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Aird is a photographer and art director based in Manchester, working across fine art, photography, and commercial and editorial work. Her work has been featured by the United Nations, Redeye: The Photography Network, and Lomography. She recently published two zines: Only Fans and Lost and Styled. This work also featured at the University of Salford Art Collection booth at The Manchester Contemporary 2023.

Entropy, 2021
Photographic Print
Katie Aird (2021/22)

Aird utilises 35mm photography and experimental techniques to explore cycles of life, death, and infinite energy. Her work is inspired by the concept of ‘entropy’ from thermodynamics – which concerns energy, order and disorder – and how it relates to human psychology. Original images of flowers – which symbolise the cycles of nature and regeneration that are part of everyday life – are distorted through a process of ‘scanography’ – using a flatbed scanner as a camera to manipulate light and form in unexpected ways.

Adekola was born in 1983. He is a Nigerian artist currently living in Manchester. His work is informed by post-colonial narratives, through painting, installation, and drawing, he uses elements of contemporary and historical material to explore themes of migration, globalisation, identity politics, equality, diversity, and inclusivity. He has exhibited work internationally including in London and Nigeria.

“It was a real joy to spend time with Suraj during his time on the Scholars programme. Perhaps more importantly it was great to see his work and thinking develop. His recent series of works The Treasure (2024) made with Adire (tie-dye) fabric, spray paints, and oil sticks on canvas retain the attitude of the first works that I saw by him but they also display an evolving sense of confidence in the way he is working with his mix mediums. I look forward to seeing him continue to be as ambitious with his work in the future, as I’m sure he will be.“

~Matthew Pendergast, Curator at Castlefield Gallery

We Should All Be Blacks 6, 2022
Mixed Media
Suraj Adekola (2022/23)

This work is part of a series titled We Should All Be Blacks, which Adekola began during his 2022 MA studies. The artist uses the traditional ‘Adire’ fabric as the foundation of the work – a popular indigenous tie-dyed fabric made in his hometown of Egbaland, Abeokuta (the ‘capital of Adire-making’ in Nigeria). The artist deconstructs, fragments, weaves and stitches the material together, creating vibrant forms and patterns inspired by Cubism. On the surface he uses spray paint, oil stick, and bleach to draw figurative and abstract motifs. This stitching together of fragmented forms and varied mediums symbolises a deep-seated desire for belonging and inclusion, ‘mirroring the Black experience – a tapestry woven from diverse threads’. The work and material are imbued with personal narrative, memories, cultural references, and celebrates art as a way to share Black histories.

In-conversation event
Friday 14th September 2024
2 – 3:30 pm
Castlefield Gallery
Ticketed event | limited free tickets available

An in-conversation event between both writers, and artists Jeffrey Knopf and Theo Simpson will be deep diving into the current exhibition on the 14th September, 2-3:30pm at Castlefield Gallery.

Clare O’Dowd (Research Curator at the Henry Moore Institute) and Duncan Woolridge (Writer and Curator, and Reader in Photography at SODA, MMU) have produced texts in response to both Jeffrey Knopf and Theo Simpson’s works; commissioned by the University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery for the 40 Years of the Future: Where Should We Be Now? exhibition.

Read them below:

Jeffrey Knopf, The Closest I Got to Freud’s Desk, 2024 – Essay by Clare O’Dowd

Theo Simpson – Essay by Duncan Woolridge

Our friends at Salford Museum and Art Gallery are running some Hybrid Futures activities alongside their Summer Holiday programme.

Junk Model Insects

Tuesday 30th July 2024

Make a minibeast in junk modelling sessions and pick up a self-led insect hunt to use in the park afterwards.

Find out more here!

Raindrop Mobiles

Tuesday 6th August 2024

Make a raindrop mobile in a workshop inspired by the beautiful artwork in the Hybrid Futures exhibition.

More information here!

Hedgehog Footprint Tunnel Workshop

Tuesday 13th August 2024

Come and meet the University’s Sustainability Team, find out about how we can help our spiky friends and all things related to hedgehog conservation.
Contribute to making a hedgehog footprint tunnel, which will help track hedgehogs in the local area. You can also help place them on Salford University campus – which is a Gold accredited hedgehog friendly campus.

Book at this link!

Design your own Garden Diorama

Tuesday 20th August 2024

Make a mini model of a garden or other green open space.

Book here!

Make a Worry Doll

Tuesday 27th August 2024

Make a worry doll in our workshop to share your worries with and take home some simple but positive ideas on how you can help the planet in your everyday life. To reduce waste this workshop will use materials left over from previous activities.

More information and tickets available here!

Images kindly provided to us by Salford Museum and Art Gallery.

