We invited artists and organisations across the North of England to send information about their upcoming programmes for 2021, with galleries and museums allowed to reopen from mid May. We have been thrilled to receive listings for contemporary art exhibitions and events, as well as continuing digital and remote programmes from across all of the regions that we cover.
These are arranged below with standalone exhibitions that open in May first, then continuing Summer & Autumn programmes and finally online and postal programmes. Locations, opening and access information (where available) is in bold. We eagerly encourage you to take reasonable precautions and enjoy the art on offer across the North, from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Liverpool and everywhere in between.
Standalone Exhibitions & Events in May
Arranged chronologically by closing date

Ones to Watch
1 May – 6 June 2021
Open Tuesday to Saturday 10 – 4 pm, Sunday 12 – 4 pm. Closed Mondays
Sunny Bank Mills Gallery, Town Street, Farsley, Leeds, LS28 5UJ
Access information
Gallery website
Online exhibition
Ones to Watch returns to Sunny Bank Mills Gallery for 2021, showcasing some of the most exciting, emerging talent Yorkshire has to offer. The exhibition brings together work by artists from across disciplines, from painting to sculpture, film, photography, ceramics, design and more. Strong themes have emerged from the selection this year; with artists exploring ideas around identity, portraiture, lockdown, time, locality, craft and technology. Ones to Watch provides a unique platform to discover and experience the work of Yorkshire’s graduate artists during the coronavirus pandemic, when many degree shows may not be accessible.
To coincide with the main exhibition, Ones to Watch will also have an online exhibition, featuring extra work and information about the artists.
ONES TO WATCH 2021 ARTISTS
Amy Guo, Aniela Preston, Cameron Lings, Emerson Pullman, Glen Ogden, Grace Murphy, Hang Zhang, Hugh Roberts, Jay Villacci, Jenny Brown, Jioni Warner, Katherine James, Katie Dickinson, Lewis Andrews, Lynne Barker, Maria Sappho, Megan Dalton, Megan Milner, Meri Croft, Mia Symonds, Milly Parker, Ruby Plank, Sally Barton, Sam Mitchell, Samuel Price, Sarah Cawthray, Sasha Napoli, Teddy De Souza, Sonia Moran, Steven Wood, Will Hudson, Yasmin Lari.

CARTOGRAPHY: CARBON, PAINT, MUD
17 May – 29 May 2021
Open Thursday to Saturday 10 am – 4 pm
White Elephant Contemporary Art, 40 Euston Road, Morecambe, Lancashire, LA4 5DD
The gallery is wheelchair friendly, as it is on ground floor, has no steps and a big enough door.
CARTOGRAPHY: CARBON, PAINT, MUD is the newest exhibition organised by the White Elephant Contemporary Art Gallery in Morecambe, Lancashire. Co-curated with The GAP Studio, a Morecambe-based artist collective, the show presents a multi-media exploration of mapping by three emerging artists: Georgina Harris, Núria Rovira Terradas and Kasia Tatys.
All works within the exhibition emerged over the last year; an intense period of shared working spaces, resources and ideas. All to ask the question “how did we get here?”.
CARTOGRAPHY considers mapping of the sense of place, the worlds of perception as well as the encounters between the body and the landscape.

MTPA (million tons per annum)
20 May – 10 June 2021
Book to view by appointment, COVID regulations apply: gloamgallery@gmail.com
GLOAM, 160 Arundel Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S1 4RE
GLOAM is a collectively-run exhibition and studio space located in Sheffield City Centre. It was originally set up by artist and musician Mark Riddington at 95b Mary Street in 2017. In 2020, GLOAM became a co-operative (with co-directors: Stu Burke, Thomas Lee Griffiths, Sam Francis Read, Victoria Sharples & Rose Hedy Squires), gained LTD status, and relocated for expansion to 160 Arundel Street; the former location of the DIY music venue, The Lughole. GLOAM now houses 8 studios across 2 floors; a gallery space and an upcoming workshop. The space, which resonates with GLOAM’s ethos as a proudly representative grassroots organisation, embraces the spirit of the DIY scene.
The new gallery space will launch with its opening exhibition MTPA (million tons per annum) on 20th May at 16.00pm; a solo exhibition of the work of former Lughole musician Joe Singleton. Singleton’s photographic practice documents the buildings, industrial architecture and decline of many economic structures, often alongside familiar and obsolescent archival objects. The show, comprising depictions of the working class North, opens for 3 weeks.
Supported with funding from Arts Council England and Sheffield City Council

