Mediated Realities 1 September 2025 – 30 January 2026 New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford Free entry
What does it mean to witness crisis in the digital age? This powerful exhibition brings together works from the University of Salford Art Collection and university staff, exploring how conflict, disaster and protest are filtered through news and social media. Featuring artists including Richard Hamilton, Joe Tilson and Thomson & Craighead.
Mediated Realities is co-curated by Team Assistant Sam Parker, as part of a two-year traineeship role with the Art Collection Team. The exhibition is open from 1st September 2025, with a special evening opening event 4.30 – 7.00 8th October 2025 co-inciding with our MA Art & Design Degree shows.
A new artist development opportunity for emerging and early-career artists who want to explore creative technologies
Project dates: Monday 22nd – Friday 26 September 2025, 10am – 6pm Deadline to apply: 11th August 2025 Fees: £250 participation bursary available; and up to £5000 for one selected commission More information and apply now: at the Lowry website
Are you an early career or emerging creative connected to Salford and committed to learning about creative technology? (CreaTech)
This opportunity is for artists from any non-digital discipline who would like to develop their practice and discover new ways of making. You may have taken initial first steps into the tech space, but no experience is required.
Taking place from Monday 22nd – Friday 26 September 2025, 10am – 6pm at the University of Salford’s DevLab in MediaCity, the project will include participatory workshops, practice development and a commission opportunity.
You will have the opportunity to explore a variety of applications and test out new ideas in a supported peer to peer learning environment, with a chance to share ideas, explore collaborations and pitch projects for further development.
We encourage you to bring your current practice with you, whether that be illustration, performance art, ceramics, visual art, dance, textiles etc, we are able to accommodate for a variety of mediums, you will have the opportunity to tell us more in your application.
Across four days, along with four other participants, you will take part in one participatory workshop per day with the following CreaTech specialists:
On the final day, all participants will be encouraged to develop and pitch a solo or collaborative project idea based on your learning. The University (University of Salford Art Collection and University of Salford School of Arts, Media, & Creative Technology) will then select one project to be further developed for showcasing at the Beyond Conference Day 0 event in November 2025
The successful project will receive funding of up to £5k (from University of Salford Art Collection) to cover artists time and production costs, as well as access to facilities and technical support from the University of Salford School of Arts, Media, & Creative Technology.
The artwork (an edition or element of) developed for Beyond Day 0 will then be acquired by University of Salford Art Collection.
The remaining participants will have the opportunity to share their work in progress as part of wider fringe events at Beyond and everyone will receive a free ticket to the BEYOND Conference.
In May 2025 our Artist in Residence at the University of Salford Acoustic Labs, Hayley Suviste, presented a 3-part installation as part of Sounds From The Other City. Artist Lizzie King shares her experience of From The River’s Mouth below.
A growing amount of rivers have been granted the legal status of personhood, a legal right to flow, a way for rivers to be protected and a way for them to be honoured. In her installation “From the River’s Mouth’ Hayley Suviste gives the audience a unique way to connect with the River Irwell meeting it at its Salford stretch. The Irwell is a life source that runs 63 km. Many sound artists have previously explored rivers through their horizontal journey, however Suviste gives us the opportunity to experience the Irwell through a series of vertical interactions. As the work progresses down the layers of the Irwell we encounter the perspectives of past, present, and future.
‘From the River’s Mouth,’ makes use of three sonically distinct rooms to explore three different parts of the Irwell’s being and of its timeline.
Anechoic Chamber Photographed by William Rowe
The Anechoic Chamber
We, the audience, are guided into a dark room lit with one blue light and a bouncy floor, the anechoic chamber. Silence. You feel yourself swaying with the movement of other people until everyone goes still.
Shhhhhhhuuuusssssshhhhhhhhhh swoooooooorrrllll
It feels like being in the centre of rushing whirlpool, the sounds move around you gushing and gurgling. Distant sounds of ducks pitter in the background. The gushing dissipates into trickles, a pleasant tonal sound appears feeling like it is coming from a distance. The river’s life dances around the audience. The gurgling and murmurs transport me under the water, I want to sit and drink it in. It lulls the audience bringing a tranquility and a feeling that is almost tactile of having met the Irwell. As I am wishing to drift off with the river 4 minutes is up, the door opens, the sounds stop, we leave for the next room.
