Chester’s brand new cultural centre enjoys its official launch next Thursday. Ahead of the big day, Hannah Allan speaks to its staff and local residents to understand the area’s creative needs, and the huge expectations already placed at Storyhouse’s door…

Thinking of Chester might conjure up romantic images of Roman walls, or its arcade-style Rows walkways. Yet this perception of the city as a living museum is one which its newest development seeks to change. Due to open on Thursday 11 May, Chester’s flagship arts centre Storyhouse aims to become a hub for the local community, encouraging engagement with the arts in a city which has no other large-scale cultural provision. This lack poses a challenge to the Chester area and other regional hubs outside of the major centres of Manchester and Liverpool; asking if investment in arts might be the solution for marking out a space, identity and method for survival within an uncertain political and economic terrain. Can a new building instigate change or sustain culture?

Situated close to North Gate retail and leisure development, the whole area is one in transition. The £37 million Storyhouse project – backed by Chester City Council and Arts Council England – is centred around a redevelopment of the 1936 Odeon cinema space, which visitors can now take a sneak peek of ahead of the grand opening. Incorporating core library services for the city, there is an adjoining new build housing a 800 seat theatre, 150 capacity studio stage and rooftop bar. This cultural hub approach – in a similar format to The Atkinson (Southport) or HOME (Manchester) – is intended to foster a greater inclusivity and sustainability for all aspects of the new building and its future activities.

Storyhouses’ opening season includes four well-known plays, three of which will be staged outdoors via the popular Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, and there are plans to draw in internationally touring productions and companies, with experimental and local practitioners housed in the studio. Open air cinema Moonlight Flicks is showing a crowd-pleasing mix of blockbusters, from La La Land to Moana, and live music includes a blend of world, classical and experimentation, of which Craig Charles’ interpretation of Red Riding Hood, Tales Of The Dark Woods, is a highlight. Walking around the library and cinema, much of the character of the original Odeon can still be seen; the art-deco lines of the roof complement architectural details and the odd salvaged find – such as an original sofa – which feels important in terms of the city’s heritage, but also significant for residents. The cinema holds tangible memories for many of those who grew up here: childhood visits, first dates and family outings.

Formerly known as Chester Performs, the Storyhouse team could be classed as a safe pair of hands, having run the aforementioned Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, Rogues’ Galleries, and other cultural events in Chester since 2009. It is overseen by Artistic Director Alex Clifton, who returned to his hometown from working in London as a freelance director and teacher at RADA. Clifton spoke to me of the need to create a “deep and sustained impact” on the lives of people through this work, and that creating this meaningful change has necessitated a long-term building of relationships. At the heart of Storyhouse‘s plan is to engage the community whilst attracting out of town visitors and tourism.

The team, it seems, recognise that Storyhouse’s work isn’t over once the ribbon has been cut. To address this, one initiative is to partner with local charities; sharing some of Storyhouse’s multi-purpose spaces for workshop, volunteering and apprenticeship usage. These newly incorporated groups include Fallen Angels, who teach dance to adults in recovery from addiction; Bridge Foyer, who support 16–24 year olds at risk of homelessness; and Passion For Learning, who focus on the literacy skills of vulnerable young children. By drawing in wider networks of local people who are traditionally less likely to participate in Storyhouse’s programming, Storyhouse is therefore encouraging uptake from all sectors of the community – an aim which Clifton enthusiastically champions. Activities, Clifton tells me, should challenge the community by “asking questions about shared identity… Storytelling is what will hold this building together.”

But what about that community? Chester is a relatively small city of 80,000 permanent residents. The University of Chester attracts an additional 15,000 students per year, and will no doubt be an essential audience for Storyhouse to tap into. Traditionally, smaller cities and towns (and campus universities) can struggle to merge shared spaces between the two groups. It is hoped that students will be further integrated into Chester’s services and public life with the opening of Storyhouse; preferring to use its public library, café, cinema and theatres after lectures, rather than being lured back to the neighboring cities of Liverpool and Manchester by train. Graduate retention is a problem; with qualified students moving to bigger cities with better employment opportunities and a larger cultural industry. Whether Storyhouse will in some small way affect graduate retention remains to be seen. One step to encourage graduating theatre practitioners is Storyhouses’ offer of studio time for new companies who choose to remain in the area. It is a helping hand for start-ups in the areas that they need most help: a permanent base, facilities, resources, and contacts in a blossoming local theatre network that is linked to national productions.

Angela Ferguson, who runs the culture blog We Are Chester, spoke at length to me about the attitude of Chester towards Storyhouse. Ferguson has been collecting residents’ opinions on the project through a radio programme. Generally, Storyhouse was identified as something sorely needed, with guests pointing out that since 2007 there has not even been a cinema in the city. There is obviously a huge weight of expectation placed on the project, yet many are encouraged that the team behind it have been, for several years, producing popular theatre productions during the summer months.

Ferguson also highlighted that residents question why it has taken so long for this cultural provision to be put in place by Chester Council. So far, the response to Storyhouse has been overwhelmingly positive within online discussions and local media reports; the enthusiasm suggesting a keen desire for a contemporary cultural centre to be successful in Chester, and attracting much-needed new visitors.

Despite high expectations, of course, not all requests can be met. One key lack of provision remains, and that is within Chester’s visual arts offer. Storyhouse will provide a limited series of digital screens for exhibiting art on the ground floor, but it will not be expected to act as a gallery. Its Arts Council funding has been awarded based on the offer of theatre and digital content, with its film and library services supported by other awarding bodies. Furthermore, Chester Council’s development plans does not currently include any further strategy for gallery spaces in the city centre. Clearly, Storyhouse cannot meet every community need and should play to its strengths in theatre (Chester has a strong tradition of theatre, in part due to an enduring legacy of its Mystery Plays dating back to the middle-ages. Theatres have come and gone in smaller locations – the Gateway closed its doors in 2007 – and at a grassroots level, but outdoor performances are persistently popular), but a void in the city’s art scene remains.

This absence is made even more apparent considering the University offers degrees in Fine Art and Photography, yet there is no venue for contemporary art outside of the municipal Grosvenor Museum, and a smattering of small commercial galleries. The University’s Contemporary Art Space Chester (CASC) has recently closed, becoming Fashion degree studios at the start of the academic year.

Unlike Liverpool or Manchester, Chester does not have a contemporary cultural legacy that overshadows its ability to write a new version of itself. There is no expectation of a past to be emulated, and instead, new traditions and experimentation might be introduced. One of the questions which arises from this absence of “house style” is who is responsible for ensuring that a city’s cultural offer is well rounded – or that recognising specialisms might be essential to survival. The city has an already well-established audience for the performing arts, so rightly this has been Storyhouse’s focus for investment. Such large-scale council funding for an untested offer might have caused more controversy than this proposal. Instead, Chester Council could support contemporary visual arts by offering up empty shop space for installations (like the aforementioned Chester Performs’ Rogue Galleries programme in 2013), or in assisting groups to start their own studios, galleries, art fairs or magazines. A mixture of both funded and grassroots activity is essential, particularly in giving a platform for voices counter to the prevailing political or cultural narratives the council and funders promote.

A project on the physical and financial scale of Storyhouse is one which will always feel risky. We have seen money poured into areas of the UK subsequently be cut-off, like with Newcastle at the turn of the century, with dramatic consequences for its larger venues and organisations. A sustainable space for uncertain times needs to adapt and challenge existing models. In the case of Storyhouse, this has taken shape through a broader cultural offer.

Buildings do not instigate change or sustain culture alone. However, with an initial commitment to the different audiences and community groups of Chester, in varied fields of performance arts and film, Storyhouse has the potential to become a valued addition. Whether positivity is enough to maintain the project in the long-term is an unknown, but perhaps a space such as this – with so much enthusiasm from its locals – has a better chance than one existing alongside rivals in a larger urban setting. Chester’s residents have waited over a decade for a new arts centre, and it has been hard fought for. Whatever the future challenges faced by cultural institutions nationally, Storyhouse has the attention of a potential audience who recognise the value of such a space in the ecology of their city.

Hannah Allan

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North-West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here  #writecritical

Storyhouse opens Thursday 11 May 2017 in Chester

Images, from top: Storyhouse exterior shot; foyer, roof of cinema and theatre, taken during building works. Feature image, exterior shot. All images courtesy Storyhouse

It’s a familiar story of increasing city-centre gentrification. But where does it leave one more arts space facing eviction? Daniel McMillan speaks to the artists of Rogue, Manchester, about paving the way for expensive apartments… 

A banner on a graffitied exterior wall, visible to commuters on the Ashton-Eccles tramline, is the only discernible change to Crusader Mill since its change in ownership. The name of property developers Capital & Centric, who purchased the 19^th century mill from a private landowner in December 2015, is emblazoned white on black. “Piccadilly there. Live here.” No more information necessary, it seems, to persuade prospective buyers to “call first dibs on a new pad”.

The redevelopment of the building sees the eviction of its current occupiers: five textile companies, and two not-for-profit artists’ studio groups, Rogue Artists Studios and 3^rd Floor Studios. Rogue, the largest of the two, has occupied the building since 2000. And while the construction of the “new pads” has not yet started, the end of Rogue’s lease is fast approaching and they have yet to secure new premises. It is uncertain times for the 97 artists in their ranks.

The area surrounding the studios has seen extensive redevelopment work, since the expansion of Manchester Piccadilly rail station in the early 2000s, and with the promise of high speed rail links to London in the early 2030s. What was once wasteland with derelict buildings is now populated by faux-Victorian warehouses, luxury apartments and actual Victorian warehouses converted into luxury flats.

It’s a change David Gledhill, Rogue co-director, has witnessed over the studio’s 15 years in the Ancoats area. “They keep throwing flats up with no infrastructure. There’s no general practitioners, no dentists, no parks… When we moved here this was rubble-strewn scrubland and now it’s totally transformed. It was a red light district and a no-go area.” The building is in close proximity to the Cardroom Estate: a crime-ridden housing estate built in the late 70s, redeveloped and rebranded New Islington in 2002.

Given the recent history of the area, it is unsurprising that Crusader Mill, Grade-II listed and falling into disrepair, has been bought for redevelopment. But while the sale of the building is not particularly noteworthy in itself, the questions it raises regarding Manchester’s changing artistic landscape are.