Kerry Tribe
8 May 2021 – 18 June 2021
Pavement Gallery is a 24/7 window space
PAVEMENT GALLERY, Righton Building, Cavendish Street, Manchester, M15 6BG
Kerry Tribe brings Sky (2021), a new iteration of an existing work, to Pavement Gallery in an exhibition opening in March 2021. Viewed from outside through the gallery windows, the expansive photographic work depicts a churning mass of dark clouds rolling across the gallery walls. These cumulonimbi hang over the empty gallery space, filling it with a sense of brooding anticipation. Sky (2021) conjures vague impressions of universal experiences of power, fear and tense expectation. By using simple but evocative imagery, the work encourages a reaction akin to recalling a memory that you can’t quite grasp, or that doesn’t feel quite like your own. Much of Tribe’s work refers to memory. However, instead of dealing in specific autobiographical recollections; collective experiences of nostalgia, contemplation and loss are explored. As a result, Tribe questions the fallibility of recalling past events and the ways in which memories are passed from person to person, evolving over time.
Kerry Tribe brings Sky (2021) to Pavement Gallery in an exhibition opening on 8 May 2021. Viewed from outside through the gallery windows, the expansive photographic work depicts a churning mass of dark clouds rolling across the gallery walls, filling it with a sense of brooding anticipation. Capitalising on Manchester’s reputation for inclement weather, the artist suggests that bad weather is just as present inside as it is outside. Sky (2021) envelopes the viewer, rendering turbulent and changing environments visible.

Installation view at Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (23 March – 19 June 2021)
REMOTE WORK and LUBAINA HIMID: THE MOURNING KANGAS
18 May – 19 June 2021
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11 am – 4 pm. Closed Sundays & Mondays
Grundy Art Gallery, Queen Street, Blackpool, Lancashire, FY1 1PU
REMOTE WORK website
THE MOURNING KANGAS website
Grundy Art Gallery reopens with REMOTE WORK, an exhibition bringing together new works by Nicola Dale, Kieran Leach, David Penny, Shy Bairns and Ciarán Wood; five North West based artists/artist groups whose proposals were selected from an open call commissioning opportunity, advertised by the Grundy in April 2020.
Recognising the impact of COVID-19 on the livelihoods and the artistic and career development of artists, this commissioning opportunity was designed to give access to financial, administrative and professional development resources at a time when much of the infrastructure that artists rely on had ground to a halt. Grundy Art Gallery also made a commitment to show the work that the artists developed at a point in the future.
That future has now arrived.
Grundy will also present, new and as-yet unseen paintings by North West based, Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid entitled The Mourning Kangas (2020) made during the UK’s first lockdown period.

Slippages
22 May – 26 June 2021
Open Saturdays 11 am – 3:15 pm
Paradise Works, East Philip Street, Salford, Manchester, M3 7LE.
Paradise Works is a studio and gallery complex based in a renovated industrial building. The gallery is on the first floor and only accessible by staircase.
Paradise Works are delighted to present Slippages, a two-person exhibition by Sarah Blaszczok and Ana Genovés, curated by Zoe Watson. Slippages presents the work of two artists who work in the realm of photography and sculpture, operating between the boundaries of real and imagined space, familiarity and the uncanny, authenticity and artifice.
Both Blaszczok and Genovés are concerned with how their work is encountered. Blaszczok’s photographs construct scenes that can be viewed, but not entered, playing with perceptions of space and scale. While Genovés’ sculptures often appear as familiar forms, creating a bodily relationship with the viewer, which is subverted through unexpected materiality.
The work featured in Slippages allude to a series of empty stages, void of protagonist or subject. Here, the stage becomes the subject and the role of filling the space defaults to the viewer, provoking a sense of anticipation and a multitude of narratives and possibilities.

