Division of Labour joins Paradise Works

Division of Labour (Worcester, London) relocate to Paradise Works as part of a 20 month research project into co-operatives and mutualism. Launching with their inaugural exhibition Apparel, this off-site project responds to questions posed by the artist Stuart Whipps challenging the gallery's modus operandi: Could a not-for-profit gallery for represented artists work as a collectivised mutual or co-operative group? What mechanisms and structures could be employed to create a working gallery where a fair distribution of profit from sales can exist?

Between 2018-19 Division of Labour will enact six exhibitions looking at clothes, food, healthcare, housing, transport and banking. Division of Labour founder Nathaniel Pitt will invite co-operatives and similar organisations to talk about and share their experiences as part of this programme. Nathaniel is curator to The Manchester Contemporary and founder of Pitt Projects.

Find out more about Apparel here.

Paradise Works on Radio 4: The Great Exhibition of the North

Co-directors Hilary Jack and Lucy Harvey speak about their journey with Paradise Works and the landscape facing artists working in cities on BBC Radio 4 as part of The Great Exhibition of the North series.

The programme features Lubaina Himid, Ryan Gander and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen alongside friends of Paradise, Scaffold Gallery and Division of Labour founder Nathaniel Pitt speaking during A-N Assembly Salford. Listen online. 

Paradise Party!

Join us for a totally tropical celebration of Paradise Works' first birthday! It's been quite a year since getting the keys and establishing our studios, gallery and residency space (not to mention our fantasticcommunity of artists.) An evening of cocktails, nibbles and music seems like a fitting way to toast what we've achieved so far and we would love you to join us. 

We've still got a long way to go and we're raising funds to help us develop Paradise Works  into a sustainable model of studio provision in the city region. So, bring your purse, try your luck on our Art Tombola and help drink the donations bar dry!

ASSEMBLY Salford

The first a-n Assembly event for 2018 will take place at Paradise Works on Thursday 24 May. Working in collaboration with artist and Paradise Works’ co-director Lucy Harvey, Assembly Salford will explore how artists can maintain their presence in a rapidly developing city region.

Manchester city centre has seen the relocation or loss of no fewer than eight artists’ studios since the start of 2017, and this has resulted in a growing artist-led presence in neighbouring city Salford and the surrounding areas. Relocation has resulted in new models of practice, collaboration and dialogue for artist-led activity, replacing the support structures which previously enabled artists to work in Manchester city centre.

Part symposium, part workshop, Assembly Salford will explore the different approaches, decisions and compromises which artists might need to take to petition their place in the city. Programme sessions include Models of Practice and What do we want? (and when do we want it?), with an opportunity to play The Regeneration Game with artist and architect Helen Stratford, and join Will Marshall for an Artwork Exchanges dinner.     

Further Information // Programme (PDF)

FRIEZE article →

Read the full article here

Reality: Tap to See More

REALITY: TAP TO SEE MORE
6.00pm – 9.00pm - Thursday 19 April 2018 (one night only) 

Presenting eclectic works in painting, sculpture, film and sound, Reality: Tap To See More showcases the vision and vitality of emerging artists from BA (Hons) Visual Arts at The University of Salford. The exhibition features new work by twelve second year students that demonstrate their individual responses to the relationship between the digital and the physical worlds. 

Across a variety of media, Reality: Tap To See More acknowledges the key role that digital experiences and actions now play in our everyday lives. The artists consider how the physical reality of life is mediated by the digital; creating a showcase of uneasy ideas.

Liam Stevenson is inspired by the Vaporwave music and art movement, and debuts a sound piece influenced by this niche genre, alongside collage and sculpture. 

Rebekah Beasley is interested in memories and the passing of time, and showcases an appropriated, analogue photography work cataloguing the past life of a stranger. 

David Warrington presents a compelling installation of painting, sound and live performance. David’s interests lie in the spiritual and material world and how exactly that can be defined, taking inspiration from the renowned Belgian artist René Magritte. 

Amy Brown focuses on the behavioural prompts of social media, and questions our online identities. Through painting, Brown asks how our online profiles intentionally and unintentionally limit our ‘real’ lives. 

Mollie Balshaw’s sculptural series directly explore the dwindling need for physical objects in our current social climate. Inspired by Arman’s sculpture series of ‘Accumulations’, her work delves into the loss associated with redundant technology.