Rogue was founded in 1995 by Colin Sinclair, a fine art graduate from Manchester School of Art, in collaboration with Diane Harrison Designs, a textile design company working from Hanover Mill. In an event that parallels their current situation, the building was sold to property developers and later demolished, prompting the artists’ studio group to part ways with the textile designer and relocate to their current building.

Since then, Rogue has become the largest artist-led studio group in the North, with a mission to provide “affordable, accessible studio space to fine artists in close proximity to city centre amenities”. With the regeneration and expansion of Manchester city centre, it is a mission that is becoming increasingly difficult to fulfil.

I met Hilary Jack, a Rogue member since its early days at Hanover Mill, in her studio space on the first floor. Conversation quickly turns to one of her sculptures: a precarious-looking tower compiled of art books, a step ladder, potted plants, a mouldy fridge and other studio staples (Hell in a Handcart (2016)). It was exhibited in the Rogue project space as part of their Progress exhibition in June, and later described by Bob Dickinson as a “doomed pirate ship” in an article published by a-n.

“I think a lot of the artists are feeling [Rogue’s future] is very uncertain”, says Jack; “and I guess that’s what this structure was meant to say. This teetering thing […] It’s a metaphor for the studio life and also moving from the studios.”

Jack joined Rogue shortly after graduating from a BA in Fine Art at Manchester School of Art in 1995. How has the city changed since then?

“There are many, many more artists now in Manchester”, Jack continues. “I don’t want it to sound like it was the dark ages, but [there has] certainly been a massive change. When I graduated, I think I was basically the only person off the BA that stayed here; everybody else either went to London or Glasgow.”

It would be naïve to suggest that Rogue led this change in Manchester’s artistic landscape, but the role they, and other independent Manchester-born arts organisations — like Castlefield Gallery and The International 3 — have played in nurturing it should not be understated.

Louise Giovanelli (work pictured, above) graduated from Manchester School of Art in 2015 (featuring in TDN’s Class of 2015) and has been a studio member since December. She was quickly picked up by The International 3 and is now one of the gallery’s associate artists. Originally from South Wales, Giovanelli is one of the “many more artists now in Manchester” that Jack mentioned, and continuing to live in the city after graduating. Does she have an opinion on the sale of the building and the relocation of the studios?

“It seems that artists move into a place, make it cool and desirable”, Giovanelli tells me; “then they get chased out and people want to live in the cool area where the artists are… but [they’re] not there anymore because you’ve chased them out. It’s bizarre.”

The connection between the arts and gentrification is not new. The aforementioned cycle (a community of artists move in to an area of industrial decline, middle class arts consumers follow, creating a market for middle class art consumer amenities thus raising rents and pricing artists out of the area) can be traced back to the 1960s, when artists populated the lofts of New York’s Lower East Side.

The amount of cultural capital that Rogue has brought to the Ancoats area, and the extent to which this has sped up its redevelopment, is difficult to quantify, and the implication that there is equivalence between its fate and that of the NY loft artists, spurious.

A touch of culture, however, is certainly a quality Capital & Centric recognises its target demographic is looking for in the area surrounding their new pad. When describing past redevelopment projects on their website, the company do not talk of building flats or office blocks, but rather “creating communities” and “cultivating cultures”. They also “curate ground-breaking art”.

It’s easy to point out the irony of the situation. To fulfil the Capital & Centric vision of creating a community of cultured pad dwellers for financial gain, they have had to evict a community of artists. Gledhill, however, stresses that the property developers should not be spun as the villains.

“They’re being very co-operative”, says Gledhill. “They’ve funded the website and we’re working with their graphic designer to rebrand the studios [see the flash new Rogue website] … They’re doing as much as they can to compensate us.”

Martin Nash, Rogue co-director, agrees. “Tim Heatley [co-director of Capital & Centric] has devoted a lot of time to us. He has expressed the objective that he wants to make sure that Rogue has a secure long-term future.”

Crusader Mill was built in the 1830s and was originally used to construct machinery for the textile industry. Since then, it has housed multiple knitting factories, depleting in numbers with the demise of Manchester’s textile industry and the purge of traditional industries from the city centre.

The evolution of Crusader Mill is referenced in Rogue artist Sam Meech’s Fait Accompli (2016) – a series of machine knitted tiles currently on display in the main stairwell. The tiles depict areas of the building’s interior walls which were photographed, translated into knitting patterns, machine knitted, and hung over the actual area they depict. Details include the flaking paintwork, hand-painted signage belonging to or left behind by business holders past and present, and coded A4 sheets of paper gaffer-taped to the wall by Capital & Centric’s building surveyors.

The tiles serve as a literal record of the building at the end of its tenure, while the medium calls to mind its history and the presence of the knitting factories that still occupy it. For Meech, however, this was not a conscious reference. They are the result of his continued interest in machine knitting and its connection to analogue film. Driven by the news that the building had been sold to property developers, he arranged a residency with Crusader Knitwear: one of the knitting companies that shares the space. I ask him what problems the business is facing following the sale of the building?

“They’ve got these massive machines” Meech says, “and they’ve got about 20 of them, and they’ll have to get them out with a crane. It’s going to cost them 15-20 grand just to move once they’ve found somewhere. They’re facing this question of: Should we just pack it in?”

What has the relationship between the artists and knitting companies been like generally?

“They all interact with each other”, Meech tells me. “The technicians will move between businesses. The knitting businesses and artists, there’s no reason why we’d do anything together. But we’re all in the same boat.”

Much of what makes Rogue unique — that it is self-governed, not for profit, and has low levels of bureaucracy — has no doubt played a part in their building being bought from under them. Is it therefore possible for the organisation to exist in its current form?

Though Manchester city centre rent prices have increased significantly since the studio group was first established in the ‘90s, there are still models that Rogue can look to that would enable them to continue to provide affordable studio space. Examples include Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces scheme, through which deals are negotiated with property developers and landlords to allow artists access to vacant spaces in the North West, and NY Space, a project space set up in the city centre in collaboration with Bruntwood.

These collaborations are proof that third parties are receptive to the idea of hosting cultural activity, but they are generally short-term, and artists are on the back foot of the deal – having to vacate once their creative ‘purpose’ in the building has been served.

Gledhill states that Rogue are in conversations with the Arts Council and Manchester and Salford City Councils to secure a new property. Speaking of the connection between the arts and redevelopment, he remarked: “I think it’s time artists understood that their strength lies in their economic clout with the Council. If we can get them to use us to regenerate neglected areas, and if they’re providing the affordable buildings, we can get something out of that. We can claim some of the value that we create.”

Exactly which route Rogue chooses to go down in securing a new property, and whether they can broker a deal that ensures longevity for the studio group, remains to be seen.

Daniel McMillan

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North-West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here  #writecritical

Read the programme’s book, On Being Curious: New Critical Writing on Contemporary Art From the North-West of England; available as a free e-book HERE (yes, free of charge!)

Images, from top: Rogue Artist Studios: interior, courtesy Jan Chlebik. Louise Giovanelli, The Dress rehearsal II’ – Oil on linen, 2016. Rogue Artist Studios: exterior, courtesy Rogue artist David Gledhill. Rogue residency artist Sam Meech, Unique Knitwear 2016. Rogue artist Jenny Steele, Over and Over, Jump In!

Turner Prize winners, super slow canal culture, and DIY art schools… As it is published online and in print, editor Laura Robertson takes a personal look at the making of On Being Curious: The Double Negative’s first in-house book, and an essential snapshot of British contemporary arts criticism…

Since the very start, The Double Negative has recognised the value of practical, good quality support for emerging arts writers. We’ve made it our mission to prioritise and deliver what we see as essential, yet woefully overlooked, backing: clear and constructive editorial support; connecting writers with other publications; networking and skills-building; and critical writing bursaries. The latter two are often only achievable with the financial and logistical help of other partners and collaborators. So imagine our delight when the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North-West (CVAN NW) also decided to prioritise those things too, during their Arts Council England-funded Critical Writing Bursary & Workshop Programme (2014-16).

Invited onto the working group for this timely project, I collaborated with seven amazing editors, writers and curators – Sinead Nunes (Art in Liverpool/FACT), Susie Stubbs (Creative Tourist/Modern Designers), Steph Brocken (Blaze Arts), Elaine Speight (In Certain Places/UCLAN) , Rosemary Shirley (Manchester School of ART/MMU), Sophia Crilly (Bureau Gallery), and Bob Dickinson (BBC Four/Art Monthly) — to shape the offer. They all, like me, knew that we needed to get that crucial practical support right. A lot was riding on what we could come up with, as we all knew (through hard-won experience) how difficult it is to attempt to ‘make it’ as a freelance writer. Two concerns were a lack of confidence amongst writers in the North-West region, and a lack of career support that would guide a writer towards freelance work.

What we laid out was a series of intense writing experiences; including compulsory workshops, mentoring, writing, publishing and regional travel. Workshops took place throughout 2015 at venues across the North-West on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings (travel expenses included, very important). They were facilitated by specialists in the fields of writing, publication and distribution, both print and online: I led one about online media, and there were sessions about form and function, social media, self-distribution, print media, and relationships with galleries from the excellent Gerrie Van Noord (Artangel/UoL/Glasgow School of Art), Joanne Lee (Pam Flett Press/Nottingham Trent University/Sheffield Hallam University), Chris Sharratt (a-n News), and the afore-mentioned Dickinson and Crilly.

Each of the 25 successful applicants — who live in, work in or were born in Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside – was awarded a bursary of £300 to produce one short exhibition review (1000-1200 words) and one feature (2000-2500 words) about the North-West region (you can read them all here); and, crucially, they were all partnered with a critical writing mentor and publishing platform to receive one-to-one guidance (including tackling challenges like fees, pitching, structuring and editorial back-and-forth throughout the writing process). The 25 writers were all published here on TDN, plus Art in Liverpool, Creative Tourist, a-n News, This is Tomorrow, Corridor8, Confront, Red Eye Photography Network and The Skinny.

The result? According to the writers, a very significant injection of skills development and ambition building. One, Sara Jaspan, said that the Critical Writing Bursary & Workshop Programme ”provided me with the confidence to pursue writing goals that I never thought I’d achieve. For example, when I first began writing for TDN I had only contributed to a few, regional titles. I now write for national titles including Art Monthly and a-n, and am pitching to internationals such as Frieze and Art Review.” Other writers have since achieved PhD places, jobs and associate artist roles at Liverpool Biennial, and are writing their own books — in addition to continuing to write, as freelancers, for those aforementioned national publications.