The Listening Room
The Listening Room Photographed by William Rowe
The next room we sit in is the listening room. Filled with sofas, bean bags, and 124 speakers, we take a comfortable seat. Projected onto a large screen in front are two videos side by side. One shows us the most vivid blue colours running in the water and the other the pungent orange of the sediment from the bank. We are introduced to a series of fixed frame videos showing different scenes from the river bank. The sound of the river is different this time we are alongside it, hearing noises all around us as if we were sat by the Irwell itself. We see and hear the geese who inhabit this stretch alongside the vivid colours and textures which really are worth celebrating. This time the Irwell bables and tinkles it has a gentler quality now that we are aside it rather than inside it, a loop of synthesised melodies accompany the waters flow. Two different angles of a red balloon caught on branches. The sound of Reggie being called in the distance, a runaway dog. It is an experience that we are more familiar with but one that our attention may not often focus on. A woman singing a folk song drifts in from the left, again we are lulled as tonal loops intermingle with the river’s tinkling. Until the film comes to an end I like other audience members are reluctant to get up from our seats.
The Reverberation Chamber
We step over and into the next darkened room, the reverberation room, where we sit in a semi-circle. Facing us is a bowl which is lit up from three different angles projecting the water onto the floor in petal like sections. The rush of a full river gulps in towards us in deep bass tones. These rumblings make the water dance creating cymatic patterns which are projected in segments onto the floor dancing and swirling around. They are completely captivating as the sounds again surround us from different points in the room; it is reminiscent of walking along the river and standing under the bridge watching the water’s reflections bounce and flitter on the concrete structure above. A clarinet echoes the folk song from the previous room and we hear the familiar sounds that played in the last room start to trickle out. Though deep and bassy in a room that reverberates, the sound feels light and free. The whirling and twirling of the water’s reflections leave us captivated till the final moment.
Close-up in the Reverberation Chamber Photographed by William Rowe
Hayley Suviste has been resident at the University of Salford Acoustic laboratory carrying out a commission to look at the environment. Suviste a composer and sound artist has placed the audience in a series of situations which leave you questioning your own relationship to the river. Many of these left the audience in a sense of calm or entrancement, do we spend this same time at the River Irwell? As this series looks at a sense of passing of time in the rivers life it also questions what the river’s life should look like and what part do our lives play in that?
This performance took place multiple times on 4th May, 2025 as part of Sounds of the City Festival. In the midst of a pulsating, hectic, jubilant atmosphere there was this pocket of quiet, of calm, and of contemplation. In the midst of a party Suviste opened up a type of gulf in which we were able to connect with who we are and who the River Irwell is.
Another artist friend of ours Fiona Sinéad Brehony has written about their own experience of Suviste’s From The River’s Mouth – which you can also read below:
The Graduate Scholarship Programme (GSP) is a support scheme open to BA and MA students from the School of Art, Media and Creative Technology, who graduate in 2025
The programme aims to support you to develop a career as an artist / creative practitioner
The main programme runs for 12 months; with mentoring taking place for up to a further 6-8 months.
There are a maximum of 5-6 places which will be awarded through an application and interview
Applications open on 24th March 2025
The deadline is 9am on Monday 28th April 2025
There is no charge to take part in the scheme
About the Programme:
Run by University of Salford Art Collection with Castlefield Gallery, and in collaboration with our professional partners, the Graduate Scholarship Programme was established in 2014 to support artists in the crucial first year and the initial period after graduation. The programme runs for up to 18 months and grants graduates time, resources and the opportunity to develop their practice and shape their future careers within a supportive framework.
We want to encourage artists to remain in Salford and to develop their professional practice within the artist community in the city: the programme is a unique opportunity to further develop professional skills and gain vital industry experience and relationships with benefits lasting beyond the programme.
About the Scholarship:
Scholarship packages are tailored, but can include:
Professional development and advice including coaching, career, practice and professional development sessions, 1-2-1 advisory sessions, studio group crit days, and mentoring
£1000 bursary towards time and expenses to engage with the programme, which may include e.g. materials and travel
Studio space and studio support for 12 months, based at studios including Paradise Works, Hot Bed Press, Islington Mill and Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces
Research trips regionally and nationally, sometimes including overnight stays and networking
Opportunity to have artwork acquired (via gift) into the University’s permanent Art Collection as a legacy of the programme
In 2024/25, we awarded five places on the scheme, with studio spaces including Islington Mill, Paradise Works and Hot Bed Press. The programme evolves each year as we endeavour to offer opportunities to the graduates we think we can best support. Over 50 graduates have benefitted from the scheme so far.