Balshaw, who is one of the curators of the exhibition, said: “We’d really like visitors to ask how physical objects are becoming redundant? Or, if constantly looking at our phones will affect our memories in the long run? These are the type of ideas we’ve been thinking about in the lead up to Reality: Tap To See More.”

EXHIBITION: Tipping the scales

Preview: 6-9pm, Friday 2nd March 2018

Open: 3rd March – 31st March 2018, Saturday + Sundays 1pm – 5pm or by appointment.

by SHOW.ME.UP, a curatorial project by Kieran Leach and Precious Innes 

Artists: Corey Bartle-Sanderson, Alexander J Croft, Richard Hughes, Precious Innes, Kieran Leach, Sam Porritt, Sara Procter, Gwyn Williams and Alistair Woods. 

Tipping the scales is the inaugural exhibition presented by Kieran Leach and Precious Innes under the moniker Show.me.up. The curatorial duo will program a series of exhibitions, the first of which will take place at Paradise Works.

With an emphasis on sculptural work, the exhibition features UK based artists at various stages in their careers. Throughout the show there is a sense of art imitating life, as the artists tackle notions of work, play and societal pressures. From daily routines and ingrained behaviours to social tropes and leisure pursuits, the group show concerns the perfect balancing act we all aim to achieve in life. The use of humour runs throughout, exposing coping mechanisms we use to deal with the uncertainty of an unstable existence. Elements of the works induce a sense of nostalgia, a look back to simpler times perhaps, exemplifying notions of childlike escapism. The show acts a survey of our collective consciousness, and endeavours to physically manifest our attitudes towards matters that sit upon the scales of life.

More on the artists:

Corey Bartle-Sanderson lives and works in London. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Kingston University (2014). He has had a solo exhibition HOMEWARE_update (2015) at Block 336, London. Group exhibitions include; Ultra Sunrise, It’s Kind of Hard to Explain & MILK, SET, London (2017) On to the next, MUESLI, The Royal Standard, Liverpool (2016); RCA SECRET 2016, Art Dubai, Mina A’slam, Dubai (2016). Auto-Parts - Lokaal 01, Antwerp, Belgium (2014) www.coreybartlesanderson.com

Alexander J. Croft lives and works in Liverpool/Manchester, he graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 2015 with a BA in Fine Art, and has since founded The Trophy Room gallery, Liverpool. Group exhibitions include: UK Young Artists Residency, Blackpool (2017); Scraping the Bottom of the Bargain Bucket (2015); Cela vient de Matilda, Bohunk Open Call, Bohunk Gallery, Nottingham (2014). www.alexandjcroft.com

Richard Hughes lives and works in Greater Manchester. Hughes holds a BA in Fine Art Sculpture from the Manchester School of Art (2009). Group Exhibitions include: Stick or Twist, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2017); Duizend Bommen En Granaten, Stitching White Cube, Kunsthal 45, Den Helder, Netherlands (2017); Ambition, Instigate Arts, HOME, Manchester (2016); XerXes Sculpture Prize. Serpentine Gallery, London (2015)  www.richardhughesart.com

Precious Innes is lives and works in Manchester. Innes holds a BA in Fine Art from Staffordshire University (2015). Selected exhibitions include The Manchester Contemporary art fair with Paradise Works (2017) and Castlefield Gallery (2016); Politics of Paradise, Paradise Works, Salford (2017); A New Place to Sit, The Trophy Room, Liverpool (2017); MASS, NY Space, Manchester (2017), At Odds End, PS Mirabel (2017); Wide Margins, Bankley Gallery, Manchester (2017); Leg End, residency at The Great Medical Disaster, Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces (2017); Residency and Exhibition at Cadman Gallery, Staffordshire University (2017). www.preciousinnes.com

Kieran Leach lives and works in Manchester and holds a BA in Fine Art from the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, University of Lancaster (2015). Group exhibitions include: Stick or Twist, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2017); Aftertaste, The Trophy Room, Liverpool (2017); A Show about the Show, Scaffold Gallery, Manchester (2017); Politics of Paradise, Paradise Works, Salford (2017) and Companions, The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2016) He also showed at The Manchester Contemporary with Paradise Works (2017) and with Castlefield Gallery (2016) www.kieranleach.co.uk

