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The World Photography Organisation is delighted to announce esteemed documentarian and Salford alumnus Craig Easton has been named Photographer of the Year in the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards 2021 for his series Bank Top.

Bank Top, a collaboration with writer and academic Abdul Aziz Hafiz, examines the representation and misrepresentation of communities in northern England, focusing on the tightknit neighbourhood of Bank Top in Blackburn.

The work is a result of the Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery initiative Kick Down the Barriers, a project instigated in response to media reports portraying the town as the ‘the most segregated in Britain’. Seeking to challenge this narrative, the museum invited artists and writers to collaborate with residents of various neighbourhoods and create a robust and authentic representation of their communities.

Over the course of a year the pair worked closely with local inhabitants to explore their stories and experiences through a series of black & white portraits and accompanying texts. These highlight issues around social deprivation, housing, unemployment, immigration and representation, as well as the impact of past and present foreign policy. Their work counters simplistic generalisations and aims to provide context as to how these communities came together and a better understanding of how they thrive together now.

The project forms part of Craig’s wider work in the region including Thatcher’s Children (2nd place, Documentary Projects, 2021 Professional competition), an investigation into the chronic nature of poverty as experienced by three generations of one family and Sixteen, an ambitious project exploring the fears, hopes and dreams of sixteen-year olds across the UK. In 2019 and in partnership with the University of Salford Art Collection, Sixteen’s touring exhibition visited the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery and Atrium on campus and two of Craig’s works were acquired for the University Art Collection.

Mike Trow, Chair of the 2021 Professional competition says: “What is so impressive about this project is the intent, dedication and understanding Craig brings to it. He has worked closely with the writer Abdul Aziz Hafiz to create a complete piece, tacitly acknowledging that for a project as sensitive as this, words matter. These are not people who necessarily asked to be photographed but Craig gained their trust. They look frankly to camera and we see a mutual understanding between documenter and subject. It is the moral weight behind this work that makes it so important and deserving of this prize.”

Craig studied Physics at The University of Salford in the 1980s but fell in love with photography when he joined the camera society in his spare time, regularly satisfying his interest in politics by shooting social issues.

“I went to university to study physics and came out as a photographer,” he said. “For me, photography became my passion and I really didn’t want to do anything else. It was somewhat of a university of life.”

He fully embraced his student days, taking the opportunity to meet people with varying interests. This included former Minister of State for Employment Alok Sharma, who was his “best friend all through university”.

After leaving Salford Craig went to live in London for a long while, kick-starting his career as a photographer for The Independent, before moving back to the North years later. Much of his work is still commissioned from London, as well as further afield in Paris and New York.

Photographer of the Year Craig reveals the past year has been both a challenge and a blessing, as it has given him time to pause and do valued research.  He also thinks this moment in history is an extremely monumental time.

“Coming out of Brexit and the pandemic, the social impact of the last three or four years is going to be phenomenal,” he said. “It is critical that people are out there photographing how we emerge out of this as a society. There are all sorts of things I feel are desperately important to record.”

Winners of the Sony World Photography Awards 2021 are revealed in a celebratory announcement video hosted by CEO of the World Photography Organisation Scott Gray and TV and radio presenter and author Konnie Huq. The video features interviews, behind-the-scenes clips and reactions from winning photographers and is available to view via worldphoto.org/ceremony-2021

Lindsay Taylor, Curator at Salford Art Collection, was also delighted to be a judge in categories aside from Photographer of the Year – you can see her interview in the announcement video.

“I am delighted on so many levels that Craig was selected as Photographer of the Year.  As one of the judges I had to declare a conflict of interest so can’t take any credit for him receiving the award!  However it is so well deserved.  Having worked closely with Craig on the Sixteen Project in 2019 I know how important it is to him to really get under the skin of his subjects, and I love his portraits of Maizi and Awais that now belong in our collection.  Quite apart from the fact he is an alumni of the University, what makes Craig special is that he is a photographer based in the North of England, whose work resonates across the globe.  He shows the world the reality of life for many people living here, but with a sensitivity and deep respect for his subjects that I feel is rather exceptional.” – Lindsay Taylor, Curator.

Visit Craig Easton’s website here: www.craigeaston.com 

Image: Craig Easton

• Up to £1000 cash
• Studio space for up to 12 months
• Mentor support, coaching and guidance
• Professional development opportunities
• Opportunity to have work permanently acquired into the University of Salford Art Collection

The Graduate Scholarship Programme, now in its seventh year, is open for applications for the 2021 cohort.

The 12 month scheme, managed by the University of Salford Art Collection in collaboration with Castlefield Gallery, supports artists in the crucial first year after graduation – providing time, space and resources to continue developing a professional contemporary practice.

The bespoke programme includes: studio space in Salford with one of our partners: Hot Bed Press, Islington Mill, Paradise Works,  support from Redeye The Photography Network – alongside mentoring and cash for materials, travel, or other costs.

Eligibility:
The scheme is only open to University of Salford final year undergraduates from the School of Arts and Media (who are due to graduate or complete their studies in July 2021) – plus there will be a maximum of one scholarship open to an MA graduate (due to graduate or complete in September 2021).

Please note: some details of the scheme are subject to changes in COVID-19 restrictions. Full guidance is included on the application form (below).

Read more about the scheme here, and find out more about our previous scholars here.