Click each header below to read more information:
>Eligibility
Eligibility:
The programme is open to University of Salford final year undergraduates from the School of Arts, Media and Creative Technology (who are due to graduate or complete their studies in July 2025) – plus there will be a maximum of one scholarship open to an MA graduate (due to graduate or complete in September 2025). Applicants who will be undertaking further study at the time of the scholarship (e.g. starting an MA in 2025) will not be eligible. Previous scholars will not be eligible.
The programme takes place in Salford and Greater Manchester (as well as UK research trips and some online sessions) and applicants must be able to attend. Further information and guidelines are available below.
>Accessibility
Accessibility:
We aim to remove barriers, bias or discrimination that prevents individuals or groups from realising their potential, and to develop organisational cultures that positively value diversity. If you have access needs and wish to discuss these in relation to the application and interview stage, or the opportunity more broadly, please contact: artcollection@salford.ac.uk
We are committed to equal opportunities and will work with the successful selected applicants to support access requirements through reasonable adjustments during the programme. Where disclosures are made and access needs are identified, this will be discussed in more detail with selected candidates after interview stage.
>Care and Consideration
Care and Consideration:
Please note, we approach the delivery of the programme with the aim of enacting care and consideration for all involved. To this end we operate a zero tolerance policy towards hostile, disrespectful or abusive behaviour towards staff, volunteers, partners and others, in all communications.
How to apply:
Open for applications: from Monday 24th March 2025 Application deadline: by 9am Monday 28th April 2025 Shortlisted applicants: will be interviewed in person on Monday 12th May 2025 Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted.
1) Please read the guidance on this page, and in the guidance form (below) 2) Download and complete your application form (below) 3) Prepare an up to date CV (maximum 2 pages) 4) Prepare up to four examples of your work (image, video or audio) as an attachment or weblink 5) Email your form, cv, and examples to: S.A.Parker@salford.ac.uk with the subject line “GSP Application”
All information and guidance, including accepted formats and eligibility, is on this page and in the guidance form download. For any further enquiries, please email: artcollection@salford.ac.uk
Find out more:
In 2024 we awarded five places on the scheme, with studio spaces including Islington Mill, Paradise Works Hot Bed Press, and Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces. The programme evolves each year as we endeavour to offer opportunities to the graduates we think we can best support. Over 50 graduates have benefitted from the scheme so far. In 2024 we celebrated 10 years of the scheme with our exhibition and programme CATALYST.
Want to know more about our Artists in Residence at Energy House 2.0? In this special edition of Talking Salford Podcast, both Mishka Henner and Emily Speed talk about their practices, projects, careers, and the work they are doing in collaboration with Energy House 2.0!
Available on your preferred Podcasting platform, or on YouTube at the link below!
Emily Speed, currently Artist-in-Residence with Energy House 2.0, discusses sustainability and her practice with Castlefield Gallery in the most recent addition to their ongoing series Spotlight: Artists and Sustainability.
Click here to read the full interview on the Castlefield Gallery website, where Speed discusses how her work relates to issues of climate change, the ways she works more sustainably in her artist practice, and her thoughts about the role of arts and art institutions in tackling the climate crisis.
Emily Speed was awarded the second of two 18-month artist residencies at Energy House 2.0, in partnership with Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool in early 2023 and she is currently engaged in research, working closely with the Energy House Labs team.
Artist Lizzie King shares why working on the Sustaining Photography project is important to her. Lizzie King is a former Graduate Scholar with the Collection, and is currently studying for her MA in Contemporary Fine Art at the University.
As artists, as makers, as creators there is a journey that results in us adopting processes or ways of making. We take these processes into our vernacular and use them to describe ourselves, to define our way of practising. The list of these words seems endless: documentary, abstract, commercial, photographer, image maker, artist, content creator… and the list carries on. They don’t just define ourselves but how we are different from others. How about the word ‘ecological’ or ‘eco’ or ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘climate aware’? How does this define a maker? How does this mark a difference between one maker and another? In this day and age should these words really be something we can define or differentiate ourselves on?