July 2024

Each year, a number of bespoke scholarships are awarded to graduating students from the University of Salford School of Arts, Media, and Creative Technology, through a scheme led by The University of Salford Art Collection in partnership with Castlefield Gallery. This year we are delighted to welcome fine art products company Wallace Seymour as a partner in the scheme, supporting a new Painting Scholarship.

Aiming to support graduates to begin their careers in the art sector, each 12-month award includes a tailored package of support which can include: studio space, mentoring, coaching, research trips, and a bursary for materials, equipment or research travel.

For the 2024 cohort we are pleased to announce Grecia Balassone, India Buxton, Iqra Saied, Jess Robinson and Robin Standring. Find out more about each artist below.

“The Scheme has supported over 50 artists across 10 years, and it has been a joy to see each artists’ practice and career develop over time. The standard of applications was as high as ever this year and is always a difficult choice. However we are delighted to welcome Grecia, India, Iqra, Jess and Robin this year and look forward to supporting them. We are also particularly grateful for Wallace Seymour for sponsoring the scheme this year, and taking part in the selection process” – Assistant Curator, Stephanie Fletcher

Grecia Balassone
Grecia is from the BA (Hons) Fine Art degree, and will be recieving a studio placement at Paradise Works.

“I am a multidisciplinary artist, experimenting with a range of ways to tell the stories surrounding a subject. Due to my lived experiences of immigration, neurodivergence, and developmental trauma, my work explores themes of identity, nostalgia, community and belonging.
My research approach is immersive. I like to understand the themes I work with from first-hand experience, or the closest to that I am possibly able to get. I find people to be a great source of information, and with stories worth telling. I am also interested in preservation (of history, memories, media, processes), which leads me to create my own archives.”

Grecia Balassone

India Buxton
India is also from BA (Hons) Fine Art, and has earned the Wallace Seymour Painting Scholarship.
“My practice is interested in exploring the representation and depiction of ancient folklore and mythology in the 21st century. My work draws upon the theories of ancient Greek Philosopher Plato and the ancient stories of their time. The figurative paintings reappropriate old stories into a new visual language that a modern audience can find their own narratives within. These paintings display my chosen stories, which are then modernised into personification of moral fables.“

India Buxton

Iqra Saied
Iqra is from BA (Hons) Photography and will be one of the first to be given a studio placement at Castlefield Gallery New Art Space in Warrington.

“Portrait photography is a powerful medium to explore ideas of culture, identity and engage in contemporary debates. ‘Unfamiliar’ starts from my own personal experience of dual heritage.
As a British Pakistani, I feel closer to my home in Manchester than I do to Pakistan and these feelings are often difficult to navigate. I have collaborated with Hafsah, Caitlin and Rohan who resonate with the project and understand the sense of guilt associated with not knowing enough about the other place. The photographs aim to communicate the difficulty in building a sense of belonging with a place you have no knowledge of. However, accepting who you are is the best journey of self-discovery. I hope people of dual heritage will find inspiration to embrace their identity and celebrate their heritage.”

Iqra Saied

Jess Robinson
Jess comes from the Visual Communication MA, and will be given a studio placement at Islington Mill.
“My current work now draws upon an interest in ancient eastern philosophy and spirituality that provides a refreshing contrast to modern, western values. Using predominantly black and white photography, I am producing imagery which attempts to visualise hidden moments of balance and moments of presence within the live music scene, against the chaos of movement and sound. These images sit alongside my own immersion and connection to natural spaces as an anti-dote to the chaos, finding a common ground and relationship between the two settings. My hope is that through practicing a mindful and connected approach to my creative process, I can step out of conditioned patterns and follow a more intuitive path.”

Jess Robinson

Robin Standring
Robin comes from BA (Hons) Fine Art and will be using the facilities at Hot Bed Press.

“My practice revolves around exploring my own identity, primarily the experiences and interactions I have as a transgender individual, focusing on the aspect of being ‘stealth’ within society today. Being ‘stealth’ in the terms of being transgender, is to live as the gender you identify with but not being openly out as trans, something many trans individuals do in order to avoid discrimination.
Through the use of an avatar affectionately named Baghead which I have created in my own self-image, I insert him in a variety of environments and scenarios, often mundane, in which almost everyone experiences, regardless of their race, gender or class; such as waiting for the bus, falling asleep on the train or even standing outside during a fire alarm.”

Robin Standring

To coincide with the celebration of Harold Riley’s life through the Every Line Is Me exhibition at Salford Museum and Gallery (April 2024 – April 2025) we have installed 4 works from the University of Salford Art Collection in The Old Fire Station Bakery this Summer.