APPLY NOW:
Deadline 9.00am 4th May 2021
To apply: Send in your completed application form, plus your CV (up to 2 pages) and image, video or sound files of your work (up to 4 files).
Full details & contact info in the application form:
Click here to download: 2021 Application form

Please contact artcollection@salford.ac.uk for any issues or questions.

Year: 2019
Medium: Digital video
Duration: 12m
Artists: filmmaker Antony Barkworth-Knight, musicians Rob Turner, Sam Healey, Conor Miller and digital strategist Rebecca Rae-Evans.

Homage to the Rain is an artist’s film which celebrates rain around the globe and explores how we react to it and how it changes our lives. Including video clips from every world continent, the film was produced via an open call online for contributors to send mobile phone clips of local rainfall.

The short looped film is set to an original score by musicians Rob Turner (of Manchester jazz group Gogo Penguin), Sam Healey and Conor Miller.

“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?” – Rebecca Rae-Evans, digital strategist for Homage to the Rain.

For more insights to the project, read our guest blog post with Antony Barkworth-Knight here.

Homage to the Rain was co-commissioned for the Collection with Quays Culture. The film premiered at Lightwaves Festival, Salford Quays, in December 2019.

Trailer:

Four exciting new commissions from Salford based artists Jack Brown, Cheddar Gorgeous, Hilary Jack and Lizzie King

The University of Salford Art Collection and Salford Museum & Art Gallery are delighted to announce four new commissions with locally-based contemporary artists for Rediscovering Salford, an exhibition and events programme due to launch in Spring 2021.

Part of a city-wide programme which highlights and celebrates Salford’s green spaces – inspired by the launch of RHS Bridgewater gardens in May 2021 – the exhibition at Salford Museum & Art Gallery will present the new commissions alongside original archive material, photographs, social history objects and historic artworks from the Museum, University, and other collections. Together, they aim to rediscover some of the city’s unique history – and overlooked or forgotten stories – as well as offering new narratives about our local environments.

The new commissions build on existing partnerships with artist-led spaces Paradise Works and Islington Mill, demonstrating a shared, ongoing commitment to supporting emerging, established and early-career practitioners based in the city. Selected in collaboration with the studios are Hilary Jack and Jack Brown from Paradise Works; and Cheddar Gorgeous and Lizzie King from Islington Mill’s creative community. Working variously across sculpture, installation, video, printmaking, photography, and drag performance, the selected artists exemplify the breadth of practice and talent to be found in Salford’s rich arts ecology. As a legacy of the project, elements of all four new commissions will be acquired into the University’s permanent collection.

Rediscovering Salford is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. The wider programme of events, exhibitions and engagement opportunities will be announced later this month.

“We are delighted to be working with Hilary, Cheddar, Jack and Lizzie, and to be collaborating with the University again. Each artist will have a very different approach to the project and we are really excited to see what inspires them. We hope the Rediscovering Salford commissions and exhibition will encourage our visitors to think differently about their local surroundings and green spaces.”
Claire Corrin, Exhibitions Manager, Salford Museum & Art Gallery

“I’m really excited to have the privilege to be taking part in Rediscovering Salford especially as a Salfordian it’s a great opportunity to focus on the beautiful green spaces and their historical, current and cultural significance.”
Lizzie King, Artist & University of Salford Visual Arts graduate (2015)

“We are committed to the development of a thriving cultural ecology in Salford through creating opportunities for artists at all stages of their career.  Both Paradise Works (established 2017) and Islington Mill (established 2000) are key partners for the University – hosting our Graduate Scholarship Scheme and offering further opportunities for our graduates and alumni. 
The evolving partnership with the Museum, and the wider cultural sector in Salford is at the heart of long term strategic plans to develop a cultural quarter in the city.  We very much look forward to working with these artists, and acquiring their work into the Collection”.
Stephanie Fletcher, Assistant Curator, University of Salford Art Collection

About the artists:

Jack Brown, Trinkets (film still), 2018, Video and found objects

Jack Brown works across a range of mediums and methodologies. His work focuses on the ‘overlooked, things that should be given more than a passing glance, moments that would benefit from magnification’. The works he makes are often found, realised, made or placed in the public realm. He also works collaboratively, leading on public realm projects and facilitating artist networks. His practice can be seen as an investigation into ways of making, and how those made objects or moments interact with the world around them.

Jack has exhibited in solo and group shows across the North West, and his work is in a number of private collections in the UK. He has a studio at Paradise Works.

jackbrown.me.uk/

Cheddar Gorgeous, untitled (green/nature/deforestation) (2019)

Cheddar Gorgeous is a drag, boylesque and transformation artist. Their work involves the creation of living spectacles that collage makeup, costume and performance as forms of self-exploration, expression, political action and storytelling. Cheddar has performed in cabarets, festivals and galleries from Hong Kong to California and was also featured on Channel 4’s Drag SOS.

Cheddar worked with Manchester Museum as part of their LGBTQ+ programme, which included a ‘family friendly digital drag show’ Queer Tales: Myths and Monsters (2020), and most recently with Manchester International Festival for their MIF Remote Residency programme during the COVID-19 crisis.

www.instagram.com/cheddar_gorgeous

 

Hilary Jack, No Borders, Mellerstain House 2017, 8 x 9 metre neon. Photo: The Published Image

Hilary Jack works across media in research- based projects, site referential artworks, sculptural installations, and interventions. Her work comments on the politics of place, socio- political issues and the impact of human activities on our planet. The discovery of a found object often triggers ideas for new work, exploring recurring themes within her practice of loss, abandonment, reparation and the human experience.