Sam Porritt is based in Zurich and represented by Vitrine Gallery London. Porritt holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Chelsea School of Art and Design (2002), and a Post Graduate Diploma from the Royal Academy Schools, London 2005. Selected Solo exhibitions include: The Golden Rule, CIRCUIT, Lausanne, CH (2017); The Lonely Target, c.o.m.p.o.s.i.t.e, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Grist To The Mill, VITRINE, London, UK (2016). Selected recent group exhibitions include: A Journey from a sweeping gesture to a lasting effect, VITRINE, Basel, CH (2016); Being Boring, Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, IS (2016); L’Hospice des Mille-Cuisses, CAN, Neuchâtel, CH (2015); Works on Paper by Sculptors, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2015). www.samporritt.com

Sara Proctor lives and works in London. Proctor holds a BA in Fine Art from the Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, University of Lancaster (2017). Group exhibitions include: Abraxas, PAF film festival 2018, Olomouc, Czech Republic (2017); Tenderflix 2017 Daydreaming, Tenderpixel @ RCA, London, (2017); backup_festival, Bauhaus, Weimar University, Germany (2017); Filmed Up March 2017, HOME, Manchester, (2017)  www.saraprocter.com

Gwyn Williams lives and works in Clwt-y-bont near Caernarfon. Recent exhibitions include, WAR II, MOSTYN (2015); Art in the bar, Chapter Gallery (2015); BUZZED, Phillips Group Show (2015); Business as usual, TURF projects and The North Contemporary (2015); The scent of Dic Aberdaron, Oriel Davies, Newtown (2015); Y Lle Gelf, National Eisteddfod of Wales (2014); Oriel Davies Open, Oriel Davies, Newtown (2014); Pebbledash and Polaroids, Hackney Picturehouse, London (2013); MOSTYN Open 18, MOSTYN, Llandudno (2013). www.gwynwilliams.net

Alistair Woods lives and works in Manchester. Woods holds a BA in Fine Art from Leeds Metropolitan University (2013). Co-founder of Depot Art Studios. Selected exhibitions; Sluice Art Biennial, London (2017); Cass Art Festival, The Oxo Tower, London (2017); 8 Easels, (Solo exhibition) Sadler’s Yard, Manchester (2016); Common Denominator (Solo exhibition) Victoria Station Gallery, Manchester (2016); Open Depot, Depot, Manchester (2017); On-Going, Sloe Gallery, Manchester (2017); The Greater Manchester Emerging Contemporary Arts Prize Summer Exhibition, Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Manchester, (2016); Subjected To Change, Basement Arts, Leeds (2014); (Residency & solo exhibition) Northern Graduates Exhibition, The Curwen Gallery London (2013). www.alistairwoods.co.uk

Venue:                          Paradise Works, Irwell House, Salford, M3 7LE                    

Web:                              www.showmeup.co.uk

Email:                            showmeup@outlook.com

Instagram:                    @show.me.up       

Opening Times:            Weekends 1pm – 5pm or by appointment.

Admission:                    FREE.  The gallery is on the first floor accessible by stairs.

The Penthouse

We welcome The Penthouse!

www.thepenthousenq.com

The Penthouse, An artist led Dyke|Queer contemporary art project and space based in Manchester founded and ran by artists Rosanne Robertson and Debbie Sharp.

Our curatorial and research projects are focused on Queer art, radical practices, Queer feminism, experimental and raw art- we consider the power at the margins. The Penthouse is named after its first home on top floor of a tower block and as a political statement subverting the idea of art as a luxury commodity within a capitalist patriarchal system in which people are marginalised based on gender, sexuality, race, class and ability. We consider an ‘Other’ power which tackles elitism and dominant structures by the very nature of exploring self, the personal and the human in an unflinching way.

The Penthouse is now based at Paradise Works in a luxurious corner suite- a fitting
home on the border of Salford and Manchester.

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UPCOMING EVENT:

The Penthouse are part of International Queer Art Collective Balaclava Q presenting upcoming event HIVideo on World Aids Day 1 Dec.

The Penthouse Present HIVideo by Balaclava.Q
1 December 2017 at 19:00–22:30
Paradise Works, Salford

Donation entry: £2 to George House Trust.
(entry to both HIVideo & Visual Aids screenings).
Tickets free from Eventbrite for double screening (booking essential).

*Please note this event is adult only.

Dress warmly
Access via stairs only

This event is included in Manchester’s first Day With(out) Art programme from Superbia.

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Further Information:

HIVideo is A Global Exhibition of Video Art for World Aids Day. HIVideo is the moving image strand of Balaclava.Q- an international Queer Art Project and collective, better known as TACTIC 2. HIVideo seeks to promote contemporary dialogue(s) on World Aids Day via video art from both a local and global perspective. HIVideo complements current discourse and the de- stigmatization / -criminalization movement by creating dialogue about HIV/AIDS via art – and the attendant aesthetics and politics.