PAPER #66
Sarah Hardacre – Behind The Times
22 May – 26 June 2021
PAPER Gallery, 14-20 Mirabel St, Cheetham Hill, Manchester M3 1PJ
Over the past 18 months, artist Sarah Hardacre has been working in collaboration with writer Greg Thorpe in a mentoring scheme that partners artists and writers. The scheme was devised by PAPER and the Fourdrinier and funded by Arts Council England. The collaboration will produce two pieces of critical writing to be published in the Fourdrinier one of which is already live along with a solo exhibition of new work by Sarah Hardacre at PAPER Gallery, Manchester, in May/June. Hardacre’s new collage works are a development of the artist’s ongoing interest in contrasting sexual and architectural hopes and dreams, this time utilising the format of the postcard. These new collages offer us a cheeky yet plaintively nostalgic consideration of the provincial city postcard and the female magazine nude. Alongside individual new works, reproduction postcards are available at PAPER and elsewhere around the city for visitors to inscribe, post, add to, or take from the exhibition as they wish, offering the postcard in its truest nature – as a communicative artefact in transit, a missive on pleasure and place. Outside PAPER, a new large-scale work will grace the exterior gallery wall for passers-by to enjoy and be tempted inside.

Tom Stoddart, Extraordinary Women
19 May – 26 June 2021
Open Wednesday to Sunday 11 am – 5 pm, entry is free and due to social distancing visitors will need to book a slot.
Side Gallery, 5-9 Side, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3JE
We are wheelchair friendly, have baby change and an accessible toilet.
Born and raised in the North East, Tom has travelled the world producing powerful photo-essays on the serious issues of our time, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of President Nelson Mandela, the bloody siege of Sarajevo and the wars against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. His photojournalism appears regularly in leading publications and has been honoured with awards from World Press Photo, Visa pour l’image, Pictures Of The Year and the Eddie Adams Workshop. In 2006 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society.
To mark Tom’s 50 years in the industry, the exhibition and accompanying book features both familiar and less well known photographs.
This exhibition was prematurely closed in November 2020 and Side are grateful for the opportunity to extend the run with us. Tom talks about his experiences as a photojournalist here – https://vimeo.com/amberfilms

Oliver Hoffmeister: Hide and Seek
22 May – 27 June 2021
Open Tuesday – Sunday 11 am – 4 pm.
Gymnasium Gallery, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD15 1DF
The Gymnasium Gallery is all on one level. Disabled parking is available at the Parade Car Park. Both galleries welcome guide dogs and have ramped access.
Hide and Seek is a universally understood game of exploration and imagination. For this solo exhibition, Oliver responds in part to Berwick-Upon-Tweed’s illustrious and rich past through the guise of play. Using re-imaginings of past events alongside fiction, he leads the viewer in a game of hide and seek, in an effort to form interesting and personal interpretations via the playful exploration of image.
Working from his imagination, with a tendency to fascinate over the more absurd moments in life, Oliver Hoffmeister pulls from a wide array of sources whilst using his own conceived imagery as a starting point. Creating works that could be seen as ‘oddities’, he wishes to conjure a sense of uncertainty that leaves the viewer in a state of flux.
Working as a painter and printmaker he has been shortlisted for multiple awards and bursaries, including ‘The Ingram Collection Young Contemporary Talent Award’, Cello Factory, London, UK (2018); ‘The Graduate Art Prize’, Exchange house, London, UK (2018); ‘Northern Print Bursary 2019’, Northern Print, Newcastle, UK (2019); ING Discerning Eye Prize (2020).

Jasper Pedyo: Perfect Imperfects
18 May – 17 July 2021
Open Thursday – Saturday 10 am – 4 pm
The Civic, Hanson Street, Barnsley, S70 2HZ
The Civic, Barnsley is excited to welcome award-winning artist Jasper Pedyo, for a major solo exhibition in his adopted hometown. The Zimbabwe born, Barnsley based artist won the 2018 Free Range exhibition prize in London and was the Financial Times critics’ choice graduate for his striking mixed media paintings which feature a bold use of binary colours on stretched and shaped sculptural canvases.
Pedyo’s paintings are highly influenced by the philosophy of Alexander Baumgarten and Aestheticism. Whilst combining influences from Pop Art and minimalism his work provides the viewer with an environment of visual bliss. Its purpose is to be experienced solely with an instinctive and physical response to the structure, colour, and surrounding space.
Perfect Imperfects will showcase Pedyo’s entire body of work alongside newly created paintings.