Hilary has exhibited across the UK and internationally. Her work is in public and private collections and has recently been acquired by The Government Art Collection, Alnoba Sculpture Park USA and Manchester Art Gallery. She is a founder/Director of Paradise Works.

www.hilaryjack.com

Lizzie King, Dust Cloud on Mars, 2016, Chemigram

The narrative of our ‘human centred universe’ is the centre point of Lizzie King’s practice. Her artwork is often inspired by scientific articles and fictional books; and the materials used are often informed by these stories. Lizzie explores the notion that ‘humankind can only see the world through their own eyes’ by creating images of the world around us; using light and the processes of photography and printmaking.

Lizzie graduated with a BA (Hons) Visual Arts at the University of Salford. In 2014, she was awarded a place on the inaugural Graduate Scholarship Programme, run by the University of Salford Art Collection and Castlefield Gallery, and was based at Islington Mill studios.

www.cargocollective.com/lizzieking

Further information:

Launching this autumn, Rediscovering Salford is an ambitious cross-city creative programme that refocuses Salford’s cultural identity through engagement with green spaces. Using the opening of RHS Bridgewater (opening May 2021) as a catalyst, it reframes Salford’s green spaces as ‘cultural spaces’ via a programme of public realm commissions, exhibitions and installations throughout 2021. The main partners are Salford City Council, Salford Museum & Art Gallery, University of Salford Art Collection, RHS Bridgewater, The Lowry and Peel Park.

Salford Museum & Art Gallery exists to collect and preserve Salford’s heritage and art collections, making them available for all through exhibitions, events, education and outreach.
Rediscovering Salford builds on a growing collaboration between Salford Museum & Art Gallery and the University of Salford Art Collection, including exhibitions Print UnLtd (2018), Acquired: a Century of Collecting (2018-19) and Everything I Have Is Yours (2019).

Islington Mill was founded in 2000 and is an artist-led creative space, arts hub and community. Housed in a 5-storey Georgian textile mill, it is home to more than 50 creative businesses and over 100 artists and delivers a programme of public art, residencies, music, events and exhibitions.

Established in 2017, Paradise Works is an artist-led studio community of 35 contemporary visual artists, a project space and gallery in Salford. They host a critically engaged programme of exhibitions and film screenings, showcasing works from new and established artists working nationally and internationally.

The University of Salford Art Collection is an ambitious and growing collection of modern and contemporary art, founded c.1968. The Collection aims to support excellence in teaching, research, community engagement and artist development; and actively acquires new work through a ‘commission to collect’ approach.

Mandy Cleveland
Back of the Envelope series (2020-ongoing)
Drawings on found paper

In collaboration with Hot Bed Press, we are pleased to share new work by Manchester-based artist Mandy Cleveland, one of six new co-commissions for the Collection during Covid-19.

Here, Mandy talks with Stephanie Fletcher, Assistant Curator, about making new drawings that reflect on a personal and global sense of uncertainty during the pandemic.

Read more about Mandy’s project here, and more about the Covid commissions programme here.

Mandy Cleveland, Thorny Burr (2020) Drawing on found papers

SF: Can you start by telling us a bit about your background and creative practice?

My time is split between my personal practice as a fine artist, and as a community artist delivering sessions for adults and children. Before Covid I’d usually be in my studio at Hot Bed Press most days, either drawing or getting ready for workshops.

I work on my own practice as much as possible, often under the title ‘Back of the Envelope’ which involves hand-drawn compositions on old or found envelopes. I also use printmaking – woodcut in particular.

My community arts workshops are delivered with various organisations including Manchester Libraries and Archives, Zion Community Resource Centre,  LGBT Proud2bParents, HerArt and Manchester Museums. I’ve also worked on funded projects about International Women’s Day, Art for Wellbeing, and to raise awareness of Hate Crime.

I really believe in supporting community through art projects, and believe that art is a powerful tool for healthy mental wellbeing.

SF: Has lockdown affected your approaches – and if so how?

I’ve been working from home a lot more, juggling childcare as a single parent and with work all in a small space with inadequate technology!

I  lost all of my workshops in the community and that’s a very stressful experience when you are self employed as you lose your income. Work did start to come back as organisations wanted online workshops and videos, which meant a completely new approach for me – which was very challenging yet a great sense of achievement when the challenge is met.

Sometimes it feels like we are bombarded with facts and figures [from the news], yet we are isolated in our homes – in some ways we have a ‘double experience’ as these facts and figures get mixed with our own personal memories and moments.  Some people have spoken about how time seemed to move both slowly and quickly – so many things have happened since the end of March it seems like years condensed into months, and all without leaving the house.

In my drawings, I wanted to try and depict this visually and also try to capture a sense of the inaccessibility and confusion, from my own perspective. (Trying to work and provide home-schooling meant getting up at 5.30am to get drawing done!)

SF: You regularly use found papers, e.g the ‘back of an envelope’. There is something quite special about combining these throwaway materials with your very delicate drawing practice. Can you tell us a bit more about the materials you are drawn to?

At a subconscious level a great sense of guilt about spending and waste draws me to draw on the old envelopes and old papers.  I recognise the absurdity of drawing, carefully filling in the space on the back of a worthless piece of paper, but it’s important.

Some envelopes given to me are just junk mail, and others I buy in job lots. Some I find in antique shops and are very old – from 1890 even. I just like that they’re floating around forgotten – almost thrown away, but not quite. The old envelopes have carried news sent by one human to another –  it’s about communication, and these are the carriers of that communication.

