2022, and is currently in New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery as part of the Salford LOOK 22 Hub.
Image of Energy House 2.0 under constrution. Courtesy McCoy Wynne.
Expectations/Outputs:
There will be opportunities to present work, or work in progress, as follows:
Open Eye Gallery: LOOK Photo Biennial – Labs – Liverpool Jan/Feb 2024
There is an artist fee of £20,000 per residency, to include VAT (if payable) all expenses, materials, production of new work and exhibition and acquisition.
There is a modest additional budget for engagement and communication across the project.
It is anticipated that each residency will last around 18 months.
We will agree an appropriate schedule of work with the selected artists, however the fee is based on an expectation of averaging about one day a week.
Accessibility:
Please let us know if you have any access requirements that we can help you with during the application process. We will work with the selected artist to support accessibility requirements or reasonable adjustments during the project. Access needs will be discussed after interview stage.
To express interest, please supply: – A short statement explaining your interest in this opportunity and what you might like to achieve (no more than 500 words) – Your CV/ link to your biography – Up to four images that might support your application
Please send your application in standard file formats (e.g Word, PDF and JPEG). Please do not send very large files or Wetransfer/Dropbox/etc as these may not reach our inbox.
CLOSING DATE: Monday 28th November 2022
INTERVIEWS: will be held on Wednesday 7th December in person at the University of Salford. We will endeavour to let all applicants know whether or not they have been shortlisted by Friday 2nd December.
Please send your application with the subject line “Energy 2.0 Residency Application” to: r.t.pritchard (at) salford.ac.uk by 11.59pm on Monday 28th November.
For further information please contact: Rowan Pritchard as above.
Artist-in-residence Gwen Riley-Jones has been working with the University of Salford Art Collection since 2021, using the Collection as a starting point to engage with young people about what matters most to them.
As part of the LOOK Photo Biennial 2022: Climate at the University of Salford, a digital showcase of three series of images created in collaboration with young people and communities across Salford is on display in the New Adelphi Building Atrium. These include:
Planting for the Planet – images of chlorophyll prints exhibited for the first time;
Salford LGBTQ+ Youth Groups – images created during photography workshops on the day of Salford Pride during Youth Week August 2022,
Salford Youth Council x Tindall Street Allotments – images created when Youth Council teamed up with an allotment run by and for military veterans.
Planting for the Planet was produced collaboratively with youth environment group Action for Conservation, in partnership with RHS Garden Bridgewater. Together they explored how art and creativity can help communicate issues around climate change.
Image: Daniel, Planting for the Planet
Using socially-engaged photography practice and sustainable plant-based printing methods, the group produced a series of images originally shown at RHS Garden Bridgewater in Summer. The photographs on display were taken by group members exploring their own relationships to natural environments; including green tinted portrait images made using spinach juice instead of ink, on recycled paper.
Alongside the digital showcase in New Adelphi, there is a physical display of the spinach prints (anthotypes) alongside a series of chlorophyll prints; a method of creating a photographic print within a leaf using naturally occurring light-sensitive pigments.
Gwen adds: “During my residency I have also been working with groups of young people in partnership with Salford Youth Service, together we have explored wellbeing and ways of using photography and nature to connect and feel better.
Image: LGBTQ+ Youth Groups Salford
The digital showcase presents a series of images created by members of Salford’s LGBTQ+ Youth Groups during a photography workshop as part of Salford Pride celebrations in August 2022. I met many enthusiastic and talented photographers during the workshops, and we are discussing ways we can work together again in the future.
As part of my ongoing collaboration with Salford Youth Council there is a selection of images included in the digital display created when the group helped out at Tindall Street Allotments, during the summer holidays. The allotment is run by Vinny Nield and a group of Military Veterans. Vinny and the team shared their knowledge of plants and growing with the group, as well as getting them involved in the practical aspects of running an allotment. The group created photographs to explore this environment and the positive effects on both mental and physical health.”