Harold Riley work on display in The Old Fire Station.
Right to left: St Luke’s Church, Seedley (1975), charcoal and chalk. City Motorway (1977), pastel over lithography. Building by the Railway, Trafford Park (1976), chalk pastel. View of Manchester from Salford (1975), gouache and chalk.
Photographed by Sam Parker.

Artist Harold Riley was born in Salford in 1934. After studying at the Slade School of Art, London, and undertaking scholarships in Spain and Italy, he returned to Salford and lived and worked here until his passing in 2023. He dedicated much of his practice to documenting life in Salford and Greater Manchester – from both everyday urban streetscapes to portraits of local sporting stars – particularly at Manchester United FC. Further afield, he also achieved success with portraits of Nelson Mandela, John F Kennedy, and other important public figures.

The University of Salford Art Collection holds more than 100 paintings, drawings, and mixed media artworks by Riley, including local landscapes that capture the changing skylines of Salford and Manchester for over 60 years. Some places, views, and landmarks are still visible today; whilst others have been lost over time to new developments and regeneration.

Do you recognise the locations of City Motorway or View of Manchester from Salford? Get in touch with us by email or Instagram! Photograph it, tag us, let us know how these places have changed over the years.

The 4 works are on display at the Old Fire Station until the end of July 2024. We have also loaned a number of works to the display at Salford Museum & Art Gallery; please visit their website for opening times.

Haven’t visited the Old Fire Station Bakery yet? It’s the newest venue on campus, open to staff students and the public. The cafe, bar and bakery serves speciality coffee, homemade breads and bakes, and a delicious breakfast and lunch menu – including sustainable and locally-sourced options. From 4pm you can also enjoy craft beers, pop-up kitchen vendors, and a range of events from quizzes to live music. Visit the Bakery website for more info and full opening times!

Every Line is Me, Salford Museum & Art Gallery – opening night.
Photographed by Sam Parker.

“Bringing together all of Harold’s many disciplines and subject matter including painting, drawing, digital fusions, and photography. It tells the story of the man, showing works that portray places and people that were important to him. There are quotes from the artist that help illustrate the person Harold was, the legacy that he leaves behind, and the strong connection he had with the City of Salford.“

Every Line is Me at Salford Museum and Gallery celebrates Riley’s life and includes several loans from the University of Salford Art Collection (open 19^th April 2024 – 27^th April 2025; see Museum for full opening days and times).

Opportunity Samarbeta Open Call Residency

Responding to the Hybrid Futures Exhibition at Salford Museum & Art Gallery
DEADLINE: 5pm, 15th July 2024.
Click here to apply.

We are excited to share a new open call opportunity for musicians to respond to the Hybrid Futures exhibition at Salford Museum and Art Gallery. The exhibition is the culmination of a three-year project consisting of a series of exhibitions across the North West of England featuring new work and commissions by visual artists Shezad Dawood, Jessica El Mal, Parham Ghalamdar and RA Walden that address the urgent thematic focus of climate change. Hybrid Futures is a partnership between Castlefield Gallery Manchester; Grundy Art Gallery Blackpool; Touchstones Rochdale; University of Salford Art Collection; and Shezad Dawood Studio, exploring collective and more sustainable ways of working that will influence how the partnership commissions, exhibits and collects new work by visual artists to benefit and be more relevant to their audiences, now and in the future.

This open call is looking for a musician(s) to respond to the Hybrid Futures themes and/or work created by the visual artists, to create a new live presentation to be premiered in Salford Museum and Art Gallery on the opening night of Fat Out Fest.

How to apply:

To read the full information about the opportunity and application process, click here to visit the Samarbeta website.

This opportunity is co-commissioned by Samarbeta, IKLECTIK and Hybrid Futures.

Samarbeta is an artist-led music residency program that exists to offer musicians the time and space away from everyday constraints to produce new and exciting work that otherwise would never be able to be realised. Its meaning is ‘to collaborate’ but this is not a stipulation of each residency. Since forming in 2014 we have worked with musicians such as Lydia Lunch, Moon Duo, Charles Hayward, Stealing Sheep, Ex Easter Island Head, DRS, Laura Cannell, BBC Philharmonic & Thurston Moore.

Founded in 2014, IKLECTIK is a nonprofit creative organisation based in London. IKLECTIK focuses on experimentation within sound, art, new media, emerging technologies and cross disciplinary works. Their research initiatives and collaborations with academic institutions inform our curation and event selection. Through this, they explore processes and techniques whilst addressing social, political and cultural issues

Hybrid Futures, a multi-part collaboration focusing on climate, sustainability, collaborative learning and co-production between Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, Touchstones Rochdale, University of Salford Art Collection and Shezad Dawood Studio, and generously supported by Arts Council England and Art Fund with additional funding from Henry Moore Foundation.