The effect was also one of active cultural tourism and profile-raising. Unique to the North-West region yet contributing to national and international debates around visual art, the award-winning artists, projects, exhibitions, art schools, agencies and artist-led venues that the writers chose to write about — including 30 years of CFCCA; upcoming young artists including Joe Fletcher Orr and Natalie Wardle; Turner Prize winners Assemble and the Granby Four Streets; Super Slow Way culture along the Leeds-Liverpool canal; trials and triumphs at The Royal Standard; and investigating what artists need at Islington Mill Art Academy – provides a rich snapshot of the contemporary art scene outside of London and from over a prolific 18 month period.

And so to On Being Curious: New Critical Writing on Contemporary Art From the North-West of England; which is essentially a condensed version of those stories. 10 new articles on contemporary art from 10 (of those 25) emerging writers, contributing to national and international debates around what it means to make powerful, arresting and effective arts practice. In the full spirit of accessibility and widening participation, the e-version is free to download (click here), and the print version will be gifted to public and university libraries across the North-West and the UK, including the British Library.

Some incredible people have been nice enough to say a few words about the book, including a-n’s Chris Sharratt, frieze magazine co-editor Jennifer Higgie, and Oliver Basciano, international editor at ArtReview. For me, Basciano sums On Being Curious up best: “This book provides 10 smacks in the face to the idea that art criticism is dead. Art needs to be interrogated, artists’ ideas stretched and pummelled, loved and lauded: the writers contained within these pages do all this and more, with verve and humour, hitting points and making targets with scary panache.”

It goes without saying that I feel really honoured to have been part of this book — as its editor and producer, as a collaborator within the wider CVAN NW Critical Writing Bursary & Workshop Programme, yet also as the co-founder of The Double Negative. I hope that we can continue to provide excellent editorial and publishing services in this vein, spreading the word about good writing, good artworks and good people, and working towards a model of print that respects, pays and supports the next generation of arts writers.

Laura Robertson

Download the full e-book version of On Being Curious: New Critical Writing on Contemporary Art From the North-West of England HERE (yes, free of charge!)

On Being Curious will be available in print (paperback) at a selection of public and university libraries across the North-West and the UK, including at the British Library; ISBN 978-1-5262-0237-6

Want to request a copy for your library or to review? Please email laura[at]thedoublenegative.co.uk or CVAN NW coordinator Emma Fry: muralla_emlou[at]yahoo.com 

On Being Curious: 68 pages, with 12 new illustrations by Paul McQuay, and designed for The Double Negative by Mike Carney (images courtesy the designer). A4 portrait, 190 x 230mm; text pages: 150gsm uncoated paper; dust jacket: G. F. Smith Papers, Transclear in Natural, 140gsm. With thanks to its main funders: Arts Council England, Lancashire County Council, Manchester School of Art, and University of Salford

Published by The Double Negative on behalf of Contemporary Visual Arts Network North West (CVAN NW): a network creating opportunities for artists, organisations and professionals to develop their practice, share ideas, knowledge & resources, and cultivate relationships. Read more about their work here

See more on Twitter via @thedblengtve & @cvanetwork // #writecritical #onbeingcurious

Read all the articles published through the Critical Writing Bursary & Workshop Programme by 25 writers HERE; and all of the articles specifically on TDN HERE

What is an artistic collaborator? Is it someone who decided to “reach out” after scanning your Instagram feed, or can it be someone who has known you since you were born? Orla Foster ponders the art of parental guidance at The International 3 gallery…

For Mummy’s Boy, his second solo show in collaboration with The International 3 (Salford), Joe Fletcher Orr takes a wry look at the mother/son relationship. It’s an exhibition in which his mother appears not only as inspiration, but also as an accomplice and collaborator.

Fletcher Orr recognises, of course, the absurdity of positioning himself as a naïve child within his own work. This self-awareness is right there in the title, setting the tone for an exhibition which see-saws somewhere between mockery and affection. He isn’t afraid to appear sentimental, either, as can be gauged from Friendly Name For A Fool (2016), a sign spelling out the words Soft Lad in garish, neon letters. It’s as though he wants to beat the viewer to the punchline, to be both tongue-in-cheek and trite.

Perhaps the most immediately eye-catching work here is Happy Pot (2016); four house plants which are arranged on columns throughout the space, lending it the atmosphere of a well-tended living room. The pots themselves were made by the artist and his mother at a ceramics workshop; as if the creative process were after all a therapeutic family pastime rather than an internal agonising struggle. That feels groundbreaking in itself. Also, plants — both a symbol of growth and a well-managed household — are suggestive of the nurturing role of family. Artists are meant to Explore and Investigate and Interrogate, aren’t they? Not just… be nurtured.

We’ve seen this playful approach in Fletcher Orr’s work before; for example, Orranorco (2014), in which he decided to exhibit his dad’s idea of the “perfect” rug. When the rug failed to ship on time, however, a stand-in was displayed in its place. Ultimately, the viewer didn’t need to see the original object but instead was expected to take the artist’s word for it that it represented something special, making the substitute item a sort of tribute to his father’s good judgment.

This idea of parental wisdom runs through Mummy’s Boy. We are led to picture the relationship, the conversations and the decision-making of mother and son in every, small detail. The colour of the walls, for example, is categorised as a work in itself: Strawberry Surprise (2016). The shade was selected by the artist’s mother, perhaps in an echo of childhood visits to Rapid or B&Q to weigh up swatches for the bathroom or kitchen. Yet even to make this kind of observation feels lazy and speculative on the viewer’s part, as though the creative scope of parents was strictly limited to DIY on bank holidays. If we are interested in what the artist has to say, then why not in his parents? Are their creative decisions somehow less deserving of a platform?

Similar concerns are raised by the still life photographs, Welcome Fruit, I, II and II (2016); three studio shots of a bowl of fruit, tastefully arranged by the artist’s mother. With glossy oranges poking out of their red netting, Fyffes bananas and conference pears, the softly-lit compositions somehow exude a sober gravitas even while showcasing the most familiar and domestic of objects. The resulting images seem archetypal both in the home and the history of art.

But it’s not possible to write such a grandiose statement without wanting to laugh and then look at the works again from scratch. More questions arise. What is an artistic collaborator, anyway? Is it someone who decided to “reach out” after scanning your Instagram feed, or can it be someone who has known you since you were born? Does creating meaningful work need to involve a tortured internal conflict, or simply picking out a can of Dulux? Have we all missed a trick not teaming up with our folks?

Finally, for the piece Muppet (2016), Fletcher Orr enlists a surrogate, or doppelgänger, in the form of a large rag doll propped up against one of the walls. Wearing jeans and trainers, with thick-rimmed glasses stitched onto its felt face, the doll was ordered from a site which specialises in creating the customer’s likeness out of photographs — the ultimate personalised toy. Close by is Sad Pot (2016), a companion piece to Happy Pot (2016), the difference being that this pot is now reduced to shards of clay, the column flat on the ground and surrounded by soil. It’s as if the viewer has arrived moments after the doll has toppled the display — just in time to catch it sitting back and beaming innocently at the surrounding chaos.

Yet this moment of disruption is also carefully choreographed; a nod to childhood whereby even an act of sabotage amounts to little more than a cheeky mishap. The invisible third party, you imagine, is the beleaguered mother realising that she has to drag the hoover out again. But this, too, is pure speculation. Maybe this exhibition isn’t trying to Make A Statement, but really is just a warm observation of family life, and its relationship with artistic practice.

Mummy’s Boy is a show which pretends to be insipid, with its pastel colours and fruit bowls, but does so with a lightness of touch that makes the whole concept really quite entertaining. Fletcher Orr draws parallels between the idea of a solo exhibition and that of a Year 5 project ready to be unveiled to waiting classmates. It’s as though the artist is playing with our assumptions of artistic agency and taking them down a peg or two: this show is subversive precisely because it appears not to be. Somewhere, just out of shot, the artist has pushed over a house plant and is laughing while we hypothesise over the wreckage.

Orla Foster

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North-West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here  #writecritical

See Joe Fletcher Orr / Mummy’s Boy at The International 3 gallery, Salford, Greater Manchester, from Wednesday 23 March until Friday 29 April 2016

Gallery open Weds-Fri 12pm-5pm (other times by appointment)

In offering international travel expenses, curatorial mentorships and commissions, Liverpool Biennial is giving artists based in the North just what they need. Jack Welsh speaks to the people involved about how more responsive relationships between institutions and associate artists can mediate a critical gap in provision…

In 2015, Chisenhale Gallery commissioned Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt to map the current landscape of professional development programmes offered by arts organisations across the UK. While acknowledging that professional development is a contentious term, Gordon-Nesbitt’s study identified two definitions of artist development activities; firstly, the advancement of practice in regards to exhibitions, commissions and sales; and secondly, supporting artists’ to develop the infrastructure required to build professional networks and forge new opportunities relevant to their career trajectory.

Arts writer and researcher Dany Louise notes that traditional artist associate programmes, provided by an established arts institution offering longitudinal support to a handful of artists, are becoming increasingly rare due to dwindling funds and resources. New models of paid artist associate schemes, such as Mark Devereux Projects and Castlefield Gallery Associates, offer valuable critical development programmes that are individually tailored to artists own practice.

However, the importance of developing international networks, a vital part of a successful career, has long drawn many artists from the North to the artistic behemoth that is London.

So, it was with great interest to receive a press release at the beginning of February announcing a major new initiative: Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists Programme.

The laconic release outlined how, in partnership with New York-based Independent Curators International (ICI) and Joe Fletcher Orr’s Liverpool-based Cactus Gallery, and supported by significant investment from Arts Council England, the new initiative aims to support artists based in the North of England to develop their careers internationally.

The announcement followed swirling whispers of a clandestine nomination and selection process, which has resulted in 10 – really 11 – artists selected: Simeon Barclay (Leeds); Jacqueline Bebb (Chester); Lindsey Bull (Manchester); Robert Carter and Lauren Velvick (Manchester); Nina Chua (Manchester); Matthew Crawley (Leeds); Frances Disley (Liverpool); Daniel Fogarty (Manchester); Harry Meadley (Leeds); and Stephen Sheehan (Birkenhead).