Image: Hayden, Salford Youth Council
Additionally, there is a second physical display of the ‘Photowalk for Wellbeing’ created in collaboration with Salford Youth Council. The photowalk activity is for anyone who wants to take some time out to take ‘notice, connect and feel better’.
The group created the prompts by responding to photographs they had taken in and around Salford. They created an accessible design, taking into account the needs of people with dyslexia.
Image: Salford Youth Council creating the Photowalk for Wellbeing, Gwen Riley Jones
Image: Example prompt card from the Photowalk for Wellbeing
The cards are displayed in an open vitrine for you to pick up and take on your own Photowalk for Wellbeing, alone or with friends. Share with us by tagging us in the images @uos_artcollection@salfordyouthcouncil@gwenrileyjones
Gwen will also be hosting a guided Photowalk for Wellbeing on Thursday 10th November 2.00-3.00pm, starting in the New Adelphi Building Atrium.
To book tickets for the Photowalk or the launch event on 3rd November, and for more information on the other exhibitions on display click here.
I was lucky enough to be invited to write and reflect upon the work of the many-faceted South African artist Albert Adams, including a brief delve into his archives which are held at the University of Salford Art Collection. An opportunity also arose for me to produce an essay on Adams for Art UK, which you can read here. In that piece I took an introductory approach to the artist, reflecting my own learning, and in this piece I wanted to take a more eclectic approach, allowing me to range between themes and pieces that grabbed my imagination. From learning to yearning, you might say. That’s not just down to my own taste, but also because Adams’ output is not at all linear in its development, though there are themes that he returns to again and again – violence, self, power, nature – in fractured and inconclusive ways. I’m interested in the materials, anecdotes and images that merge/emerge in his work, from forgotten works to the frequent appearance of the artist’s own face, to queer contexts, to the mischievous frightening ape that sits atop it all.
– Greg Thorpe, Oct 2022
‘Hung where they had been painted’
I want to start with an image that might seem innocuous at first. In his short book on Albert Adams, ‘Notes about a Friend’, the renowned Salford artist Harold Riley recalls a visit he once made to Adams’ family in South Africa. He took tea with Albert’s mother and sister in their home, “a simple house in a community, similar to a local council estate in England.”:
as we sat in the room, I saw something from the window. Behind the house was a yard bounded by two sturdy brick outbuildings. I saw something on the walls and went out to discover two paintings of great power and energy. They were hung where they had been painted, and although covered by a kind of veranda, they were open to the elements. I mentioned this to Albert’s sister who nodded but was clearly at a loss as to what to do.
Riley’s discovery is poignant and without conclusion. He later mentions the paintings to Albert’s partner, Ted, who already seems aware of their existence. Were they paintings from Albert’s young life, or had he painted them on a later visit to his family? It’s conceivable that Adams drew and painted everywhere he went, as he seems to have been extremely dedicated to his work. Did he travel to his mother’s house with blank canvases, then back to London without them? Or did he buy materials on arrival in South Africa without worrying what would happen to the abandoned paintings once they were left behind, when light and moisture, wind and weather took its gradual toll? This too is conceivable – Riley himself recalls how Adams only kept “five or six pieces of any significance” from their time together at the Slade School in London. Perhaps the works were meant as a gift for his mother, for the garden, to surprise and intrigue visitors to the house, exactly as they have done.
What was “the great power and energy” Harold Riley saw in the paintings? Where are they now? Why does this odd mention of the two unclaimed veranda paintings linger? Firstly it suggests a sense of abundance to Adams’ output – that there will always be more paintings to come. There is also a forlorn feeling about Riley’s discovery – a sense that perhaps nobody quite knew what to do with Albert’s work, then or now. Are the pieces really ‘unclaimed’ though? What would ‘claiming’ them mean? There is an acquisitiveness to this response, a sense of wanting – to keep, restore, recoup, save. Who says the work of a Black/Indian artist is better off in a gallery or archive setting that is part of a white-dominated art structure than it is hanging where it has been painted in the warm breeze of a Cape Town backyard owned by two women who loved him? Perhaps there is a colonialist mindset at play in wanting to ‘claim’ the work – and a resistance to it in the casualness of what is ‘left behind’.