In daily life, we might use them to work things out, to write lists on, to remind us about things we may forget.  That’s perhaps one of the things I’m trying to do:  create snapshots of things I might forget, snapshots of the ‘mundane’.

Mandy Cleveland Chairs 2020

Mandy Cleveland Buttercup 2020

SF: Images of nature are a recurring motif in your work. Many of us have been reconnecting with nature during lockdown – from noticing birds on the windowsill, to exploring local green spaces, or growing our own veg. What do these images mean to you?

Nature appears in my work as it’s all around, but specifically it’s more about the eye seeing things.

Noticing a ladybird resting on a blade of grass with outside the laundrette, while about to cross the road to get spare change – it’s not really about grand gestures, it’s about walking around seeing something here and there.

I draw lots of things and put them together – I want to create a feeling of time passing, of not knowing what to do… like someone who might draw things on envelopes.

I’ve written about drawing brambles it’s because  the seemingly endless scribble seems to suit my mood – they’re unruly and dark when you look into a patch of them.  They’re often  unwanted and take over spaces – and hard to get rid of. There’s quite a few in the back yard of the house I’ve moved into, and they seem to have sprung from nowhere.

Birds also occur often in my drawings – particularly black feathered birds because they are reminiscent of the British hedgerow. They’re scratchy and furtive like my drawings – and they may have a tale to tell. In folklore birds are often messengers – coming back to the idea of ‘communication’ in my work.

As a lot of people have said, the first phase of lockdown was a profound and scary experience – but also eerily quiet at times. This means that you do notice nature more, you take time to look around. Sometimes you are just staring at the wall in despair feeling generally awful – then you might notice some insects crawling around in your backyard and it will feel quite poignant!

The facts are that lockdown was better for wildlife, the birds, insects and the atmosphere greatly benefited and seemed to thrive in our absence – and I wanted to reflect on this in my drawings.

SF: Occasionally, people appear in your work too – they seem quiet, thoughtful, waiting. Can you talk a bit more about their presence (or in some cases their absence?)

When we watch people in the street, we build up ideas and stories about them – what are they doing? Where are they going? It’s the same for the people in my drawings – it’s for the viewer  to decide what they’re doing, what they’re waiting for, or who they are. I deliberately set up scenes that seem impassive – creating part of a story and letting the viewer fill in the blanks.

I also started to draw empty chairs during lockdown because, like everyone else,  I’m confined to the house and my resources are limited. I was thinking about how to represent ‘leaving’ a space – and what an empty chair might mean. Is it that we’ve left our chairs behind at work, in the pub, church or community centres – is it a chair of a loved one who is no longer here? Is it a park bench that we walk past, but can’t sit on?

SF: What’s next for your practice?

 I’m still developing this commission – it’s been difficult as I draw a lot and it takes a long time to get ideas or fully formed works.  I have also been back to Hotbed Press studios, and I’m starting some editions from my drawings – as well as continuing projects with the community.

As well as building my website, I’ve been tentatively thinking about animation and video. As someone who mainly works on paper I wouldn’t have ever considered such things before lockdown! The thing about the many stages of lockdown appears that we all have to be quite adaptable – it’s a very surreal and sad time, but creatively some interesting things are happening.

Mandy Cleveland Works in progress (brambles) 2020

Mandy Cleveland Flying stats murmuration (2020)

Cleveland is an artist based in Manchester with a studio at Hot Bed Press. Her fine art practice is being increasingly recognised, alongside her work within local communities with her company Curious Crafty.
https://mandycleveland.com/

Hot Bed Press aims to support artists, promote printmaking and educate a wider audience in printmaking and related arts. It has been based in Salford since 2006, has an ambitious programme of development and is a key player in the Salford and Manchester arts ecology. https://www.hotbedpress.org/

University of Salford Art Collection is an ambitious and growing collection of over 700 works of modern and contemporary art, founded c1968. The Collection is actively developed through new co-commissions, working directly with artists in order to tell a story of now to future generations.

September 2020

In collaboration with Castlefield Gallery, we are pleased to premiere Birds or Borders by Iranian-born, Manchester-based artist Parham Ghalamdar. Usually known for painting, Parham has recently been exploring animation in his practice. Here, he reflects on sound and vision from a painterly perspective with Lindsay Taylor, Curator, University of Salford Art Collection.

Birds or Borders is one of six new co-commissions for the Collection during Covid 19 – read more about the wider programme here, and more about Parham’s work here. The full video is available to watch online below, and will be exhibited at our New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery in 2021. It has also been selected for Warrington Arts Festival in September 2020.

Parham Ghalamdar
Birds or Borders (2020)
Animated video
Duration: 6m12s

Use the arrows in the bottom right to maximize the video player, and make sure your speakers or headphones are turned on.

Q&A With the artist and Lindsay Taylor, Curator, University of Salford Art Collection:

Lindsay: Hi Parham, can you start by telling me about your inspiration for the project?

Parham: Yes of course, I’d be happy to. The aesthetics of the short animation Birds or Borders were preliminarily inspired by the Protect and Survive public information series on civil defence, produced by the British government in late 1970s and early 1980s during the Cold War. The series was intended to inform British citizens on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack, and consists of a mixture of pamphlets, radio broadcasts, and public information films. The Protect and Survive series had originally been intended for distribution only to educate the civilians, but due to lack of context and miscommunication, whether intentionally or mistakenly, they provoked public panic!