While not much is yet known beyond the initial release, the positive response to the announcement suggests that artists are intrigued by what’s on offer: new international networking opportunities, assigned curatorial mentors and the chance to present work within the context this year’s Biennial. Exciting, yet enigmatic, stuff.

Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey, head of production and international projects at Liverpool Biennial, is one of the lead contacts for the initiative. Bertolotti-Bailey told me how the Biennial invited a range of national curators to nominate artists for the scheme. “Our criteria was that artists needed to live in the North of England and who would benefit now from the programme,” she says. “This resulted in an interesting list of 40 artists; the quality was very high.”

An international panel of 10 selectors, including Chris Fitzpatrick, director of Kunstverein München (Munich) and Katharine Stout, head of programmes at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA, London), studied the list before meeting in Liverpool to whittle the 40 down to 10, over an intense portfolio session and debate.

Since the announcement, the Associate Artists programme has been building momentum behind the scenes, as Bertolotti-Bailey elaborates. “ICI have now matched the associate artists with 10 international curators/mentors. Our first meeting and networking session will be held in Liverpool at the end of March in order to develop individual schedules of work for the artists over the next two and a half years.”

Each artist will receive money and support to work with their respective curatorial mentors internationally. The opportunity to jet off – without cost – to absorb rich new cultural experiences, and build new networks at global art events (Manifesta 11 or Gwangju Biennale, perhaps?) is clearly a mouth-watering proposition for any artist.

It seems Liverpool Biennial’s existing relationship with ICI offered an opportunity to amplify the international scope of the initiative. “Aside from ICI’s deep global knowledge of established curators”, Bertolotti-Bailey continues, “and it being an encyclopaedia of international networks, our partnership was also because ICI are completely committed to the development of young talent. It’s almost a natural choice; we couldn’t think about any other organisation better suited.”

In the summer, the Associate Artists will meet again to showcase existing work in the context of Liverpool Biennial. Orr, as founder of Cactus Gallery, will work closely with the artists and the 2016 curatorial faculty to realise this.

As an independent project partner, Orr provides a counterpoint to ICI and Biennial’s own networks, “Joe has specific expertise that we don’t have about the younger artist landscape, especially in the North of England,” explains Bertolotti-Bailey. “While his knowledge was crucial for the selection panel, we’re also really interested in the work he’s doing at Cactus. We felt it would be more interesting and fruitful to have Joe as a ‘step mentor’ to the Associate Artists.”

Tentative plans for 2017 include the introduction of an additional, more established curatorial mentor to each artist, in addition to the first mentor, and a potential project in London. As Bertolotti-Bailey stresses: “The programme is something we create with the artists. It’s not that we are following proscribed guidelines, rather that we are developing it in stages, which never happens! It’s quite a luxury to work this way.”

In July last year, Liverpool Biennial were successful in a £250,000 application to Arts Council England’s International Showcasing fund; a new curator/producer-led funding stream aimed at developing new markets and audiences for UK work internationally. As Gordon-Nesbitt concludes in her research, Liverpool Biennial, as a major cultural institution, has used its international influence to form a strategic partnership triumvirate and secure funding to develop a unique opportunity for artists in the North.

Bertolli-Bailey agrees. “I think that’s why we got it, we were being quite ambitious.” Another part of the programme will be designed to support the artists to develop their commercial presence. “It’s completely evident that for an artist to arrive, they need a market,” says Bertolotti-Bailey. “For that market to come and happen, connections need to be made and natured. We thought it was absolutely necessary to instigate those conversations organically.”

Frances Disley, artist, curator and co-director of MODEL Liverpool, reflects on the lack of an established market in the North. “That’s something that’s not on people’s radar up here”, Disley tells me. “I know what Ceri Hand did for people while she was here was really great, advocating for artists, putting them in touch with the right people/platform; that’s a really good thing when it works well. The programme feels like it could fill a real gap; the next thing that can really develop an artists’ practice.”

Disley has had an artistically assiduous year. Her recent work has been charged with a freedom and experimental vibrancy; think lustrously coloured gloss paint streaking down cardboard sculptures, resulting in new objects which are then further animated by Disley’s own body.

Delighted at being selected for the programme, Disley agrees that forging new networks beyond the region is crucial for continuing artistic development in the North. “I’ve been to loads of Arts Council meetings were we’ve discussed various ways to improve Liverpool as a desirable destination to advance artistic practice”, she says; “such as developing new opportunities to show outside of the city.” MODEL’s SCOUSE HOUSE exhibition series have sought to do this, literally exporting Liverpool’s artistic talent to Nottingham and Warrington.

The issue with artist-led activities, as Disley observes, is that there are natural resource constraints. “We try to informally initiate group crits at The Royal Standard, but generally the people who aren’t involved in those discussions are external curators and critics.” As we all know, buying a train ticket for anywhere beyond Manchester can seriously dent your wallet.

Asked if she felt the Artist Associate call came at the right time, Disley adds: “It wouldn’t have been as useful for me two years ago; I think I’d probably be still at a point where I needed more internal discussions. Now, however, I could do with external input.”

Writer, artist and curator Lauren Velvick was jointly selected with Robert Carter for their interdisciplinary curatorial unit the Exhibition Centre for the Life and Use of Books (fellow co-director Dan Fogarty is also an Associate Artist). “Robert and I were nominated for our collaborative work for the Modern Histories exhibitions, although we’ll probably do the programme separately”, Velvick explains.

“We really wanted to push our initial collaborative work further, but it’s something we just don’t have the resources to do without specific funding. We started doing a few separate things but kept our joint research interests in printmaking in mind. This is a good opportunity to do that.”

As the only joint selection, Velvick feels the open-ended nature of the programme will be advantageous. “I’m interested in how the programme will develop organically”, she says, “which is exactly how we’ve worked previously. I can’t think of anything else like this – it’s really exciting.”

Manchester based painter Lindsey Bull employs figurative painting to explore different psychological states through spatially evocative works. Bull has spent several years building artistic momentum with various solo and group exhibitions across the UK and internationally. Musing on her selection, Bull comments: “The time is right for me. I’ve had lots of shows in various places; I need to push to another level now and this will programme will help. My aim is to get gallery representation and greater exposure and new contacts is critical in achieving this.”

Bull was part of Manchester Salon, a peer-led artist group who invited arts professionals to critically discuss artistic practices in Manchester and the North-West. “We invited lots of curators to Manchester with Arts Council funding,” says Bull. “What we found was while having money to do this was great, establishing new links and networks is even better.”

A joint 2013 Castlefield Gallery/MIRAD report (entitled Analysing Artists’ Continual Professional Development (CPD) in Greater Manchester: towards an integrated approach for talent development) identified that artists value peer exchange, mentoring and the advancement of an informed support network as fundamental to any artistic development activities. While the Salon and critiques at The Royal Standard are self-initiated examples of peer exchange, the costs involved in internationally expanding these networks is restrictive. Closer and more responsive relationships between institutions and associate artists can mediate and fill a gap in provision.

Simeon Barclay’s striking compositions, underpinned by myriad of cultural references, from Heinz Tomato Ketchup bottles to Diego Maradona, dynamically ruptures existing preconceptions of mediated cultural signifiers. Over the last year, Barclay has had solo exhibitions at Dam Projects and Set The Controls for The Heart of The Sun (STCTHOTS), and provided a major contribution to The Tetley’s recent exhibition, The Feast Wagon. Barclay is currently exhibiting work at The Royal Standard in Playing By The Rules.

“It couldn’t have come at any better time for me”, says Barclay. “There’s been a lot of interest in what I’m doing over the last two years. It’s not easy to sustain a practice; it’s really hard. However, if more press and interest comes to my work due to this – allowing me to have greater access to resources – then that would be great. All I want to do is make. It’s a great opportunity… although I don’t know what the end result is going to be.”

As a Leeds-based artist, Barclay and I discuss where the geographical perimeters lay during the Biennial’s selection process, with Barclay pointing out artistic talent in the North-East. Our discussion eventually turns to practising in the North. “A lot of artists who went to London are returning now as it’s not financially sustainable”, he notes. “Wherever they were based when they originally moved, there’s now more of a pull to return; something is in the zeitgeist about going back.”

Barclay also makes the lucid observation that, with curent levels of connectivity, “I can be based anywhere in the world now.” Bull concurs that being based in the North is not prohibitive. “Lots of artists live in the region but show internationally: it can be done. While there isn’t a market in Manchester, it’s about your networks. You shouldn’t be labelled ‘Northern artist’ – just an artist.”

Bertolotti-Bailey acknowledges this: “The Biennial is not based in London which also gives us a whole set of responsibilities. While we work on an international scale, we’re trying to make a point that you don’t need to live in London anymore to make it.”

And that’s the underlying message; artists can be based anywhere if there’s an opportunity to strengthen their networks and markets internationally.

Some may criticise the Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists programme as a closed opportunity that will only benefit the handful of artists selected. While true in a sense, this perspective is myopic, neglecting the vivacious and valuable contribution the 11 artists have already made through making work, writing, teaching, researching curating and organising. It’s highly possible that, emboldened by new international networks and opportunities, their future artistic activities will cross-pollinate, further increasing impact to the wider arts ecology in the North.

Once the programme has finished and the final funding report submitted, what legacy would Liverpool Biennial like to see?

Bertolotti-Bailey is clear. “More ambitious artistic activities undertaken at wider and further horizons; that’s what we’d like to see.”

Jack Welsh is a freelance researcher, writer and artist based in Liverpool

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North-West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here  #writecritical

Read more information regarding the Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists Programme

‘Speed’ meet the Associate Artists at a special event Thursday 24 March 2016, 6.30pm, at the Bluecoat, Liverpool — FREE (booking required)

Images from top: Simeon Barclay; Robert Carter, Lauren Velvick and Daniel Fogarty’s ECLUB work at Modern History exhibition; Carter and Velvick; Lindsay Bull’s oil painting Checked Jumper (detail; 2014); Fran Disley’s Roll and Fix (still; 2015). All images courtesy the artists

For more context on Liverpool’s art scene, read Oliver Basciano’s 2014 feature for The Double Negative

With very little writing accompanying the photographic essays of Preston is my Paris (PPP), we are left with only the semiotics of images and imagined narratives. Here, Ruth White interprets the publications’ underlying political and social significance…

The statement “Preston is my Paris” conjures up all sorts of ideas and unfortunately, because of recent terrorist attacks, Paris now also represents something very frightening and topical. Regardless of films such as Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995) and Laurent Cantet’s The Class (2008), which reveal the dark underbelly and socio-economic problems of Parisian society, Paris is a city traditionally associated with romance, modernism and the photography of Eugène Atget and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

In contrast, Preston only gained city status in 2002 and, like many post-industrial Northern towns, since the 1970s has suffered from deindustrialisation, economic deprivation and high rates of unemployment. Despite its regeneration in recent years, it is a place that for many people does not represent anything in particular and for some embodies bleakness and poverty – certainly not high culture or anything picturesque.