Two new pieces of writing in response to the debut of The Conductor, a brand new performance artwork developed by Mishka Henner as part of his Energy House 2.0 artist residency. You can now read reviews from Lizzie King and Jack Nicholls for Corridor8.

The Conductor captivated audiences at Sounds From the Other City 2024 by translating live lightning data into electrifying percussion. Set in a reverberation chamber at the University of Salford Acoustics Department, The Conductor is the result of an 18-month artist residency by Henner at the University of Salford’s Energy House 2.0, a cutting-edge research facility that simulates extreme global climatic conditions under one roof to help design net zero and carbon neutral housing for the future.

Dive into the immersive experience by reading the reviews from Lizzie King and Jack Nicholls here:

The Energy House 2.0 Artist Residency Programme is organised by the University of Salford Art Collection in partnership with Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool as part of the LOOK Photo Biennial, and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, and generously supported by Friends of Energy House Labs.

“At Salford’s Sounds from the Other City music festival I was led across a university campus with nineteen others to an out-of-the-way departmental building. After being shepherded through its corridors, we entered a smoke-dark room where, once we were all inside, drums were beaten deafeningly every time that lightning, somewhere, struck Earth. Then we entered another room, where no sound existed at all.”

– Jack Nicholls, Corridor8

Click here to read the full review of Mishka Henner’s The Conductor on Corridor8.

Quiet … giggles…. disorientation… quiet.… Bang. Bang…. boom

Mishka Henner’s The Conductor was a real experience. From sensory overload to sensory deprivation, Henner played with the way we experience thunder and lightning, sound and visuals.  This is not Henner’s first exploration of visual and sound art but is perhaps his most immersive. The performance began with a guided procession by the theatrical ‘Protector’ who declares, ‘Follow me to all the world’s thunder.’

Every lightning strike in the world is compiled in a click track that is, unbeknown to the audience, playing in the ear of a drummer (Jennifer Walinetski). Led into a pitch-black room the audience experiences a loss of vision which is soon replaced by flashing blue lights illuminating the silhouette of Walinetski who begins to play a set of percussion instruments in response to the undisclosed click track. The sound is overwhelming, all-encompassing, visceral. It fills the space in that all-consuming way that vibrates you to your inner core. It was invasive yet captivating and I could have stayed in there longer. 

We were brought out of that dark room and taken into another. The anechoic chamber is a world-class acoustic research facility at The University of Salford and according to Danny Wong-McSweeny, the facility manager, the second quietest room in the world.  We went into the dark with a click track playing very quietly, the same track that had played in Walinetkski’s ear. Wong-McSweeny turned on a light and gives our group an explanation of the room. Unlike the first room where the large bangs reverberated around and through us, the anechoic chamber is full of foam cubes all over the walls and floors so no sound can reflect. The tiniest whisper from Wong-McSweeny is audible, he demonstrated how as he turned around we could hear his voice less as it had nowhere to bounce off. He turned the light off and again we were in pitch black. The floor is covered in netting, with the bounce of a trampoline and someone in the group asked that no one jump as we stood there in the darkness with the least amount of noise we have ever heard. It was pure silence. It’s pure deprivation of stimuli, bar the slight instability felt standing on the netting. There is no information to take in, but purely experience the lack of.  After hearing such loud sounds the lack really hits you. Again I could have stayed in there longer and hearing Danny’s explanations was fascinating.

Henner is currently artist in residence at Energy House 2.0. Energy House 2.0 collects data looking for ways to create more energy-efficient homes which can work with and withstand weather. Henner here seems to be playing with the data of weather to examine our relationship and experience with it. Weather is after all for us a sensory experience, we feel it, hear it, see it; we are amongst it. In this way The Conductor hit these points, we were amongst it. I think this piece can ask us to think bigger about how on a global scale with the climate emergency, as that ever-present white noise constantly surrounding us, we relate with weather? Is there that awe and respect there when we consider global weather events like the kind of captivation that happens when experiencing sound in this way? Is it something further away and distant, unlike the local rain on our face? The Conductor brings the far into focus and makes it palpable. It held the audience in awe and respect of the power of sound, and it left us talking and posing questions like all good art should.

Lizzie King, 2024

The Conductor was presented on the 5th of May as part of Sounds From The Other City. The Conductor was conceived and directed by Mishka Henner as part of the Energy House 2.0 Artist’s Residency. Organised by the University of Salford Art Collection in partnership with Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool as part of the LOOK Photo Biennial, and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, and generously supported by Friends of Energy House Labs.

The Conductor

Lizzie King is an artist based in Salford who works with photographic methods and sound, currently environmental artist in residence for Open Eye Hub and undertaking an MA in Contemporary Fine Art at the University.

Lizzie King