In 2016 HIVideo was screened at Manchester’s LGBT Foundation and worldwide across Toronto (Canada), Paris (France), South Africa, Puerto Rico, New Mexico and Oakland (California, US) in galleries, safe spaces and sexual health centres. In 2017 The Penthouse present HIVideo at their home Paradise Works on the Manchester > Salford border.

HIVideo brings together international artists and venues across 5 continents to showcase art films which look at HIV/AIDS with the intention of a more direct action approach with a specific theme for artists. Films will be screened on World AIDS Day in Rome, (Italy), Manchester (UK), London (UK), Berlin (Germany), New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Colombia and various other locations across the UK, USA and Europe.

The artist films create awareness and promote discourse specifically about the Prevention Access Campaign, a global movement which seeks to educate communities on current findings and statistics which state unequivocally that Undetectable = Untransmissable or U=U as it has been branded by www.preventionaccess.org. At the very core of this year’s screening is a message about intimacy without fear of transmission.

This screening is programmed back to back with Visual Aids- a program of newly commissioned videos by Mykki Blanco, Cheryl Dunye & Ellen Spiro, Reina Gossett, Thomas Allen Harris, Kia Labeija, Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Brontez Purnell titled ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS is the 28th annual iteration of Visual AIDS’ longstanding Day With(out) Art project. Curated by Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett. This event is part of Manchester’s first Day With(out) Art programme from Superbia.

Schools of Change

Taking place: Thursday 30th November 2017

Jennet Thomas

Still from School of change, 2012

Bea Haut

Pending

Laura Hindmarsh

Self-Registration

Schools of Change is a night of performative film and video hosted by Paradise Works as an opener to the Artist Film Weekender at HOME. 

Each of the artists showing this evening playfully utilise and embody performance within their practice and embrace the potential for performance to instigate change.
Programmed by Chris Paul Daniels and Jenny Baines.

Featuring:

Jennet Thomas: School of Change (2012), is a Sci-Fi musical film. We witness one day in the life of a school where students’ learning is bio-technically monitored through an ingested device, and high-scoring pupils perform their learning through a rhythmic action practice that produces little white spheres – called Units of Knowing – the currency through which this reality functions.

Laura Hindmarsh: Self-Registration (2015), an act of self-alignment using hand contact printing, and will also perform a new work deriving from Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale (1971).

Bea Haut: Defenestration (2015) combines film and domestic structures, reaching out beyond the frame, testing out access and escape, aperture and portal. Pending (2016) is a 16mm film performance using a 100ft length of film formed into a ‘living loop’ by the audience, before being taken up and played out by the projector. This interlacing creates a sympathetic film, which conjoins the audience, the artist and the subject in an act of duration and suspension.

Tariq Emam: T.B.M. Reloaded (2017), is a live, site-responsive performance whereby tape noise will not be the only noise, and will feature R.L. Wilson and Guillaume Dujat: exploring recuperation of forlorn demons. The kind you find in charity shops, or wasting precious space in precious homes. The kind of space that could be used for a little bit of paradise. But what if it already was?

Thursday 30th November 2017
Entry price: £4.00 full / £3.00 conc, buy here:
https://homemcr.org/event/schools-of-change/
18:00 for a 18:30 start

Complimentary supper provided
Dress Warmly
Access via stairs only

LAUNCH WEEKEND

MORE INFO:

OPEN STUDIOS    -    POLITICS OF PARADISE   -   MICHELLE SHIELDS

AFTER SCHOOL CLUB    -   THE MANCHESTER CONTEMPORARY

THE MANCHESTER CONTEMPORARY

Preview: Friday 27 October, 5:00 - 9:00pm

Saturday 28 October, 10:00am - 6:00pm
Sunday 29 October, 10:00am - 5:00pm

To coincide with the Launch Weekend, Paradise Works is pleased to showcase selected works from the groups inaugural exhibition, Politics of Paradise. Works by studio artists James Ackerley, William Hughes, Precious Innes, Hilary Jack, Kieran Leach, Jo McGonigal, Robin Megannity, Richard Shields, Cherry Tenneson and Claire Tindale explore the utopian ideals that underpin the groups identity and recent formation on the Salford and Manchester border. The Manchester Contemporary showcase serves as a taster of the group’s extended Politics of Paradise exhibition and open studios across the weekend of The Manchester Contemporary.

themanchestercontemporary.co.uk

AFTER SCHOOL CLUB

Saturday 28 October - Sunday 5 November

Sexy Boy Unites Salford is a pot-luck style group show of new work by current members of After School Club (ASC).