“Preston is my Paris”, if thought about as a narrative, leads one to imagine the life of a resident of the city, who out of necessity has learnt to make do within his narrow horizons: “I may be poor and my options may be limited” he thinks, “but I’m happy with my lot — who needs Paris when I have Preston!”

But Preston is my Paris (PPP) is the title given by the photographers Adam Murray and Robert Parkinson to their first zine, an A5 black and white photocopied booklet containing images and photographs from a range of sources — all of which related in some way to Preston. Since its conception in 2009, PPP has become the name under which the pair have continued to build up their photographic archive of places in the North. “Initially it was about just giving a reason to explore Preston”, says Murray. “The more we learned about cities and places the more we looked into it”.

To my surprise and disappointment, I discovered that the name PPP was appropriated from the tagline of a commercial for Clark’s shoes which was seen on the television at the time of PPP’s inception. It is tinted to give an old film effect and is accompanied by nostalgic Parisian music, as an elegantly dressed lady puts on her Clarks boots then leaves what appears to be a Parisian apartment; she rides a bicycle with a basket mounted on its handlebars, buys a cake from a patisserie, and then rather smugly eats it on the steps on what is possibly Preston’s Harris Museum and Art Gallery.

She goes on to prance through a park, buy something from a market stall then giddily walks and spins through a public square filled with pigeons as she gazes at the sky. Finally, she is stopped in her tracks and brought crashing down to earth from this idyllic reverie by the voice of a pensioner with a Northern accent and the stares of on-looking shoppers. At this point, we hear that the woman herself has a strong Northern accent. Accent, which in Britain has always been an unwritten signifier of class position and has been used in a similar way in Heineken’s Water in Majorca (1985) and Boddingtons’ Cream of Manchester (1992) adverts, suggests that the woman is in fact more than likely from a working class background.

I interviewed Adam Murray at Manchester Metropolitan’s (MMU) Special Collections department where they hold a number of PPP publications. We discussed one of PPP’s early works, Preston Bus Station (2010). “I guess one of the big things with Preston is the bus station”, comments Murray. “It tended to be that attention was focused more on the building than the people who used it. We just wanted to produce something that focused more on the people that could be given away for free around the bus station. So that’s why we did a newspaper; me and Robert and Jamie Hawksworth. We got an old, disused National Express ticket office and used that for I think, two weeks, like a base, like an office or a studio type-thing. And just spent time in there, getting to know the place. And we spent three days over a weekend constantly in there, just photographing it all”.

Preston Bus Station was produced as a colour newspaper that was handed out free at the station itself and was also sold at a cost of £3 to interested parties. A central tenet of PPP is that their publications should be accessible to a wide audience and sold as cheaply as possible or given away.

The cover of the newspaper features a mysteriously beautiful yet at the same time quite ordinary looking, androgynous teenage girl with red hair tied back, pale skin and freckles, of an age it is difficult to judge. She could be 12 or 15. She wears a white t-shirt and smart blue sweatshirt and no makeup. Just out of shot stands her friend, whose sleeve can be glimpsed on the edge of the photograph. The newspaper also contains an image of a boy who is of indeterminate age wearing a track suit; another boy wearing a hooded track suit top who is sitting, slightly huddled, his face obscured by shadow; a man who appears to be a bus driver smoking on his break; another bus driver about to drive off in his bus; and a number of images of objects in the bus station, such as chairs and a vending machine.

The fragile quality of the paper used for printing news is not something we ordinarily think about – we recycle or throw newspapers away on a daily basis without a second thought; but in this context, the newspaper becomes more precious, not less.

As a second year PhD student investigating the representation of the British working classes in art since 1975, PPP’s publications interest me primarily because of what I see as their class content. The girl on the front cover of Preston Bus Station could have stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and what I find so compelling about the photograph and about the rest of the fashion photographer Jamie Hawkesworth’s photographs of people in the bus station is their humanity and sensitivity — qualities that are perhaps not traditionally associated with the cut-throat world of fashion.

Hawkesworth makes people who would probably consider themselves to be quite ordinary, appear extraordinary — but in a way that they do not appear as an exotic ‘other’. Murray suggested that Hawkesworth approached the project without any pre-conceptions, therefore it could be assumed that he did not take the photographs for any other reason than to make beautiful and arresting images of people he found aesthetically pleasing in some way.

When I suggested to Murray that the girl is most probably from a working class background because of the way she is dressed, Murray replied: “I guess the thing is to consider the assumptions you are making about other people, and how do we know? A lot of them [PPP’s images] don’t have any people in for a start”. I pointed out to him that it was fair to assume that the woman who looks like cleaner on the front cover of one of their other colour newspapers, Derby (2011), is working class, and he replied: “That’s the issue, that’s what’s interesting about dress and everything, it’s like… from one image, what assumptions do we make about those people? I guess with most of this, it isn’t focusing on a particular group of people”.

I agreed that it is true to a certain extent that people from all classes wear sportswear, yet a bit like the optimist I mentioned previously — who is satisfied with living in her version of Preston — for many people from poorer backgrounds, the choice of what they wear is limited. Indeed, it can be argued that for many young people who live in poorer areas, sportswear is a uniform that allows them to be accepted amongst their peers. It certainly was the case for me in a 1990s comprehensive school in Walton, Liverpool, where I was bullied for not wearing an expensive brand of trainers.

Derby, which contains a mixture of colour and black and white photographs for which Murray and Parkinson also collaborated with Hawksworth, can be said to behave in a similar way to Preston Bus Station. The front cover features a woman in blue overalls in her 60s or 70s, with pale skin, unnatural looking black hair and thin, drawn-on eyebrows. She stands facing the camera and is taking a drag on her cigarette. The semiotics of the image suggests that she is possibly a cleaner or shopworker, or occupied in some minimum wage job.

In the hands of a photographer like Martin Parr, a similar image could well appear harsh and unforgiving, but because of Hawkesworth’s sensitivity and the fragility of the newspaper, the image is aesthetically pleasing and the woman comes across less as a ‘type’ to be critically examined and more as an individual. Derby also includes an image of a car wash worker who looks like he might be a European migrant; a youth wearing a red bandana around his face, his hood up and a sparkler in his mouth; a solemn pensioner wearing a smart hat and coat; and a brass band marching in a street, whose faces are obscured by their instruments.

Given the documentary and archival nature of PPP and the tropes of conceptual art Murray and Parkinson have employed in site specific works, I was surprised to discover that although Parkinson’s BA is in Fine Art and his MA in Photography, Murray’s BA and MA is in studio-based Fashion Photography: “My interest is still fashion photography” he told me. “It’s more about people, I guess, and what they choose to look like is what’s exciting. So, like these ones that Jamie takes, what’s made her look like that? And it’s not a good or a bad thing, it’s just how she is, and all the different meaning that can be generated through dress and appearance.”

When asked if there are any political inflected meanings in the work he admitted: “Yes ,well, not explicit: there’s always that underlying awareness of it all, I guess. But if we presented it as this, almost difficult, academic thing, people would be put off by it; it’s quite intimidating, isn’t it? When you see something that’s complicated language or, high-end production or expensive, or something that has a very strong point of view — it can be quite intimidating and put people off”.

Regardless of intent, I would argue that Preston Bus Station and Derby perform a political act. Political because of how they are read, their relatively positive representation of individuals from working class backgrounds, and the way in which they were distributed freely within the area. This is in contrast to what I perceive as a lack of positive representations of working class people in visual culture over the last 30 or so years. The art world and art publications may only make up a small part of visual culture, but it can be argued that they still play a significant role.

In the British mass media, the general public have had to become used to a diet of Jeremy Kyle and endless programmes about Benefits, featuring people who are quite often portrayed and perceived as being the ‘undeserving poor’. All of which has served to harden public opinion towards those dependent on welfare and legitimise successive attempts by governments to roll back the welfare state.

With the exception perhaps of Gogglebox (2013 onwards), long gone are the days of The Likely Lads (1964-76) and Bullseye (19981-1995). Instead, in recent years we have had the fecklessness of Little Britain’s Vicki Pollard (2003 -2007) and the characters of Shameless (2004-2013). In the art world since the 1990s — with the exception perhaps of Jeremy Deller in his video of the re-enactment of the confrontation between picketing miners and the police in 1984 in The Battle of Orgreave (2001) and his celebration of working class culture in Acid Brass (1997) and The History of the World (1997-2004) — the focus in some of the most well-known art works has tended to be on those at the very bottom of the heap in British society. Examples include Richard Billingham’s photobook which centres on his unemployed, alcoholic father in Rays a Laugh (1996); Gillian Wearing’s works about a group of street drinkers she got to know in Theresa and… (1998) Drunk (1997 – 1999), Prelude (2000); Keith Coventry’s works about crack addicts in Crack City Series (1998 -1999) and Matt Collishaw’s video that depicts a homeless person in a snow shaker in Snowstorm (1994).

Working class life since the 1970s has become much more insecure. Working class communities have become fragmented, employment is more precarious, the trade unions are a shadow of their former selves, and New Labour in the 1990s abandoned their social democratic ideals, embracing the free market and many of the policies of Thatcherism. Yet, despite the obvious class content of the works I have mentioned, and the significance of the restructuring of the British economy and reconfiguration of the working classes since the 1970s, very little appears to have been written about the British working classes in contemporary art in recent years, with the exception of writers such as John Roberts and Julian Stallabrass.

Edith’s Scrapbook (2013), a collection of reproductions of newspaper clippings and other ephemera relating to a number of British political protests in the 1970s and 1980s, with which Robert’s grandmother was involved, could be said to be PPP’s most overtly political work. The scrapbook is accompanied by a cassette tape, which features a mix of unknown protest songs with ambient sound from a student fees protest from the university where Murray works (recorded by Robert Griffin and Parkinson), plus a photograph and a poster. The scrapbook itself reveals Robert’s grandmother’s interests in feminism, women’s health, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Thatcherism, and was simply reproduced almost exactly how they found it.