My journey towards using greener processes has been born out of a continual curiosity about alternative photographic processes. Years experimenting with different versions and iterations of caffenol (coffee based homemade developer) recipes showed me the extent that these recipes could be pushed to. The thought of the impact that the standard photographic chemicals were having had never particularly crossed my mind until I started to try to make developers from plant matter. As I explored the possibilities of using plants in the creation processes and their unique compounds and properties that make particular developers work so well, I started to think about how working this way was really allowing my work to talk about the environment while also being kinder to the environment. I use these plant based processes because I am fascinated by being able to use a wide range of materials in making my imagery. The experimentation and the time spent outside looking intently at nature brings me joy.
Anthotypes for Sustianing Photography. Courtesy Lizzie King.
The United Nations recognises that we are in the midst of a climate emergency. There is clear guidance from scientists that the world (let’s be honest, the world’s riches countries) needs to act now to be able to see a change from the current trajectory. What does this look like for our practices? At the end of the day this is about working in a way that is aware of ourselves, our precarious stance on earth, how we are intertwined with the earth. As Timothy Morton puts it, “We are all burnt by ultraviolet rays. We all contain water in about the same ratio as Earth does, and salt water in the same ratio that the oceans do. We are poems about the hyperobject Earth.” (Morton, 2013)
Our society has done everything it can to see nature as other to who we are rather than accept the reality that we are a part of nature. Can we really afford as a community of makers to have a small grouping of makers who are ‘sustainable.’ Can we progress to a stage where it is common understanding that everyone’s practice is as sustainable as possible?
Many people say ‘there is no green way of doing this’, ‘Photography is never going to be sustainable’ and ‘The only way to do it green is to not do it at all’. This is not about stopping making. What I hope you get from this zine is that we have choices. We’ve presented a few options for different processes you could adopt. You can choose to make these your own. They might open up a new creative avenue for you. You might find that making something using an alternative greener process gives you a new aesthetic that you’ve been looking for or a new way to relate to the world around you. Perhaps these processes aren’t for you but reading this can start to raise the question within your way of working: how can I do this better?
I don’t think I have ever written a piece of writing with more questions in it, but the fact is we don’t have all the answers. Analogue photography has a long history of toxic chemical output and unsustainable mining from the earth. Digital photography has problems with mass server usage for storing on the cloud on top of the precious materials being mined from the earth to create the high-tech equipment. Being aware is the first step to being able to change our ways. I hope that the future will see makers discover more sustainable ways of producing what we make. This is all about producing what we do but better.
Sustaining Photography is a collaborative project by Lizzie King & Gwen Riley Jones to connect and engage students at the University of Salford with sustainable photographic processes, using produce from the University’s Community Growing Space. The project is based at The University of Salford and has been funded by the Salford Advantage Fund and The University of Salford Art Collection.
In 2019, The British Youth Council declared the climate emergency the “biggest issue facing young people”. This headline is taken from the Planting for the Planet exhibition, held at RHS Garden Bridgewater in 2022. In this exhibition, I worked with young people from Action for Conservation to explore nature-based solutions to climate change. Through the process of collaborating with, and learning from, a group of young people to make images for the exhibition, my creative practice changed forever.
We were making work about nature-based solutions to climate change, so I wondered, are there any plant-based photographic techniques? Turns out there’s loads.
As soon as I started to learn about it – it made total sense – plants create energy using light – they are light sensitive, they contain pigments that adapt and change with changes in light intensity. My mind was blown, I was hooked.
But what hooked me in deeper was that I could suddenly create photographs in my kitchen at home. The process is safe and non-toxic, even edible, and I could create anthotype paper at home in my kitchen whilst I made my daughter’s breakfast. I’ve been a photographer for 20 years but setting up a home darkroom has always felt like too big a task – for many reasons, not least, toxic waste.
A participant exploring sustainable photographic methods as part of Gwen’s workshops during Rediscovering Salford.
Perfection in the imperfection.
It is a parody of the industrial world that in searching for photographic perfection, faster shutter speeds, sharper images – steps towards the sublime – we have created a toxic world. Maybe the perfection is actually found in the imperfections, in these green pictures which will fade to nothing when left out in the sun.
And from here, well it makes you wonder, if we don’t need to use these harmful substances, why do we?
So I now work with sustainable photographic processes almost as a metaphor for sustainable practices, sustainable lives. As a way of starting a conversation – if we can do this using only plants – what else can we do using only plants?
I grew some beetroot, made anthotypes out of the juice, film developer out of the peelings, and pickled the beets to eat for lunch. You don’t need much money and you certainly don’t need perfection. The beauty of this process is in the imperfection, and the accessibility of the practice.