Liam Fallon, Courtship
21 May – 22 August 2021
Open Monday – Friday 2 – 5 pm
Foyer, 86 Princess St, Manchester, M1 6NP
This is accessible from the street, with an access lift in use for facilities.
PINK is delighted to present Courtship, a new sculptural installation by artist Liam Fallon produced in collaboration with Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre as part of their Sculptural Production Award.
Courtship explores the utilisation of objects and acts and their potential to perform an abstract notion; bringing the experiential idea of courting into the physical arena filtered through the Greek creation story by Aristophanes. This story tells the origins of interconnected human beings who became physically separated and were destined to spend the rest of their days trying to locate one another.
Presenting a sculptural speculation, Courtship invites us into a performative narrative where the object takes centre stage, becoming the protagonist. Using an ever familiar recipe of materials, Courtship explores a combination of MDF, paint and rope creating an imposing structure that serves as a tool to be used by these hybrid people to find their other halves; capturing them so that they’re never parted again.

Mel Brimfield, From This World, to That Which Is to Come
21 May – 29 August 2021
Open Wednesday to Sunday 10 am – 5 pm
The Tetley, Hunslet Road, Leeds, LS10 1JQ
Taking its title from John Bunyan’s 1678 parable The Pilgrim’s Progress, which describes a fictional pilgrimage from ‘The City of Destruction’ to ‘The Celestial City’, Mel Brimfield reimagines this tale as a loose allegory for a collapse of mental health and the fraught journey to recovery.
This exhibition marks the culmination of two years research at Bethlem Royal Hospital’s National Psychosis Unit and Kings College Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience in 2018-19. The resulting series of works explore the alienating effects of mental ill health and treatment at an individual, familial and societal level, whilst presenting a celebration of the radical potential of collective creative action and kindness.
Featuring sculptural-audio installation, fragmented theatrical sets, moving image work and large-scale drawings, this deeply personal, and impactful body of work explores the sometimes toxic legacy of rehearsed family narratives around mental health, and our vulnerability and isolation in the face of perceptual and cognitive malfunction.
After nearly a year’s delay imposed by the global pandemic, the opening of this timely exhibition is an urgent reminder of our deep need for community.
The exhibition is produced with support from The Arts Council of England, Kings College Cultural Community and Arts and Heritage.

BALTIC Open Submission
19 May – 5 September 2021
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, S Shore Rd, Gateshead NE8 3BA
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead is pleased to announce BALTIC Open Submission, a major open-call exhibition. Opening May 2021 the exhibition involves over 150 artists and makers based in the North East of England.
BALTIC received over 540 submissions through an open-call application process announced in the summer whilst the gallery was closed during lockdown. All entries were selected by a panel of three artists based in the North East: Richard Bliss, Lady Kitt and Padma Rao, and Katie Hickman, Curator (Performance and Public Programme) at BALTIC.
BALTIC Open Submission celebrates creativity in the North East; the vast number of entries and the works included in the exhibition highlight the variety and high quality of arts practice across the North East. The exhibition presents works by artists who have been making throughout their lifetime to those just beginning; from people who work collectively, to those who create alone; those who have studied fine art, to self-taught creatives who have only ever made work in their private homes.

Absorption: Mark Woods
23 July – 18 September 2021
Open Wednesday to Saturday 12 – 5 pm during exhibitions.
Cross Lane Projects, Cross Lane, Kendal, Cumbria, LA9 5LB
Wheelchair friendly
Cross Lane Projects, Kendal, is excited to announce it will reopen this Summer with an exhibition by Mark Woods.
After a challenging few months, the gallery is looking forward to welcoming back visitors and relaunching an ambitious programme of contemporary art in Kendal.
The gallery will reopen its doors with a solo exhibition by Mark Woods (b. 1961, Surrey) entitled Absorption. Launching on Friday 23 July, the exhibition features objects, vignettes & photographs of elaborate artefacts housed in a purposely designed environment that aims to enhance viewers’ disorientation and surprise.
Visitors are invited to peer through small openings to view Wood’s evocative work. Blurring the boundaries between fine art, fetish objects, and items from a cabinet of curiosities, Woods’ art compels viewers to confront their inner feelings and desires.
Curated by Vanya Balogh, Absorption takes inspiration from the renowned ‘International Surrealist Exhibition’ held at Galérie Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1938. The exhibition featured leading surrealist artists including André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Leonora Carrington, and challenged existing conventions of exhibitions viewing.