I would argue that the inclusion of Edith’s Scrapbook in MMU’s Special Collections and amongst PPP’s archives has a cumulative effect on how the rest of PPP’s publications are interpreted. With very little writing accompanying PPP’s photographic essays or on their website, we are left with only the semiotics of images and imagined narratives. The overt political references in Edith’s Scrapbook suggest to a viewer trying to find meanings in the work that there is most probably some sort of underlying political significance; so perhaps I can be forgiven for reading more deeply into the work than the producers are prepared to admit.

Ruth White

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here  #writecritical

See more from Preston is my Paris (PPP) on their website

Images from top: Preston Bus Station (2010) front cover, photographed by Ruth White at Manchester Metropolitan’s (MMU) Special Collections department. Preston Bus Station (2010) inner pages; We don’t mind people on shoulders. Just not under the ceiling fan (2013) inner pages; Derby (2011) front cover; Edith’s Scrapbook (2013) inner pages — all courtesy Preston is my Paris (PPP). Jeremy Deller’s The History of the World (1997-2004), exhibition view, Turner Prize, Tate, London, 2005 © Tate Photography.

C. James Fagan wants to be stimulated by the things he sees in the gallery. But is that what the gallery is for? Here, he ponders the broader purposes and concerns of our contemporary art spaces and their fundamental relationships with us — the people who visit them…

Why do galleries exist? This may strike you as a strange question. For the majority of people reading this article, galleries form an ubiquitous part of their lives and even careers. For many, viewing art also forms an important element of their social and leisure time.

Naturally, the first and perhaps the most obvious answer is that galleries exist to show art, to display whatever they see fit. Fair enough; but it also matters who is attending the gallery. The question of why galleries exist is related to another, key question: Who do galleries exist for?

How can we begin to understand or investigate what is a complex relationship between people and institutions? For the purposes of this article, I am relying on my own experiences as an art viewer with an art degree who has worked at galleries in my hometown of Liverpool; using the microcosm of one city in order the understand the macrocosm of the UK art scene.

Liverpool has galleries within a 20 minute walk of each other that offer an enormous range of artistic practice — from Greek sculpture to the latest digital technology to live performance (though they could offer more of the latter). I haven’t always been aware of these places; it was when I made a decision to take an interest in art that I sought out the gallery space.

My actions may indicate one reason galleries exist: that they are places to discover art. First, I had to discover what was available to me: this was done by scanning through the ‘what’s on’ or the ‘culture’ sections of the local press. Reading these listings for the names and locations of my local galleries allowed my imagination to be caught by a provocative exhibition title or description.

One of the first galleries I visited would have been Tate Liverpool. I can’t recall, but I was probably aware of its reputation for art, though it wasn’t quite the mega-brand it is today. Inside the Tate, I discovered a wealth of modern and contemporary work — exposing me to Marcel Duchamp and Helen Chadwick. At this time, I was taking in the works as an experience, picking up contextual information as I went.

In addition to Tate, the Bluecoat was important to my gallery education: an exhibition and performance space, plus studios and book shops, dedicated to contemporary art and artists based in the wider area. Visiting a gallery like the Bluecoat exposed me to new artists and current trends. Here was the opportunity to learn more about art.

This was important for someone like me, who wasn’t taking a direct route in art (I spent years studying design before fine art). Galleries were a valuable resource — especially pre-broadband Internet – which also informed and encouraged me to seek out more galleries in Manchester and London. This is my experience, the experience of one person.

So why do other people go to galleries? I’ve touched upon the element of education, but one very important reason that people visit galleries, museums or any other cultural attraction is to see ‘stuff’. Of course, this stuff has to be brought to the attention of an audience – you can’t see some stuff if you don’t know there’s stuff to see.

I saw an example of this during a recent visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where there were a large number of visitors. More than usual, many of these visitors had been drawn to the recently installed Paul Cummins and Tom Piper piece Poppies: Wave. No doubt attracted in part by the positive media coverage given to the Poppies’ original installation at the Tower of London.

Hopefully, once having seen the Poppies, those visitors then went on to see the other artworks in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Equally, it will be interesting to discover whether the Poppies have had the same effect in Liverpool; installed as they are currently outside St Georges Hall,  next to the Walker Gallery and World Museum. Given this position, a work like the Poppies might see more appeal with an older demographic — who make up 17% of the art-going public – who’ll see the piece as part of more established institutions such as the Walker. Or, they may that see it as art, but rather are attracted to it due to the historic context, seeing it as a heritage project.

Using a special piece of art in this way as cultural tourism, one that may have some cultural significance or fame, is one way of attracting people into the gallery, whatever their level of interest is in art. This is a risk; it is uncertain that the audience will stay or return after the exhibition — which attracted them in the first place — has finished. We have to hope that the answer is yes, for that could lead to a change in viewing habits and see people engage in lesser known or challenging artworks.

Here is another possible reason why galleries exist: that they are beneficial to the cultural well-being of people. According to MHM Insights, 11% of visitors across the UK use galleries as a support for informal and formal studies, developing their understanding of art. Galleries often have to strike a delicate balance between curating crowd-pleasing exhibitions, and exhibitions which might appeal to a more dedicated art crowd. Even galleries whose remit is to show newer, more contemporary and previously unknown or unseen artworks and artists still have to attract as many viewers as they can.

An example: Tate Liverpool’s current Works to Know By Heart season boasts a free Matisse show alongside a more challenging, paid exhibition about a future where all art has been destroyed (An Imagined Museum). Draw them in, then perhaps the audience will engage with much more. Ultimately, galleries exist to engage people with art, allowing and encouraging them to discover art independently.

Once they’re through the door, it is crucial to understand how people in galleries move and behave. Obviously, this changes from person to person and from gallery to gallery. I know from my own experiences, through working in various gallery front-of-house job roles, that the first few moments are spent orienting yourself, looking for clues to show which way to go. At this point, you might be looking for something novel to attract your attention, or that one artwork you’ve heard of or seen before.

How does this initial, welcoming conversation start? Is the duty of the gallery staff or layout, or even the artists, to guide visitors through the world of art? This start or introduction to the gallery may already exist in the form of wall texts or signage, though this will depend on which gallery you are visiting. Again, gallery interpretation is a tricky thing: display too much information and you take away the viewer’s ability to form their own views. Too little, or none at all, and you run the risk of stranding the visitor without a way of navigating themselves through the work on show. This is something that education and marketing departments in galleries lose sleep over.

The danger of interpretation is that you can create a cycle of navigation that goes: art > info panel > art > info panel. There is now a generation of gallery-goers who take part in a cycle of art, info panel, photo (or selfie). By creating this cycle, there is the argument that the gallery is imposing their influence, or an expected mode of behaviour, onto the visitor. Perhaps this isn’t as restrictive or as prescriptive as it seems.

Interpretation points us towards another reason why galleries exist: that they often act as a bridge between the known and the unknown. Though there are points where this fails. One such example was the Bluecoat’s recent Resource exhibition; despite showcasing interesting artworks by the likes of Ben Cain (pictured), Jack Brindley, Jonzo and Laurence Payot, it felt baffling and confusing overall. If an exhibition is a conversation, this felt like walking in halfway through.

Was a lack of interpretation the only reason for a sense of confusion while attending this exhibition? Well, it feels rude to point this out, as contemporary galleries like the Bluecoat exist in order to show examples of the nebulous and fractured nature of contemporary art. This, however, has coincided with a current trend in the UK for exhibitions where the person responsible for organising and delivering exhibitions, the curator, and their concerns, appear to have been imposed in the gallery.

The relationship between curator and artist can inadvertently create a fixed position of what art is, leaving the viewer outside of that conversation. It does make me think about a possible distinction between art viewers. That being, one group goes to see images and ‘stuff’ on the walls, while the other goes to see ‘ideas’… plus stuff on the walls.

Do galleries have a responsibility to engage with people? The short answer is, of course, yes. The primary reason galleries exist is to engage with the viewer, even if the number of viewers is small. There are always factors that affect audience numbers; for example, often artistic activity seems to drop over the summer. Or when a show has a short exhibition run or has a focus on a single discipline.

Often, it is the independent gallery that hosts these exhibitions, and they are not expected to attract huge numbers. Rather, these smaller galleries position themselves within the arts ecology to allow new artists to emerge and experiment along with their peers, providing many artists with the first steps from student to professional artist.

A tall order, maybe, but for art to have a presence in people’s lives it must be visible, available. Only through this availability will there be the possibility of generating more interest in art in many different forms, creating a familiarity. Attracting the five million adults who may not usually approach a gallery doesn’t mean galleries should pander to an idea of sheer popularity; once people are familiar with art in all its forms then they will be more willing to accept more challenging work.

However, I do feel that there remain some fundamental reasons for going out to see art that I haven’t yet mentioned. Speaking personally, I go to exhibitions because I want to learn more about art in whatever form it takes. Equally, I want to be stimulated and engaged by the things I see. The role our galleries play in this is to be open and free allowing everyone access to art, whether they like it or not. Ultimately, galleries only present work. The public’s presence makes it art.

C. James Fagan

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here  #writecritical

Images from top: Liverpool Biennial: Claude Parent exhibition at Tate Liverpool; Keywords exhibition at Tate Liverpool, Level four galleries; Poppies, St Georges Hall, Liverpool, photo courtesy James Maloney for the Liverpool Echo; An Imagined Museum exhibition at Tate Liverpool; Ben Cain, Group Work 3 (2015), Resource exhibition at the Bluecoat

Charting our own lives in the framework of individual and national identity: Amelia Crouch assesses the audio and film work of artist Chris Paul Daniels…

In Chris Paul Daniels’ 2013 film Premier/Divisions the first voice on the soundtrack begins: “I am creating a story about a place that I don’t live [in], but I experience as a tourist and by virtue of that I have a very peripheral, very romantic idea of what this is.” The speaker is a Kenyan woman; she is not the artist. Yet as she continues we suspect she is voicing the artists’ intent: “the reality, the mundane, the normal is what I am interested in getting to.”

This quotation — from one of a collage of Kenyan nationals and longtime residents whose spoken meditations make up the film’s soundtrack — sets the scene. It also introduces a layer of artifice. If this speaker is voicing the artists’ concerns then perhaps all of the speakers are doing so too; if not literally, then in the selection and editing of their words.