Notes on the many self-portraits of Albert Adams
Look closely at your lines again –
Your life comes back through them
– ‘Self Portrait 1956’, Jackie Kay
1956, etching on paper: Side-on view, high collar and quiff, almost coquettish this look, giving soft butch like a young Black James Dean (it’s the year of Giant). 26 or 27. High youthful cheekbones elegantly rendered with cartographic contour lines. Are these ‘the lines of South Africa etched in your face’ that Jackie Kay describes? Pristine mouth. Shy cruising eye.
1956, drypoint etching: You first scratch the image onto metal (copper or zinc) then smooth over generously and neatly with ink, then the paper is pressed to plate giving life to the image in its new iteration. Draw the lines nearer together for density or darkness – but the dour expression is all the artist’s own. Glum. Perplexed? I think etched at night in a small hot room.
1958, woodcut: New etching techniques bring out Picassan facial features and a feeling of accomplished looking. Minotaur. Simian. Up-lit but emitting darkness. What has happened in these two years? Deft, dynamic – derivative? – but also daring. What does it mean for an African artist to take back what Picasso took from African art? How can we sense so well that black and white represent the same kind of skin in this image?
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1956, etching on paper.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1956, drypoint etching.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1958, woodcut.
1958, oil on canvas: Experimenting with colours in oil. Handsome in his vest, such an image ahead of its time – this could be Soho trade lit behind the window of a bar in the 90s. Fast strokes and furious curious lines. Something anticipates Basquiat in the carnival of colours going on behind the scenes. A pretty boy offering us his best side under Tibetan flags. A paperback anthology of rad young poets of colour.
1960, sugar lift aquatint: Ever the technician, hungry for new materials. Back to black, zinc and ink, real sugar, gouache and gum. Sounds thick and sticky but the results give something Grecian and elegant. Is Adams trying to learn each new stage of his craft in solitude – hence his own face over and again? – or does each portrait demand a different form in which to say something new about himself? Introspection. Be still. Focus. Albert falls into shadow here and the eyes seem to go … nowhere. But London is outside your window, Albert!
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1958, oil on canvas.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1960, sugar lift aquatint.
1960, print: A dead-on pose for once, with lustrous hair and direct eye contact. Like a bathroom mirror beginning to fog up and drip. There are no two portraits alike, because no two days alike? What was kept and what was thrown away, and why, in these years? Adams becoming the Expressionistic printmaker capturing his own cool stare and solemnity, but there is chaos here too – in the energy of the hair that might also be the brain, the mind.
1961, etching and aquatint: 1961, the year of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, South Africa exiting the Commonwealth, Yuri Gagarin entering outer space. Albert’s face here seems to consist of pressings of bark and clay, such texture and tactility. It wants to be touched. Those pale slashes seem like a kind of solarization of matter somehow. This work would be made on an iPad today. It’s the hands that I think are the masterpiece of design and suggestion and structure. Look at that network of metacarpal and knuckle and nail. The busy hands of the artist. Is that a knife or a brush too? Hands as crucial as the face.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1960, print.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1961, etching and aquatint.
Queer considerations in the work of Albert Adams
but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
– ‘What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why’, Edna St Vincent Millay
There is a Filofax belonging to Albert Adams which resides in the archive of the University of Salford Art Collection. Adams purchased the Filofax in 1986 and it seems to have remained in use by the artist for at least a decade. In amongst the home addresses for an international circle of friends – Brisbane, Preston, Johannesburg, Bombay, Alicante and Devon in just a page or two – and his London restaurants of choice, from Gujarati to Chinese, Brick Lane to New Oxford Street – there is an Edna St Vincent Millay poem that has been written out by Albert in longhand. I’ve quoted from it above.