Barbara Hepworth: Art and Life
21 May 2021 – 27 February 2022
Open Wednesday to Sunday 10 am – 4 pm
The Hepworth Wakefield, Gallery Walk, Wakefield, WF1 5AW
£12 / £10 / FREE for Members, Wakefield District residents and under 16s
In summer 2021, to mark The Hepworth Wakefield’s 10th anniversary, the gallery will organise the largest exhibition of Barbara Hepworth’s work since the artist’s death in 1975.
The exhibition will present an in-depth view of the Wakefield-born artist’s life, interests, work and legacy. It will display some of Hepworth’s most celebrated sculptures including the modern abstract carving that launched her career in the 1920s and 1930s, her iconic strung sculptures of the 1940s and 1950s, and large-scale bronze and carved sculptures from later in her career. Key loans from national public collections will be shown alongside works from private collections that have not been on public display since the 1970s, and rarely seen drawings, paintings and fabric designs. It will reveal how Hepworth’s wide sphere of interests comprising music, dance, science, space exploration, politics and religion, as well as events in her personal life, influenced her work.
Contemporary artists Tacita Dean and Veronica Ryan have been commissioned to create new works which will be presented within the exhibition. Each artist will explore themes and ideas that interested Hepworth and that continue to resonate with their own work. Art works by Bridget Riley from the 1960s will also be presented in dialogue with Hepworth’s work from the same period.

Refloresta!
1 July – 11 October 2021
Open Monday – Friday 10 am – 4 pm
The Portico Library, 57 Mosley Street, Manchester, M23HY
In 2020, The Portico Library adapted its public programme to create two innovative online exhibitions: What it is to be here: Colonisation and resistance, marking the 250th anniversary of the first meetings between Aboriginal Australian and British people in 1770, and Fun & Games: Playtime, past & present, with eight contemporary artists’ responses to the Library’s Georgian and Victorian books on lockdown games and pastimes.
This summer, from 1st July, the Library will reopen with a groundbreaking sculptural installation by leading Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno. Accompanying Maria’s spectacular, immersive artworks, exhibited under the Library’s original 215-year-old glass dome, will be an eclectic programme of public events welcoming new audiences into the Library’s beautiful historic spaces.
Maria’s expansive sculptures combine fluid, organic forms with vivid colours and traditional rope-weaving and straw-braiding techniques. They will be shown alongside natural history books and archive materials from the Library’s 19th-century collection illustrating Manchester’s international and colonial connections during the city’s formative years. With spiral patterns evoking biological and spiritual themes, Maria’s brightly-coloured artworks will bring the vibrancy of the natural world into the Library’s tranquil interior.

Noel Clueit: Various Artists
May 2021 – onwards
Studio 2, Robinwood Mill, Burnley Road, Todmorden, OL14 8JA
Studio 2 is pleased to present Various Artists, a series of new works from Manchester-based Artist Noel Clueit.
Various Artists follows Clueits recent show Lockedgroove at Workplace Foundation of meticulously cut up record sleeves, spliced and rejigged into collage and paintings.
From years of sifting through charity shops in the hope of an occasional rarity, Clueit turned his attention to the visual value in what’s left in the pile – no longer selecting records for any musical content, but for graphic elements that may offer up further consideration.
For his exhibition at Studio 2 there is an emphasis on sculptural elements, this time the works operate more like models, or in some ways as a proposition for something on the way towards abstract painting. The title of the exhibition makes reference to the subject matter at hand, the removal of the recording Artists the sleeve once contained, to past abstraction these works now point back to.
Continuing Summer & Autumn Programmes
Arranged by region: Yorkshire, North East, North West

Threshold
24 April 2021 – onwards
Open daily during exhibitions, usually 10 am – 6 pm.
10 Argie Terrace, Leeds, LS4 2JW
Access information
Gallery Website
@thresholdsculpture
Threshold is a new artist-led, open-air space for exhibitions of sculpture in Leeds. Located in the front garden of a traditional back-to-back house in Burley, the space will host four exhibitions by artists based in Yorkshire in 2021. Exhibitions are visible from the street, and open for all to view. Threshold is about experiencing sculpture in everyday situations: on your way to work, school or during your daily walk.
The first exhibition is Privet by Leeds based artist Alice Chandler, which is open from 24 April – 23 May. Chandler has responded to the residential garden space at Threshold with an exhibition that investigates the etymology, histories and aesthetic qualities of the common privet hedge. Her sculptures for Privet explore the connections between plants and textiles, sculpture and language.
Following Chandler will be exhibitions by Victoria Lucas (12 June – 10 July), Julia McKinlay with Jacob Farrell (18 September – 16 October), and Emii Alrai (23 October – 21 November). Publications and small limited-edition sculptures will be launched alongside each exhibition.
Threshold is co-ordinated by Julia McKinlay, an artist based in Leeds and has been funded in 2021 by Arts Council England National Lottery Grants, Leeds Inspired, East Street Arts, CuratorSpace and Index Festival.
For more information about Privet