Lindsay: without giving away my age I have a vague recollection of that series – and being scared by them. I remember an impending sense of doom, though of course I was too busy being a child to take much interest – I probably saw them as modern day fairy tales! When we commissioned you, we asked you to respond to Covid 19 however you saw fit. Tell me more about your approach.

Parham: During the lock down each and every one of us has experienced a unique context in lack of freedom of movement: people were not authorized to leave their houses. However the restriction of movement is nothing new. Asylum seekers, refugees, immigrants and people holding week passports have been dealing with life- threatening forms of such limitations; Trump’s travel ban is an extreme example of it. Hopefully the Covid situation will help society empathise with people from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

Lindsay: I mentioned fairy tales previously, and it strikes me that story telling is a really important part of your practice?

Parham: Yes that is right. The storytelling methods in the animation are incorporated from the Shahrzad character who is the muse of the One Thousand And One Nights myth. Shahrzad tells a fresh story every day to “forestall death, to postpone the day of reckoning that would silence the narrator” by postponing the punch line to tomorrow. This episodic approach of narrating crystalizes in the animation by picturing a situation and jumping to another one without an ending.

This introduces an opportunity; the animation doesn’t end and more content could be added again anytime. Jumping from one epigram to another and the way each episode connects to the next one, all together, create a mood as if one is watching TV and hysterically changing channels one after another, hoping that there was a good ending to the little absurdist epigram you just watched. 

Lindsay: Quite early on in the process we had a conversation about the use of suspense in film making and storytelling, and I think it works really well in the animation.  Would you like to expand on that?

Parham: Suspense is a technique of promising to say I know something to the story that you don’t and if we keep watching/reading the story I promise to tell you the secret. What if I break my promise? It frustrates the audience. What if there are sequences of promises and each broken with a new promise?

I wanted to see how far I could push the suspense before it became exhausted? Could there be joy alongside the frustration? Such a suspense could be created with being playful with time. It is basically stretching time and breaking it: You have a long and repetitive scene and then a disruption, or the opposite. However, there is an intrinsic value to art that even if we experience frustration and disappointment with the art piece, there is still some level of joy and intellectuality to it. 

Lindsay: I completely agree – and I certainly felt both joy and frustration.  As well as using your own drawings, you also use images found from the internet and stitch them together?

Parham: Yes, I find that searching the internet archives for ready-made videos for making video collages is a bit like hunting – it provokes a primitive sense of searching the forest, or the unknown territories, for the desirable prize or reward. Of course the internet is a chaotic ocean of information. Once the desirable material is found, putting together the collage of the ready-made materials with created drawings feels like putting the internet into order bit by bit. 

We try to rationalize the connection of the things we perceive together even if those two things have come together randomly. Not every act of editing is montage. To montage is to put together two images to achieve the third invisible image. Studying Moscow’s film school VGIK which was the first film school, agitprops, Sergei Eisenstein’s Potemkin Battleship film and Kuleshov’s theories in montage are still highly relevant, even in the context of painting, for producing a disciplined image that functions the way artist expected and needed. 

Producing the Birds or Borders wasn’t a straightforward process, it involved experimenting with the arrangement of the symbolic elements of fences, birds, landscapes and glitch voids to come up with the right pace to create a sense of deferment and frustration. 

Lindsay: Until recently you have really concentrated on painting, I think this is only your second animation?  Can you tell us why this new direction?

Parham: The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary describes ‘absurd’ as a state, where man exists within an irrational and meaningless universe and in which man’s life has no meaning outside of his own existence. In such a world, the very act of searching for meaning pushes the curious man into a more unwanted conflict with his universe. That is the space where my paintings – and now expanded paintings/animations – happen. This is a restless struggle to find reason, order, and above all discipline.

A good example of such behaviour would be The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus protests absurdity by embracing his fate, continuing it, refusing to resign. Perhaps I find painting and continuing to paint an act of co-operating with life without actually being able to come to terms with the displacement. My practice explores painting through a paradoxical trust and mistrust in relation to the aesthetics of Realism and 2D cartoons, and the possible absurdist method of switching between these two codes. Following my Absurdist agendas, the volume of the absurdity is so immense, it strips off elements of narration or storytelling, to encourage the painting/expanded painting/animation to develop its own identity. 

Every time the timeline is switching between the two aesthetics of the stop-motion hand- made drawings and the glitching hazy landscapes, it looks as if the Sisyphus is rolling the stone up to the peak of the mountain, coming back and repeating the cycle. Every time the timeline takes on a quicker pace and gets intense, it looks like Sisyphus is rolling the stone to a higher peak this time. 

Painter goes from point A to point B to create the static painting and it is experienced as a compressed parallel layers of information, perhaps like a time capsule, in a dynamic way at the flattened point of A+AB+B 

Animator goes from point A to point B to create a dynamic time-based animation and it is experienced statically in a manipulated timescale from point A to point B which means the AB during the creation and the AB of the final production are two different experiences of the same route. 

Lindsay: As we discussed early in the project – there is a sense of your lived history in the work.  Can you tell us more about your experience?

Parham: As dissident diasporic Iranian-born artist here in the west, I cannot help but to notice the overlaps, echoes and reflections of parallel situations. Of course the Protect and Survive quickly remind me of references such as the air raid alarms, rations, public information broadcasts and a neighbour’s martyred son from the Iran-Iraq conflict – “the 18^th deadliest conflict of the century”.  That’s where my local references of the past are organically aligned with my understanding of the new home, practically as a defence mechanism to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and to situate myself in the current context.