ASC is a rolling programme of artist-led activity focused on generating opportunities for artists based in Salford and Manchester. ASC will host exhibitions, projects and residencies facilitated and ran by the group's 'member/contributors'. Members are primarily artists, and as such are neither obliged to take on specific roles or hierarchical positions within the club. Instead they are encouraged to use ASC as a platform to explore their own artistic/curatorial interests, with a focus on self-organisation, pedagogy and mutual growth. ASC is based at Paradise Works Artist's Studios.

Join the Facebook Events Page.

ASC is kindly supported using public funding by Arts Council England

AIR 2017: Michelle Shields

As part of our activities setting up Paradise Works we wanted to invite an external artist into our newly formed community to explore and respond to the area surrounding Irwell House. After a chance conversation with Salford born artist Michelle Shields an artist residency seemed like the right way to start to learn about the local area and to think about our place within it.

Michelle's knowledge of Salford, paired with her archival research and responsive approach to environment as she explored a new part of the city, is informing a new body of work which we are looking forward to sharing as part of our launch events over 28-29 October.
 

Organised Labour - The past, present & future of the production site.

Shields’ sculptural works, installations and objects respond to the industrial past of the Greengate area of Salford. Using metal wire, industrial enamel, ceramics, found materials, models and drawings Shields' references the factories & manufacturers which formerly populated the surrounding area, with particular focus on the Anaconda Wire Works that was sited besides Paradise Works at one time. Shields’ works can be understood as open experimental arrangements, or the preliminary findings, of a series of associations to the area's reinvention after its' long standing contribution to the Industrial Revolution.
 

Michelle Shields was born in Salford and attended the Royal College of Art, London. She has exhibited internationally and her work is held in public and private collections. Michelle often works in interdisciplinary environments and is currently part of Makers Dozen, a collective of twelve creatives from different disciplines. Michelle has taught at Manchester School of Art, and conducted workshops at Salford University, The Royal College of Art & Ruthin Craft Centre.

We Are Here!

Irwell House

Salford

Hilary Jack

We Are Not Here
Rogue Open Studios, 2016

In 2016 I programmed three exhibitions to mark Rogue Artists' Studios final year at Crusader Mill which explored the grade 2 listed building and the post-industrial landscape that Rogue were soon to leave behind. This gave plenty of pause for thought on the value and place for artists in Manchester, leading to a number of animated conversations with artist Hilary Jack about a potential lead for new studio space on the edge of Manchester and Salford. So, along with artists Richard Shields, Michael Branthwaite and a few other interested folks, we went to investigate a light industrial building besides the River Irwell on a cold afternoon in December.

As the space was being used for storage it was difficult to gauge how best to use the space but we loved the building and location, and were determined to join the cultural hub that's establishing in Salford. Since collecting the keys in March, we've drawn together a membership through this continuing dialogue about the presence of artists in the city and ensuring that artistic production is accessible to the people who visit and live within it. In April we were delighted to be receive Arts Council England support for the studio build and to enable us to run our first artist residency with Salford based artist Michelle Shields, whose research and site responsive work will help us understand the area we've just moved into.

In May we were offered an extra 6,000 square foot of space on the building’s first floor which took our membership up to 29 artists and has enabled us to make ambitious plans for an exhibition and screening space. We have a waiting list already and have more plans beyond all this too, but we're learning to walk before we can run. We’ve come up against some serious challenges, it’s been a complex process and a steep learning curve but we've made some fantastic contacts along the way. Paradise Works has come together out of generosity and the unshakable belief that this needs to happen.

The new artist community at Paradise Works have given up their time to carry in lorry loads of MDF board, do numerous tip runs and tidy up, and our tech team have done an outstanding job building the studios. Hilary and I are incredibly grateful that people came on-board with us, shared risks and gave their time so freely because this couldn't have happened without them. The studios are now fully populated and it is bloody brilliant to be able to now come into the studios and be part of a proactive community of artists making work in the heart of the city. We can't wait to share our new work space so make sure you put our launch events over 27-29 October in your diary and follow us on all the usual channels for news when we have it.

Lucy Harvey, Co Director at Paradise Works.