I delve into the Filofax hoping to encounter something intimate and revealing, and honestly, hopefully, something gay. I wonder if his personal materials might offer a queer aspect to works that at first glance seem to say little about sexuality or gender or desire. What are we looking for, exactly, when we are looking for something queer anyway, either in a Filofax or in a body of work? And why? The word ‘lads’ makes itself known abruptly in Millay’s poem, reproduced in full in Albert’s handwriting. What goes through his mind when he is writing ‘unremembered lads’? Does he have any of his own? In Albert’s decade of bound leather, there is sometimes a man’s first name with no address or surname, only a phone number. Ask any gay man who he thinks those men might be. Then there is the occasional man’s name that has been crossed out. Entered, and then crossed out, sometime between the mid-80s to the mid-90s, in a gay man’s address book, in London. Ask a gay man what he thinks might have happened to those men. (It’s worth saying that the campest thing in the Filofax is the presence of Valerie Singleton’s home address, by the way.)
These things are only traces. They represent what I call ‘yearning’ – the desire to be connected to our queer forebears. I explore these kinds of things in my fiction, but perhaps it’s better for us to consider a different and broader picture in a queer placement of Albert Adams’ practice. For one thing, his long-term partnership with Ted Glennon is the reason we have access to the work in the first place. The fact of Adams’ romantic and sexual life is already a frame through which I have had access his art. I find this touching, as I find the relocation of his work from London to Salford pleasing. London usually gets everything, and it costs nothing to Albert’s work to house it in Salford. It’s not anchored to place in that way. That’s not to say Adams himself is placeless, only that his work holds a strong meaning through and beyond geography – it is British art, migrant art, South African, South Asian, global majority, post-colonial, diasporic, exilic work. It is also European art, and formally trained art, it is of its time and sometimes strangely timeless.
And is it also gay art? Queer art? The position of Adams as political subject must also include his marginalised sexuality. I reflect that even if he is not exactly in exile as such from South Africa while he is painting, he has rejected its white supremacy and its attempted denigration of his mixed ancestry, besides the fact that all queer subjects have existed in some state of exile from their heteronormative societies. The political affiliations of the queer subject are fluid because our adherence to the status quo is deliberately tentative and troubled/troubling. Adams is also a terrific stylist and technician who loves exploring new skills, and his influences are broad and very apparent. Is this magpie-like manoeuvring between schools and styles a queer thing? As in, outsider? As in, a non-adherence? As in, anything you can do I can do better? The works in Adams catalogue that we think of as Expressionist seem able to both collapse and splinter identity and we have seen how restless and rigorous was Adams’ reproduction of his own face, his own body as a subject. Gender and sexuality are maybe a distraction. More interesting is this sense of multiplicity in Adams’ work, of style and point of view and influence. Something non-normative that defies the white gaze (or even gays…)
Monkey on your back
A faintly ludicrous Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man’, tells the tale of an ageing man with a much younger fiancée who succumbs to quack science in a bid to regain some youthful invigoration for his forthcoming marriage. His method is to ingest drugs derived from the bodies of primates. The unfortunate side-effects include walking around on his knuckles, scaring pets, and shimmying up the ivy at the side of his house in the dead of night. In the illustrated Conan Doyle book of my childhood, the image accompanying this story was a kind of hideous gothic chimera of the old man in full-on monkey-mode, hunched and screaming upon being discovered by Holmes and Watson. This is the image that came roaring up from my subconscious on first seeing Albert Adams series of primate images. What is the ape doing here?