Based on the American Heritage Dictionary, a highly used reference in USA, Middle East is “the continuing scene of political and economic turmoil” therefore conflict is not just one of the attributes but the very meaning of this region. (American Heritage Publishing Company, 2000).

Middle East, which is the south of nowhere and east of nothing, has seen so many conflicts, invasions, famines etc. on extreme levels that the residents have grown a working class survivalist mentality. Such way of thinking and processing wants everything all-together at the same time in the same place because there might not be another chance on another day, this is a maximalist behaviour. Iranians are used to bulk buying and storing even when there is no famine, simply the maximalist behaviour has stayed and has turned into misbehaviour now – or maybe it’s preparing for the next famine. 

When one is in isolation, whether it was the bomb shelter during an air raid in the past or in quarantine due to the Covid-19 these days, one is in suspense. Such a situation could be interpreted as a temporary semi heterotopia, a place where the norm is on hold and normality is something in the past. One becomes nostalgic for just a couple of weeks ago when a previous abnormal situation seemed normal in comparison to the moment. Perhaps this suspense of narration has been the most important exploration of the animation. A situation to contemplate reality and sociality. 

www.ghalamdar.com 

click the arrows icon in the bottom right to view fullscreen.

Seven Days in Summer “Starting” (2020)
Mollie Balshaw
digital video, 7m 42s

Part of our Salford SPRING Micro-commissions programme, which invites artists from the region to respond to works in our Collection. Find out more & view other works here.

Mollie Balshaw is a Manchester based artist and curator; graduate of the School of Arts and Media (BA Fine Art, 2019) and recent participant in our Graduate Scholarship programme (2019/2020).

Their practice explores non-binary gender, and gender fluidity, mainly through contemporary abstract painting. In this micro-commission, they have responded to notions around ‘flux’ and ‘process’ in the work of Manchester-based artist Darren Nixon.

Working from the Warrington New Art Space (a scheme ran by Castlefield Gallery), Balshaw has recorded themself painting in the studio, revealing the ‘performance’ behind painting: usually a personal, private and intuitive process. This video forms the beginning of a new body of work:

“…I usually record my process in a very private way for my own reference only, but I am keen to break that habit for the first time in this new piece, and demystify some of the spontaneity and nuance of painting in process.

NAS Warrington is an extremely interesting space, it was a perfect spot for this commission with its long stretches of empty walls and almost complete isolation from anybody else. Fitting for the current circumstances. I am really excited to continue working in there.

“I’ve really enjoyed working on this micro-commission – and it’s going to develop to be a much larger project from this starting point which I’m excited about!”

Talking about their inspiration from Nixon’s, work Mollie adds:

stills from video, 2020

Darren Nixon was originally commissioned by the Collection in 2015/2016 through Mark Devereux Projects Studiobook scheme. The Awkward Ambassador, a large painted sculptural installation, exists in three different forms each with multiple painted components, which can be assembled differently on each display of the work. Rather than a ‘fixed’ object, the work takes a shifting and restless existence – presented differently whether in storage, on display, or on external loan. These three forms or ‘personas’ of the work, titled The Intern (when in storage) The Mixer (when on display) and The Awkward Ambassador (when on loan) reflect on the work’s changing relationship with the people and environments around it.

Nixon’s recent practice continues to explore movement and process, combining his painted installations with performance and video based collaborations.

Mollie Balshaw is a graduate of the School of Arts and Media (BA Fine Art, 2019) and current participant in our Graduate Scholars programme.

They explore painting with an expanded field: exploring the painting as an ‘object rather than an image’, and challenging the restrictive structures often associated with painting practice. Identifying as non-binary, their work attempts to be a mediator within the masculine/feminine traditions and tropes in the history of painting.

Exhibitions include the Neo Art Prize 2019 at Bolton Museum and Art Gallery and Material Concerns at PAPER Gallery. Currently they are undertaking a year of study with the School of the Damned Class of 2020.

Balshaw is also co-director of Short Supply, an artist-led curatorial collective established to generate opportunities and events for artists in the North West. Exhibitions in 2020 include Queer Contemporaries, supported by Superbia and Manchester Pride.

https://www.molliebalshaw.com/

We’re pleased to be working with artist Jack Tan on one of six new artist commissions this Summer. His project Tale As Old As Time addresses important moments in Chinese civil rights history in the UK – read more about Jack’s project here.

Update: September 2021:

In our Q&A, Jack talks more about the tradition of ‘disaster ceramics’, the history of Chinese disasters in the UK and the ‘civil rights moments’ he is highlighting, as well as his background and practice – in conversation with Stephanie Fletcher, Assistant Curator, University of Salford Art Collection.

Please note, this article includes references to racist language and incidents. If you are affected by these issues, please refer to the resources section at the end of the page; alongside petitions and campaigns that you can take part in.

Stephanie: Firstly, can you give us an introduction to your practice and artistic background? How does this work relates to your research interests and previous projects?

Jack: I discovered art quite late and only started training in my early 30s. Before that, like any good Asian kid, I was supposed to be a lawyer. I went to Law School in Hull, then worked in various paralegal and legal secretarial jobs before training at a commercial law firm, as well as doing civil rights campaigning and pro bono case work alongside. I started doing pottery at a local arts centre and one thing led to another, and I ended up leaving the law to go to art school to study ceramics at Harrow/University of Westminster.