So we invite you to join us: pick some spinach from the community growing space (but also make sure you join in and plant some more!) make some anthotypes, cook a curry, use the vegetable peelings to develop your film, ask some new questions.
Share the spoils of your practice with those around you. Put up a picture, pass on a plate of food, share your experience. And let us know what else you decide to do differently.
Sustaining Photography is a collaborative project by Lizzie King & Gwen Riley Jones to connect and engage students at the University of Salford with sustainable photographic processes, using produce from the University’s Community Growing Space. The project is based at The University of Salford and has been funded by the Salford Advantage Fund and The University of Salford Art Collection.
Want to give green film developing a go? Here are the instructions for making film developer from vegetable food waste.
What you’ll need:
900ml water
3 heaped tsp Vitamin C (powdered not tablet)
9 tsp Soda Crystals (Can usually be found in the household cleaning area)
Suggestions of foods we have used:
potato peelings
spinach, ½ romaine lettuce, and ½ savoy cabbage
Red onion, tomatoes, broccoli, green bean, cabbage, bananas
Behind the scenes with Sustaining Photography. Courtesy Lizzie King.
Behind the scenes with Sustaining Photography. Courtesy Lizzie King.
Method:
Step 1: Place vegetable waste in a container with a lid, a mason jar or pan works well. Cover the vegetable waste with boiling water and leave overnight. Or boil the contents like you would for eating. (If you are making your tea by boiling veg you could just save the water from this and use it in your developing mix)
Step 2: After 12 hours remove the vegetable waste and keep the water
Step 3: Add the vitamin C and the soda crystals into your water (Make sure you are doing this in a container that has extra space. When you add them together as it can fizz up.)
Step 4: Mix well
Step 5: You can now develop your film as you normally would but using your homemade developer.
I. For Ilford HP5 we developed for 15 mins agitating continuously for the first minute then once every minute (Check the resources page for a suggestion on where to look for time information for different films)
II. Then stop bath and fix as you normally would.
Step 6: It is safe to just pour this developer down the sink as it only contains things you would find in your kitchen!
Sustaining Photography is a collaborative project by Lizzie King & Gwen Riley Jones to connect and engage students at the University of Salford with sustainable photographic processes, using produce from the University’s Community Growing Space. The project is based at The University of Salford and has been funded by the Salford Advantage Fund and The University of Salford Art Collection.
August’s artwork of the month is Salford Faces by Gwilym Hughes. This artwork is currently on display in our New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery as part of Visibilities: Shaping a story of now. For this artwork of the month, Visibilities Curator Rowan Pritchard explores the work in more detail.
In Salford Faces, four layers of giclee prints in cyan, magenta, yellow and black are superimposed to form a portrait
Gwilym Hughes found this face in a photograph at the Salford Local History Library. With an ongoing interest in anonymous faces, whose names are no longer recorded, or who might never have known they were having their photograph taken, Gwilym’s work brings close attention to these people who are ‘lost’ in the archives.
The image is painstakingly hand-drawn using slow and intensive techniques. Rendered first as an intimate relief etching, the portrait is then enlarged and presented as a lightbox. The face, once forgotten, can no longer be overlooked when displayed at this scale, illuminated as it stares back at us.
Installation View: Visibilities: Shaping a story of now, 2023.
Speaking about Salford Faces, Rowan shares:
“I picked this work because it speaks directly to the ideas of preservation, questioning whose names we write down and record.
In Visibilities, I wanted to dig a little into who is represented in the University’s collecting; whose stories, artworks, and achievements are we preserving as an institution? And this work relates to that directly. In the exhibition, Salford Faces is presented next to Silver Triple Pop by Gavin Turk, an artwork full of reference and reverence for men like Elvis, Andy Warhol, and Sid Vicious, whose names and images are inviolably linked to our understandings of culture – preserved and remembered.
In contrast, Salford Faces not only begins to question why some people are remembered while others are not but creates a space for those forgotten voices to be remembered, re-enshrining them into the archives through their new representation in the University Art Collection.”
Gavin Turk, Silver Triple Pop, 2009, print. Courtesy the artist. Photography by Museums Photography North West.
Gwilym Hughes, Salford Faces, 2018, lightbox. Courtesy the artist.
Visibilities continues at the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery until the end of the month, closing on the 25th of August. You can read more about the exhibition here.