Adams’ ape most likely has its origins in the childhood stuffed toy that he brought with him from South Africa to England, and which now lives, somewhat forlornly, in the archives at The University of Salford Art Collection. In Conan Doyle’s story, the primate influence inside the old man represents the lust that he hopes to revive for his new marriage. And Adams ape? It seems to shapeshift and hold multiple meanings. In ‘Ape’ (2004) the stuffed toy has been touchingly reanimated into life, long-faced, and lovingly rendered, if unfinished, with dozens of fur-like strokes, benign and likeable. But it doesn’t remain tamed. ‘Ape with a Flag on a Skeletal Figure’, produced in the same year, sees the beast riding on another creature’s back as if in a victorious death march, with a black flag held aloft, its fur a kind of wild furze, while its beast of burden is an unidentifiable four-legged living skeleton.
Albert Adams, Ape, 2004, etching.
Albert Adams, Ape with a Flag on Skeletal Figure, 2004, etching and aquatint.
These ghoulish roles are then reversed for ‘Skeleton Electrocuting An Ape’, an etching that images precisely that title, the sinister twist being that the skeleton also appears to be a post-mortem ape, animated in death, and conducting some kind of hideous painful experiment on the screaming ape, its living relative. Is the ape our metaphor, our other? The cruelty it conducts is recognisably a human endeavour, so why would any metaphor be necessary? Look again at the suffering monkey’s face too and it may itself seem more human than you first thought. What is going on in these diabolical constructs? The commentary is perverse and discomfiting. Is it about racism and/or violence, animal experimentation, or is it an accompaniment to Adams’ ongoing nightmarish imagery of carceral suffering?
This latter seems more possible when we encounter ‘Ape on a skeletal figure: Darfur’ in which the skeletal figure bears an ape upon its back that seems to be composed of only shadows. Is it a cruel spirit? Again the black flag of death billows ahead. An ape in art is often shorthand for a kind of malcontent spirit, engaged in anything from simple trouble-making to evil intentions. The stripping-down to a skeleton draws ape and man closer together, we see ourselves more clearly in one another at the level of bone. Placing our own evil outside ourselves and into the body of the ape is a diversion. What the ape represents can always be us, the old, uncivilised portion of the brain that not only bonds and breeds, but kills and screams in the forest at night. These images seem to emerge from the very back of the mind, like Conan Doyle’s monkey-man did for me. They are troublesome, and by the time they take their place in ‘Ape on a standing man’, they are seemingly the ones in charge.
Albert Adams, Skeleton Electrocuting and Ape, date not known, etching.
Albert Adams, Ape on a Skeletal Figure: Darfur, 2004, etching and aquatint.
Greg Thorpe is a writer, curator and creative producer. His art writing has appeared in On Curating, FRUIT, Feast, Double Negative, Artist Newsletter and The Fourdrinier. He has written about art for the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, HOME Manchester, and Salford Museum & Art Gallery. His fiction has appeared in Best British Short Stories, Foglifter and Ellipsis. He works for Islington Mill, an independent artist community in Salford, and is currently Festival Director for GAZE International LGBTQ+ Film Festival. He divides his time between Dublin and Todmorden.
The University of Salford Art collection holds a substantial collection of Albert Adams’ work and archives, acquired with the support of the Art Fund and made possible by the generosity of Edward Glennon.
Albert Adams: In Context is supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and by a donor funded Salford Advantage Grant.
The University of Salford Art Collection is pleased to present three new photography projects which respond to the climate crisis, environmental issues, and sustainable living, for the LOOK Biennial 2022.
Duo McCoy Wynne share work from their residency at Energy House – the University’s world-leading research facility exploring energy efficiency at home. Artist and lecturer Megan Powell presents ongoing work around bees, pollinators and wildflowers – considering the importance of ecosystem habitats. Art Collection artist-in-residence Gwen Riley Jones shares images from her work with local youth groups, using plant-based methods and socially-engaged practice to address topics of nature and wellbeing.
For further exhibition info and our events programme – including and online talk, wellbeing photo-walk, and exclusive tour of the Energy House research facilities –visit our LOOK Hub page here.
We’ll also be announcing an exciting new artist residency opportunity at the brand new Energy House 2 facility – join us on the launch to find out more!