Since then I have mainly been creating art installations and performances that explore aspects of the law or social justice. For instance, I created a work called Karaoke Court in 2014 that adapted arbitration law in a way that allowed people to resolve real disputes under binding arbitration contracts by singing karaoke before a jury-audience who would decide the verdict. This reforms litigation as a hostile activity into a fun and conciliatory one. In another work called Four Legs Good, I took over the bottom floor of Leeds Town Hall for Compass Festival 2018 converting it, signage and all, into a working Animal Justice Court where we revived the medieval animal trials for a day with modern cases argued by real advocates on behalf of live animal litigants.

Right now, I am working on an intergenerational education project where we are creating a new game app together that allows the player to roleplay a non-human and to lobby local councils to change planning and environmental policies from the non-human person’s viewpoint. This commission, Tale As Old As Time, however takes me back to my first love which is pottery, but allows me to combine it with social justice concerns and my interest in critically examining the effects of law and government policy on the Chinese community in the UK.

Stephanie: Can you tell us a little more about the tradition of ‘disaster ceramics’ that this work continues?

Jack: Disasters have been depicted on ceramics for a long time but often from the perpetrator’s or conqueror’s point of view. You see this for example in ancient Greek or Roman vessels or murals of war or invasion. But I am interested in a 19th century British tradition and the visual impulse to commemorate major public disasters on everyday pottery. Teapots, mugs, plates and other vessels were illustrated with disaster events to raise money for victims, to campaign for political awareness or simply to commemorate and commit these events into a material that is as long-lasting as bronze or stone, but much cheaper.

Events such as the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, where cavalry troops charged into a large crowd protesting the Corn Laws and killed 18 people and injured 650, was remembered quite viscerally on ceramics. Major industrial disasters were also commemorated in pottery such as the Oaks Colliery Disaster of 1866 in Barnsley where 361 miners died in two massive methane explosions.  Tableware and figurative pottery was also used as awareness raising tools in political campaigns, notably the abolition of slavery movement in the early 19th century. This pottery, depicting slavery scenes of abuse and political slogans, circulated within domestic settings alongside pamphlets arguing for the abolition of slavery. The famous potter Josiah Wedgewood himself commissioned an anti-slavery medallion which he distributed freely in support of the anti-slavery movement. While it might seem like ‘bad taste’ now, at the time it was an important way to make sure that these stories were not forgotten, and remained a part of everyday life and history. The tea sets in this commission will depict disasters in a similar way, except they will use a more contemporary design language and commemorate my view of major events experienced by Chinese people in the UK.

Stephanie: What are the other key moments in history that the works will discuss – and how has Covid 19 continued these narratives?

Jack: I am making five tea sets which are inspired by significant events in British Chinese civil rights history. But I make three caveats here. First, I am not a keeper of British Chinese history and consider that there are many histories of the Chinese in the UK. Secondly, what is significant to history is for the community to decide. However, events that appear in the tradition of commemorative disaster ceramics tend to be those that have gained visibility in the public consciousness through newspaper reporting. As such, I chose events that have been reported in the recent news. Finally there are of course more than five significant moments. But time and budget constraints meant that I had to choose only five. So this is really a snapshot of a political history of the Chinese in the UK from the viewpoint of an artist:

• the deportation of Chinese seamen from Liverpool (late 1940s) and their surviving children’s ongoing search to find their disappeared fathers; 
• the violent murders of takeaway workers like Simon Tang (2013) and Migao Chen (2005); 
• the mass drownings of Chinese cockle-pickers at Morecambe Bay (2004), which relate to other mass deaths at or around the sea in Dover (2000) and Essex (2019); 
• the official blaming of Foot & Mouth disease (2001) on the Chinese; and 
• racist attacks against Chinese people or anyone who looks Chinese during the Covid 19 pandemic (2020) . 

I see the way that Covid 19 has emboldened casual racism and violent racist attacks against Chinese, East and Southeast Asian people as a direct result of a history of anti-Chinese racism in the UK. Starting from the Opium Wars (1839-42), when the victorious British forced China to buy opioids in exchange for tea, porcelain and silk leading to mass drug addiction in the population, to the Ministry of Agriculture blaming Chinese restaurants for the national outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in 2001, the Chinese, Chinatowns and Chinese bodies have been framed in the UK as containers of disease, crime, seediness, forgery/deception and clandestine or covert invasion. In an increasingly hostile environment against non-Whites and migrants following the Brexit vote and the election of an openly racist and homophobic Prime Minister, the racialisation of the coronavirus pandemic has given license for the latent racism in the general population to erupt into attacks against any person or business perceived to be Chinese.

Stephanie: can you tell me more about the images you have used?

Jack Tan. Tale As Old As Time (ceramic decal), 2020. Digital image. Courtesy of the Artist / University of Salford Art Collection

Jack: This image is a work-in-progress sample of a typical digital file that would be converted into ceramic waterslide decals. This is a process where artwork images are printed onto decal paper, a kind of transparent acetate-like film, using ink made from raw ceramic glazes. The individual images would then be cut out, immersed in water, and then slid onto pottery before being fired in the kiln. This digital sheet contains sample patterns and images that will be applied onto 5 bone china afternoon tea sets that will comprise the artwork Tale As Old As Time.