Sheffield DocFest
4 June – 13 June 2021
The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX
Programme venues: Site Gallery, S1 Artspace, Sheffield Hallam University Performance Lab, Abbeydale Picture House and Showroom Cinema.
The 2021 Sheffield DocFest Arts Programme comprises exhibitions, talks, events and new commissions that showcase the best in international contemporary art practice and research. Artists selected for our programme work across many forms, disciplines and subjects, interrogating and expanding the boundaries of non-fiction through moving images, immersive technologies, sound, performance and other media. This year’s hybrid programme is shown across venues in Sheffield including Site Gallery and S1 Artspace, with our entire programme also viewable on our Online Exhibitions Platform, free and open to all.
Centred around two group exhibitions—‘Here In This Room’ curated by Herb Shellenberger and ‘Right On Time’ curated by Soukaina Aboulaoula—the programme is rich in works of aesthetic innovation, sociopolitical relevance and urgency of form/content. In total, this year’s programme features the work of over 30 artists from around the world, curated thoughtfully through a process of research, open call submissions and many discussions.
New commissions include In Posse, a multimedia installation by UK artist Charlotte Jarvis; The Registry, a moving image installation by Los Angeles-based artist Alex Tyson; and Right on Time Radio, a web radio station with new works by AWU Radio, Himali Singh Soin, Karim Kattan & Yasmine Benabdallah, Les Bonnes Ondes, Micro Radio and Yasmina Reggad.

The NewBridge Project: Gateshead
19 May 2021 – onwards
Open Wednesday to Friday 12 – 5 pm.
232-240 High St, Gateshead NE8 1DJ
We are so pleased to re-open our shop and gallery, and welcome you back after what’s felt like a long hibernation.
The NewBridge Project : Gateshead is pleased to be re-opening to the public on Wednesday 19th May. Our upcoming exhibition Slow Breath includes new commissions by three amazing artists: Camara Taylor (Glasgow) with their film Suspiration! (2021); Meera Shakti Osborne (London), who is delivering a series of workshops exploring Rest, Loneliness and Pining; and Rene McBrearty (Gateshead/Amsterdam) brings a zine including activities and exercises that you can do from your bedroom. The show has been curated by Calum Bayne (Newcastle/Manchester), who is a member of our current Programme Committee.

Obstructions
19 – 23 May 2021
Nicola Ellis and Ritherdon & Co Ltd: No gaps in the line
13 June – 1 August 2021
Open Wednesday to Sunday 12 noon – 5.30 pm
Castlefield Gallery, 2 Hewitt Street, Manchester, M15 4GB
Information about what to expect when visiting Castlefield Gallery can be found at castlefieldgallery.co.uk/contact/
info@castlefieldgallery.co.uk
The gallery is fully wheelchair accessible, including provision of an accessible bathroom.
Conceived during what now feels like the early days of the pandemic, our soon to be open exhibition brought together 15 artists from across GM, to exchange Obstructions. The idea riffed off the restrictions imposed by lockdown and provided us with an opportunity to put a positive spin on things, working safely with a group of artists close to us.
This summer we will launch a solo exhibition by Nicole Ellis, marking a high point in nearly ten years of working together; exhibiting Ellis’ work at home and abroad and at the Manchester Contemporary art fair where in 2019 Dead powder series: Yellow, (2019) was acquired by The Manchester Contemporary Art Fund for the public collection of Manchester Art Gallery, where it will be on display this summer.
At Castlefield Gallery, Ellis’ first major solo exhibition will feature ambitious large-scale work developed during a two-year artist placement at Ritherdon & Co Ltd: a manufacturer of steel enclosures based in Darwen, Lancashire. Works include metal panels coated with ‘dead powder’ the leftover paint from the factory’s daily jobs excessively applied so that it slips and drips as it dries. Industrial strip lights linked to real time light sensors in the factory and a video installation showing how pace and rhythm is set, changed and communicated.