Artifice and authenticity are themes that run throughout Chris Paul Daniels’ recent work; from his series of outsiders’ portraits of particular places — Nairobi, Kenya in Premier/Divisions, various cities in China in A Tiger’s’ Skin, and Birmingham, UK, in You Are Here — to his new artwork, SAFE at HOME: An Audio Guide. The latter, commissioned by HOME art space, Manchester, features as part of their current group exhibition Safe.

Daniels’ works are sometimes witty and sometimes disquieting commentaries on our globalised contemporary culture. His films are ostensibly documentaries but repeatedly use techniques that undercut the habitual authority of this format. SAFE at HOME subverts another ‘authority’ format — that of the audio tour.

Probing the role that representations play in the construction of individual and national identity, his artworks Premier/Divisions, A Tigers’ Skin and SAFE at HOME contest the existence of ‘true’ images or authentic identities. In a world where we are increasingly offered only impoverished, deterministic narratives of self they posit artistic agency as a discursive and more complex alternative.

On being a tourist

Premier/Divisions was filmed during an artists’ residency in Nairobi in the immediate weeks before the 2013 Kenyan election, and is introduced with the stark fact (white text on black screen) that following the previous 2007/8 election, over 1200 people were murdered and 600,000 displaced in tribal, class and political conflicts. Early in the film, we watch a scene of children playing in the street as a woman explains that “ugly” attitudes came to the fore in 2007, with friends and family threatening to kill each other. Another woman recalls the murder of her nephew as on screen a pile of rubbish is burning. Yet, overall, the film touches only lightly on violence and knowledge of this violence seems at odds with the calm, reasoned voices we hear.

The film’s dominant narrative is subtle, not sensational. It concerns the multiple identifications and divisions (as per the title) that exist both within Kenyan society and between Kenya and the West. Discussing recent conflicts, one speaker describes “tribe” as an excuse, not a motivator for violence, with Kenya’s young becoming increasingly aware of a previously neglected ethnic heritage. Others suggest that politicians opportunistically encourage identifications and voting along ethnic lines. Most contributors posit that conflicts are really based on class and wealth inequality, with tribe simply providing a convenient narrative for misuse: “when there’s a political or economic advantage to be gained, people will find a reason to separate.”

Accompanying imagery includes a series of quickly intercut photos and illustrations of individuals in tribal dress, plus weapons and figurines. Elsewhere, Daniels inserts footage of sunsets and wild animals, referencing an exoticised view of a country where many tourists go on safari (and more murkily­ we hear, ­­seek out sex tourism). Tourists — a woman laments ­­– are not interested in Kenya as a place, but only “in whatever experience they’ve channeled and that they think represents the money they have spent to get here.”

Stereotypical images are contrasted with footage of Nairobi’s modern cityscape, where crowds wear largely Western dress. Since the late 1980s, when cheap imports were first allowed, Kenyans have favoured Western styles. Kenya — a British colony from 1920-63 – has a complex historical relationship to the West. As viewers we look (with Daniels) as outsiders, yet the speakers (Africans from whom Daniels constructs his view) repeatedly refer to European and American influence on them.

A woman mentions how families struggle to send their young abroad and that as a result “Kenyans wouldn’t pay any attention to local musicians, to local artists, to local anything. It had to have a stamp of approval from America or from Britain.” Recently, regretting the lack of a national costume, a competition was held — presumably by the government — for entrants to design one. But this attempt to retrieve or create an imagined national identity failed.

Premier/Divisions highlights the importance of representations in the creation of individual and cultural identity. Where Kenyans identify (perhaps unwittingly) via tribal allegiances when it suits them, tourists visit the country seeking only to have their expectations met. The film aims to get beyond a romantic depiction of Kenya but ultimately proposes that there is no authentic reality to be uncovered. It presents a view of cultural identity that is complex, reciprocal, fragmented and layered.

On visiting art galleries

Why do we visit art galleries? Listening to Daniels’ new audio artwork SAFE at HOME: An Audio Guide, I was reminded of a recent audience survey that I completed. Possible motivators for gallery visiting included: to be moved emotionally; to improve my own knowledge and understanding; and to spend time with family and friends.

SAFE at HOME’s narrative is one of cultural experience as self-development. Presented as a self-help audio guide that proclaims to transform the listener through “regenerative thinking” and “cultural redevelopment,” it provides an idiosyncratic tour around HOME’s new gallery spaces led by the effusive voice of artistic director Sarah Perks. Content combines ideas and occasional quotes taken from self-help books, popular culture, song and — I suspect — HOME’s own marketing copy.

Visitors are invited to progress through seven levels to “fully realise your potential.” To give a flavour of the tour, it periodically draws one’s attention to specific features of the gallery ­– some piping, some marks on the wall – before spinning off into reassuringly delivered metaphysical gabble: “take a last glance at that only window in the room, see only windows of opportunity that open your consciousness to an expanded world.” A series of accompanying videos “YOU ARE A POWERHOUSE!” are exhibited on screens around HOME’s building and released as viral videos online in the run up to the exhibition.

The work is a wry critique of the language of arts marketing, cultural regeneration and participation that arts venues (like the super-structure that is HOME) use to promote themselves, and plaudits go to HOME and Perks for allowing an artist to poke fun at them in this way. More broadly, SAFE at HOME considers the relationship between cultural participation and self-actualisation. The motivation for visiting a gallery in the UK or for asserting a tribal allegiance in Kenya may — on the face of it – seem quite unrelated. Yet both pertain to a search for ‘authentic’ experience and meaningful relationships in a world where uncertainty prevails.

In his article The Trajectory of The Self (1994), sociologist Anthony Giddens focuses on self-help literature and personal-growth therapies as illustrative of new conceptualisations of the relationship between self and other, that emerge as part of a self-oriented contemporary ‘post-traditional’ culture. He is writing about a world where we are increasingly freed from pre-established ties (tribe or kinship for example). For him, these are replaced by what he calls a ‘reflexive’ project of the self. We can no longer appeal to tradition for the way things ought to be, and instead have to actively choose the course of our life.

Giddens’ analysis of the state of the world is illuminating, yet his suggested solution is problematic. He asserts that in modern culture: ‘The moral thread of self-actualisation is one of authenticity’; of ‘being true to oneself’. It is this notion of truth and authenticity that Daniels’ work queries.

SAFE at HOME and Premier/Divisions show contrasting responses to ‘reflexive modernity’ and question whether we can, in reality, effectively chart our own lives. In Kenyan society, as depicted by Daniels, we hear of divisive attempts to return to (partially imagined) traditional structures. In SAFE at HOME, we are shown that reflexivity can lead to anxiety not fulfillment. The patter of ‘choice’ becomes akin to an internalised marketing spiel.

The quotes and multiple references that structure the audio tour signal that our ideas are not our own. In the search for ‘self’ we turn to authority figures for guidance (even if they spout nonsense) and seek meaning and purpose in representations given from elsewhere. We visit galleries for what we think are our own, personal reasons, yet cultural research agencies segment us as one of a limited set of ‘types.’

This might all sound rather fatalistic, but Daniels offers some hope. It seems to me that his artworks assert an ongoing urge for collective endeavor and communal relationships that aren’t prescribed or ultimately narcissistic. Surreal sections of SAFE at HOME take the listener on two “guided visualisations.” In the first, a rat is taken to represent anxieties about being an outsider. In the second, a “huge mound of freshly cut hair “ speaks to the listener, representing a “clear voice of collective entanglement” which ­– in a world “without fixed beginnings and ends”­ — longs for the collective past.

These sections indicate a hopefulness that, within the circumscribed space of the art centre (where ‘sharing’ and ‘creativity’ feel a bit slick and commodified), there can still be space for meaningful encounters. Whilst Daniels’ works question the possibility of authentic representations, they nonetheless advocate for representation-making as an important, active and communicative process.

On being an artist

Chris Paul Daniels often works in response to particular commission or residency opportunities. It is a methodology indicative of a climate where artists are increasingly asked to propose project specific or location specific artworks in order to achieve funding. Other instances include the aforementioned You Are Here, a film project based on interviews with multiple Birmingham residents, commissioned by A3 Project Space; and Connect/Exchange, a residency at New Bridge Project Space in Newcastle where Daniels’ questioned locals about their identifications with the word ‘Northern’ (an approach influenced by funding coming from Northern Film + Media).

Akin to the pressures under which HOME brands itself, artists today find themselves working toward ends such as exchange, collaboration or participation rather than having free reign for their ideas. Yet Daniels’ works — that involve multiple voices, question the limits of filmic representation and create considered explorations of place — turn constraints into a positive. The confines of project-based working have allowed him to develop a strong artistic voice that is individual (with its own aesthetic and conceptual concerns) yet discursive (influenced and involved with the places and people that he encounters).

A Tiger’s Skin — Daniels’ film portrait of China — is a case in point. Produced for Transnational Dialogues (a project funded by the Arts Council and the British Council’s Artists’ International Development Fund) the film pairs scenes of people travelling, shopping, walking etc., with a voiceover monologue derived from Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1972 film Chung Kuo Cina. Daniels used Antonioni’s film — another foreigner’s view that had informed his prior limited knowledge of the country — as a guide, revisiting places Antonioni depicted 40 years before.

The film is punctuated with short time-lapse sections that show cityscapes; tower blocks with lights flickering on and off, edited to the rhythm of upbeat karaoke. These scenes depict a populace, a mass of activity; and their obvious manipulation reiterates that looking at another culture is not a simple, transparent activity. They also assert a strong visual aesthetic that permeates Daniels’ films.

His films frequently consist of fixed, meticulously framed shots where activities in front of the camera are allowed to unfold over a period of time. This provides an aesthetic coherence and gives an opportunity for the viewer to look carefully, and construct interpretations beyond what is overtly stated.

When I watched A Tiger’s Skin last year, at Manchester’s Chinese Centre For Contemporary Art (CFCCA), it took me a while to register that the film’s verbal information was anachronistic. I watched men working on a building site as the voiceover discussed workers’ conditions under communism. The narrative described visiting an art gallery, praised for putting the artwork “to the service of workers”, whilst I viewed a white-walled contemporary gallery showing abstract art.