Starting at the top left corner:

1. For a tea set highlighting Covid 19 racism, “Why don’t you fuck off back to China and take your filth with you” was a phrase whispered to British Chinese film-maker Lucy Sheen by a White man on a London bus during the Covid 19 pandemic in February 2020. Below, the multicoloured teardrops are derived from the shape of bruise marks on the face of Singaporean student following a violent racist attack on him in February 2020 by two teenagers who shouted ” I don’t want your coronavirus in my country” as they kicked and punched him.

2. The garden spade, garden fork, baseball bat and repeated kung fu figures comprise decorative elements of a tea set that will draw attention to the vulnerability of Chinese takeaways who experience racist violence. In particular, CCTV footage of a fatal and ‘frenzied attack’ in 2005 showed youths adopt a ‘karate kid’ stance to mock Mr Chen, a takeaway owner, before the gang of 20 children and youths beat him to death with bats, poles, spades and heavy tree branches.

3. The silhouette of a hanging cow represents the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic. The Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food briefed journalists that the Chinese community had  introduced the disease into the country through smuggling contaminated meat for restaurant use. This saw an increase in racial attacks against the Chinese, East and Southeast Asian communities but it also led to the first mass Chinese political protest in British history. This tea set commemorates Chinese community grassroots activism and organising.

4. The triptych of portraits at the top right shows a merchant seaman who had been separated from his British wife and children in the mid 1940s, and under deportation orders was expelled to China possibly via Singapore along with all other Chinese sailors living in Liverpool. The surviving children of these missing fathers are still looking for them and any information about them today: http://www.halfandhalf.org.uk/missing.htm. This tea set considers discriminatory laws and policy enacted in order to expel, penalise, obstruct or target the Chinese community, Chinese people, Chinese trade or culture in Britain.

5. The silhouettes and shell patterns at the bottom of the decal sheet will decorate a tea set commemorating the Morecambe Bay disaster in 2004 where 23 unauthorised trafficked Chinese cockle-pickers got stuck in the sand and drowned as the tide came in. The words in blue “Sinking water, many many sinking water” were uttered in desperation by one of the cockle-pickers in a 999 call to the police before he drowned.

Very much like the tradition of 19th century disaster pottery, these contemporary tea sets will similarly depict political events using the decorative motifs typically seen in ceramic tableware, such as the use of polka dot design, stripes, edging patterns, or pastoral and action scenes. The Covid 19 tea set for example will create a cognitive dissonance between the whimsy of its multi-coloured teardrops and attractive cursive writing, reminiscent of Emma Bridgewater pottery, with the tea set’s traumatic subject matter. The potential activation of this artwork through the rituals of taking afternoon tea also opens up questions about how and what it means to embody or ingest a culture of colonialism or institutional racism today.

Share your thoughts: 

Using the hashtag #PoliticalPottery
You can find us at:
twitter:  @UoSArts  /  @jackkytan
Instagram:  @uos_artcollection  / @jackkytan

Resources:

CARG – Covid Anti Racism Group
The page includes news, blogs, petitions and resources, including information on reporting hate crime and where to find help.

Sign the Petition – Say No to Racism targeting British East Asian People

Sign the Petition – Stop depicting East & South East Asians in Coronavirus related media

Join the Crowdfunder – End the Virus of Racism

University of Salford Students can visit the Student Hub AskUs page for information on wellbeing, support, & reporting incidents.

For the final in our series of new commissions this Summer, the University of Salford Art Collection has teamed up with AND Festival and Somerset House Studios to commission a new digital work by Marija Bozinovska Jones. Jones’ ambitious audiovisual work will reflect on the truly global ‘interconnectedness’ of all things: from plants, animals and the earth, to technology, science and the cosmos. 

Read more below

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/PA

Launch:
Beginningless Mind will launch online on Tuesday 1st September from 6-7pm, streamed from the Somerset House website. 

An element of the work will be acquired into the University of Salford Art Collection, and exhibited on campus in 2021.

“Both Marija and the AND Festival challenge traditional concepts of making and presenting artwork to audiences. This bold and ambitious work will be a valuable addition to our About the Digital strand of collecting” – Lindsay Taylor, Curator, University of Salford Art Collection.

About the artist:
Marija Bozinovska Jones (MBJ) explores links between social, computational and organic architectures. Her work revolves around technocapitalist amplification and unpacks cryptic ways of forging subjectivity. Probing selfhood from subatomic level to networked presence on planetary scale and beyond, MBJ often collaborates with academics, devotional practitioners, computers scientists and other artists. 

Artist: Pat Flynn
Titles: Cheese, Cheese Selection, Cheese Hole
Year: 2015
Medium: C-type prints on di-bond 52.5cm x 70cm Edition of 5 +1AP. Courtesy the artist and The International 3
Brief biography: b.1972, UK. Lives & works in Greater Manchester.
Acquired: 2015, from the International 3 Gallery

Pat Flynn is an artist based in Greater Manchester. His realistic, digitally-rendered work focuses on “how we understand ourselves in light of mass media and commodity: the seduction, security, rituals and belief systems that transpire from mass production and consumer culture”. His work draws on ideologies, processes, themes and sentiments found in Hollywood films, computer games, consumer goods and advertising.

patflynn.co.uk

Pat Flynn, Cheese (2015). Digital print. Courtesy the artist and International 3 Gallery.

Pat Flynn, Cheese Selection (2015). Digital print. Courtesy the artist and International 3 Gallery.

Pat Flynn, Cheese Hole (2015). Digital print. Courtesy the artist and International 3 Gallery.