Portraits of Anthony Burgess
Building reopen for public events and archive visits from 21 June 2021
International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Engine House, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester M1 5BY
The Foundation is fully wheelchair accessible, with accessible toilets and lift
Our Portraits of Anthony Burgess photography exhibition should have been a highlight of March 2020. However, days after our launch, venues closed across the country. Our hand-picked selection of thousands of photographs from the Burgess archive were hidden away, like a family photo album shoved into a bottom drawer.
Our reopening allows audiences to revisit this remarkable visual catalogue by Anthony Burgess’s wife Liana. These photographs, many taken on her trusty Pentax camera, form an unusually comprehensive record of a writer’s life. Burgess’s posed pics are a delight: a moody glare purpose-made for book jackets; leaning on a stack of his own books, cigarillo in hand; playing two pianos at once in a justified display of musical prowess.
Then there are the more candid shots. At home cooking, sleeves rolled up; his son hanging from Burgess’s neck in a playful hug; fist raised at an event, a flash of spontaneity suggesting jubilation or fury. These off-the-cuff photos are intimate, casual and lively: an ideal mood board for our reopening, when the Burgess Foundation once again becomes a multi-use venue with activity way beyond our literary inspiration. To slightly misquote Burgess: “All human life will be here.”

Bluecoat is delighted to present work by seven international artists as part of the 11th edition of Liverpool Biennial
Wed 19 May – Sunday 5 September 2021
Open Wednesday to Sunday 11 am – 5 pm
Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool, Merseyside, L1 3BX
Bluecoat offers a range of facilities for disabled patrons:
- Wheelchair access is available to all areas of the new wing and due to restrictions as a Listed building there is limited access to the older parts of the building.
- Assistance dogs are admitted. Please advise Tickets & Information when booking your ticket if you are bringing a guide dog.
This year’s Biennial explores concepts of the body, drawing on non-Western thinking where the body is seen as fluid, being continuously shaped by, and actively shaping its environment.
The artists exhibiting at Bluecoat examine the deep relationship between humans and nature. Paintings by Jadé Fadojutimi explore how bodies and the natural world are in constant flux, while films by Laura Huertas Millán and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané explore human-plant and human-animal interactions. Together with sculptural works by Roland Persson, Kathleen Ryan and André Romão, propose new ways in which we might connect to the world beyond our physical boundaries, considering ourselves as nature, not just part of it.
Along the building’s external wall on Blundell Lane is Jorgge Menna Barreto’s mural Mauvais Alphabet. Interested in reorienting our relationship with the natural environment, the mural entangles drawings of common weeds found in Liverpool. The work was produced in collaboration with other artists and thinkers, including Liverpool John Moores University Art and Design students and mural artist Anna Jane Houghton.

Groundwork
28 April 2021 onwards
Heart Of Glass 11, Haydock Street, St Helens, WA10 1DD
Groundwork is a series of three posters by Rudy Loewe exploring what it might look like to centre collective healing in a crisis. From the end of April until mid June these posters will be displayed on selected bus stops along Park Road (Liverpool) and in Bethnal Green (London).
About the artist: as a visual storyteller/arts educator Rudy engages in critical social issues and histories through painting, drawing and print. Motivated by art’s potential as an activist tool, over the past decade Rudy has played a central role in organising activist and community spaces. They see their artistic practice as a way of engaging people in critical themes, raising awareness of issues and creating community space.
‘Groundwork’ is a part of Heart of Glass’ remote working commissions programme, through which the organisation has been supporting an incredible group of artists with the time and resources to think, create and share.

Making A Mark
17 July
10 am – 4 pm
Flag Market (outdoors) & Harris Museum, Market Square, Preston PR1 2PP
Making A Mark is an annual celebration of and by creatives working or studying locally. The event has become an established popular fixture in Preston’s calendar with a reputation for challenging boundaries, offering opportunities for inclusivity and for engaging with the local community. Each year a different theme provides participants the challenge of interpretation in a wide variety of ways, from large scale installations to smaller, more intimate displays and performances. Past participants have included some of Preston’s most successful well known creatives, as well as those who had never exhibited before, creating a unique event and atmosphere. Sadly cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, we are delighted to advise plans are going ahead for 2021 with the theme “Changing World” – open to wide interpretation this will provide some interesting activities.
The event is supported by the Arts Council and Preston City Council. Come along and join in on the day. Some online workshops are also being planned prior to the event – details on our website as soon as finalised.
Online & Remotely Accesible Programmes
Standalone events & streams followed by ongoing programmes