Gradually, I realised that the subtitles and voiceover describe an earlier time. Where the narrative evidences a shift from a feudal to a communist society, the mismatch between word and image in Daniels’ film conveys more recent societal shifts in China as the country is increasingly influenced by capitalism.

The film returns several times to footage of large groups undertaking dance or exercise sessions. These sections are compelling, both for the overall movement within the scenes and the enjoyment of watching and picking out individuals. In the context of the film’s narrative I found myself interpreting these collective activities, and the odd lone movers skirting the edge of a couple’s dance session, as representative of a tension between collective and individual interests in China.

A Tiger’s Skin does not romanticise communism but — like the guided visualisations in SAFE at HOME — these scenes evoke yearning for communal activity as an alternative to the individualisation expounded by Giddens. The attention given to these acts reminds me too of an aspect of Premier/Divisions that I have neglected thus far. Within that film there are several prolonged scenes of bands playing or choirs singing. Extended takes pay homage to their performances and, though any presumption of the performances as ‘authentic’, Kenyan culture has been curtailed, they demonstrate vivacity and skill.

Similarly, we see recurrent shots of Kenyan artists working on their creations. These are individuals and groups who — like Daniels — are involved in developing their own visual or acoustic language, perhaps counter to dominant trends. Daniels produced Premier/Divisions during a five week residency at Kuona Trust Arts Centre in Nairobi, and many of the film’s narrators are artists who influenced the development of his work.

Our investment in and identification with representations is a serious issue. In Kenya, contested depictions of national identity have recently led to violence. In the UK, we inhabit an era where ‘culture’ has become part of a narrative about development (personal and/or civic). China seems torn between two stories: a communist past and a capitalist future. Exploring and responding to the power that representations hold, Daniels’ work offers not authenticity (a more ‘true’ depiction) but discursivity.

Resisting Giddens’ notion of a self-possessed individual compelled to individually choose their life course, Daniels’ works acknowledge the perpetually embroiled nature of individual and group identity. Like the artist who must negotiate commissions and residencies to survive, we each live our lives shaped by the circumstances and the identifications available to us. Moreover, it is often with — or in response to — the work of others that we are able to make our most meaningful contributions.

Amelia Crouch

See SAFE at HOME and YOU ARE A POWERHOUSE!, exhibited as part of the exhibition Safe at HOME, Manchester, until Sunday 3 Jan 2016

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here  #writecritical

Manchester’s museums are finding new international interest in their archives, finds Jon Bottomley — which will be crucial in keeping the doors open back home and investing in our next generation of art stars…          

Fragility in the arts sector rests within financial uncertainty. The struggle of generating an income — alongside producing a successful body of create programming and attracting audiences — is a constant battle and one that, if lost, creates a disjointed narrative within the identity of a region. However, a new weapon has emerged in the fight for survival: galleries and museums are turning to their archives as a way to generate income.

For the past few years there has been a rise in loaning artworks to different galleries across Europe and Asia and, as a result, Manchester’s collections are being viewed by audiences who are unfamiliar with the landscapes and industries which have supplied the city with an economy in constant transition. It’s an experiment in seeing whether the acquisitions made in Manchester are of interest to different environments, and one that offers a crucial financial lifeline to the gallery itself.

Manchester has had a strong year creatively. The opening of the new purpose-built arts venue HOME and the refurbishment of The Whitworth have been greeted with celebration and awe. Securing millions of pounds for a programme which is creative is an achievement in itself, but to have two of these venues in the North of England highlights the trust its backers have for its audience, who appreciate content that is rich with ideas.

The value of these institutions opening is in part defined by their location in the city centre. The activity and the wealth of the city invites all types of audiences to engage with art spaces and see them as both places of reflection and as cultural landmarks. In this sense, they create progressive statements on both the identity of Manchester and the integrity of the content it supplies.

Director of The Whitworth, Maria Balshaw, agrees. “I think there’s a really interesting narrative emerging around the notion of a ‘Northern Powerhouse’ with Manchester as its centre, but with also other regional centres such as Liverpool – giving a sense of cultural identity and focus for the North.” One emerging area for growth is the boroughs of Greater Manchester; naturally drawing fewer visitors than their city centre cousins, they are nonetheless a vital resource  in which residents and tourists alike can talk, share and discuss their views.

In order to promote the presence of local galleries and build upon their potential, Greater Manchester Museum Group (GMMG) – a partnership of eight North-West museum services including Bury Art Museum and Touchstones Rochdale – are uniting their collections and engaging shared communities. By collaborating, the boroughs have the chance to showcase the similarities and differences within their collections. A working relation is gained, and the opportunity to develop becomes a gathering of ideas rather than a solo proposition.

The GMMG collaboration has found enormous recent success with Towards Modernity: Three Centuries of British Art; an international touring exhibition which saw 80 works of art from the North West visit different areas of China. The success of this programme elevated both Greater Manchester’s heritage, archives and that of local galleries, which are not typically greeted with as much attention as that of the blockbuster exhibitions featured in bigger institutions.

The triumph of the tour had originally been instigated by financial constraints at Bury Art Museum, as curator and international touring officer Richard Burns explains: “We started developing international touring exhibitions with the objects in our collection, with a view to generate more income for the museum.”

“Since the large cuts within our sector,” fellow curator Susan Lord continues, “almost all museums and galleries have had to find new ways of generating an income.”

The resulting Towards Modernity exhibition attracted over three million visitors in China – over 90 million viewers if you count Chinese media coverage – and directed audiences back to Greater Manchester.

The real reward, says Lord, came from the joys of working with the artworks. “It is such a pleasure to work with the collections – I think a lot of curators will tell you that. With a genuine love for objects and artwork, working in the industry can be very rewarding.” By presenting the works to people unfamiliar with Manchester and its collections, the work is given fresh interpretation, and presents a crucial opportunity  to re-navigate its purpose.

Part of the renewed interest in collections comes from contemporary artists making work stimulated by them; as Cornelia Parker showed earlier this year in her exhibition to celebrate the grand reopening of The Whitworth Gallery. “Cornelia made a whole new series of works inspired by the collection, particularly inspired by Turner and William Blake”, says Balshaw. “For me, this collaboration creates the dialogue between ideas and objects and the final curatorial outcome.”

As pieces of history, archives have the potential to be altered and shaped into new ideas. They are allowed to be historical documents, but by attaching themselves to artists they become changed by the mind-set of the individual who places their own logic onto such pieces. It’s important to recognise the originality of the art as much as it is to recognise artists who generate new work from them, because they allow us to see our history through different lenses and offer a varied account on the evolution of our culture over time.

The link between Manchester’s past and contemporary artists is key to The Whitworth’s on-going exhibition programme, says Balshaw. “My ideas focus on finding objects in the collection, and those objects are then selected or shown to other artists in order for them to create a response, which will be brought together in the exhibitions that we do.”

By interpreting historical artworks, artists are challenged to use new production and making as a foundation that they can build upon, through their own creativity. The reference to the collections trickles through to the portfolio of the artist and bridges a relation between them and the institution itself. In this sense, the artist gains a valuable working relationship with the archive.

That being said, is it possible that the collections can support contemporary artists financially as well as creatively? If international touring programmes are to continue and develop, then maybe it is possible to use the money made as a way to commission contemporary artists to produce new work. It is a cycle that could support both the museum and the artist, gaining impetus as touring exhibitions develop. The momentum of this plan could produce on-going, custom-made exhibitions for galleries in Manchester, strengthened by the efforts made by curators and artists.

The notion of a Northern Powerhouse could also be strengthened by different working methods. It would be a chance to initiate fresh interest in archives and collections. GMMG have already fostered a prosperous working relationship between galleries and collections , Towards Modernity being their main success story so far; maybe through persistence and discussion there is chance to progress this way of working even further. More frequent shows with a bigger band of arts organisations — joining forces across the North — would thus increase financial reward, while sharing a rich heritage internationally with audiences.

The international appeal of collections is based upon the artworks’ historical relevance, says Rebecca Hill, curator at Gallery Oldham. “Like a lot of industrial towns in the North-West, we really benefit from the wealth of the 19th century as it is the basis of our collection. We have Turners, Constables, Lowrys, pre-Raphaelite artists; people don’t know that we have them and don’t usually associate them with places like us.”

The idea that regional galleries don’t house strong and interesting work is a misconception which can potentially damage our interest in visiting them in the first place. To re-define their position, a need to define the content and programme of the institution needs evaluating. Bury Art Museum alone has 60,000 objects, and there is a concious effort underway to continue collecting.

“The focus on the collection is certainly on 21st century now, as we are in the commissioning process”, says Burns. “We try to invest in local artists… If we had the money we would commission much more.”

One relatively cheap way that galleries and museums are highlighting acquisitions new and old is by digitising them. Online artworks — represented through gallery websites and via external platforms such as BBC’s Your Paintings — are easily accessible documents, providing information in a pragmatic, fast way. Art available at the touch of a button may be enough to warrant the idea that you don’t have to travel miles to see the real thing, but for those who see artworks as experiences, this may not be the case. Harnessing the hunger for seeing art in its physical form could be a key marketing and sales tool moving forward; that could, of course, happily translate into new commissions.

We have seen through GMMG that the potential to develop exhibitions internationally is possible and worthwhile. In order to develop this, we need to be honest about the financial life of the North-West’s content, and develop a framework in which both the collections and artists of the region are encouraged to grow. To support this, more attempts at touring internationally with our superb, culture rich collections would be a step in the right direction.

As Balshaw noted earlier, the narrative of creativity is shifting and growing. However, the story needs to include the boroughs of Greater Manchester in order to develop the region’s communities. Time will tell if the trails of wealth in the city will find their way to the boroughs, but one thing will remain – the efforts made by the curators.

“We have submitted a £6 million application to the Heritage Lottery Fund,” Hill tells me, “to bring back the former gallery we used to use, in addition to our lovely new spaces. At the moment the old gallery stands empty, with no real use. The bid also includes building a new Coliseum and auditorium theatre for Oldham. If the proposal is successful the project will open in 2018.”

How worthwhile could this reinvestment be for the community, providing employment, ideas and international recognition? Let’s hope this opportunity doesn’t slip by but presents itself as something certain and powerful to act upon.

Jon Bottomley 

This article has been commissioned by the Contemporary Visual Arts Network North West (CVAN NW), as part of a regional critical writing development programme funded by Arts Council England — see more here #writecritical