The Downloadable Brain Launch Event
12 May 2021 at 6:30 pm, online
Tickets available on Eventbrite
Please email cognitivesensations@gmail.com with access requirements.
Exploring the central interface between human emotion and computational intelligence — the brain. Cognitive Sensations invites you to join the launch for their three month public programme of events, new-media art, and critical essay series — The Downloadable Brain — examining the future connection between technology and cognition.
Delving deeper into the season’s curatorial framework, founder Gabriella Warren-Smith will unveil her ambitious plans, and introduce the artists, researchers and writers behind them. Be the first to experience Sarah Selby’s new immersive digital artwork, and engage with AI to help produce a living and growing artificial brain that will evolve during the course of the programme.
Artist Marcos Lutyens will share the research behind his collaborative immersive artwork exploring emotion tracking, and emerging artists Ash//Ella will reveal their plans for an interactive AR exhibition, designed to transform the walls of viewers’ homes. In addition to artist introductions, sci-fi writer Stephen Oram will discuss his new short story William Dreams, alongside the announcement of our three new commissions.

LOITER talk
May 25 2021 7:30 pm
PROFORMA presents Omid Asadi and curator Marianna Tsionki in discussion followed by audience Q&A
In the lead up to the release of our audio described and BSL versions LOITER on 29th May, exhibiting artist Omid Asadi will be discussing his practice with curator Marianna Tsionki covering his recent works Autopsy of a Home and Hansel and Gretel created for CFCCA and PROFORMA respectively, diaspora representations in Contemporary Art and archive as material.
Chaired by Chris Bailkoski the talk will be via zoom and a link will be sent out on the morning of 25th May 2021.
Please email info@proforma.org.uk to receive the link on the day.
This talk is part of Curating Movement, a series of discussions by PROFORMA exploring live contemporary art practices.
LOITER: New Audio Described and BSL Versions Streamed
May 29 2021
PROFORMA is pleased to announce new accessible versions of our LOITER art walk which will be streamed on May 29.
LOITER is a digital art walk from CFCCA to WCML with artworks by Omid Asadi Juliet Davis-Dufayard, Tink Flaherty, Parham Ghalamdar and Christian Selent.
Conceived, curated and produced by Chris Bailkoski
12:00 – LOITER Audio Described version
15:00 – LOITER BSL and subtitled version
18:00 – LOITER new, original version
The livestream will be available through our website: https://www.proforma.org.uk//pavilion

Site Gallery: Digital Realness online season
08 March – 31 July 2021
Site Gallery, 1 Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS
Site Gallery’s Digital Realness season explores the merging of digital and physical realities through immersive online exhibitions, discussions, workshops, reading groups and more. The season showcases the work of artists Sian Fan, Rebecca Jagoe and Vishal Kumaraswamy, commissioned through Site’s Fresh Takes programme.
Find out more about Digital Realness.
Online now:
Sian Fan’s newest work Phantom is currently available to explore on the Site Gallery website. Phantom was created using motion capture, recreating the performer’s movements in an interactive 3D environment. The virtual space is filled with glitched greenery, emulating a corrupted video game that users can navigate using their computer arrow keys.
Coming soon:
Rebecca Jagoe’s work A Sicknesse, A Ston will be an online broadcast performance looking at how human bodies interact with specific stones from the Lapidary, where the interactions between flesh and rock, and intense lithic intimacies, become means of understanding illness and embodiment.
Vishal Kumaraswamy’s artwork navigates contemporary concerns of Race and Caste through a speculative construct of engaging with the Subaltern body in Hyperspace. It is an ever evolving conversation conducted as an experimental moving image work.

Throughout Spring and Summer OUTPUT will be running a series of postal exhibitions, bringing local artists to your doorstep as we ease out of lockdown. In response to the cancellation of our 2020 public programme, Mali Draper & Dan Waine, Leo Fitzmaurice, Sumuyya Khader, Radical Womxn’s Dance Party, Golden Harvest Industries, Hassnat Sikander and more have produced exclusive print artworks which are made available for online sign ups. In addition we will be presenting further episodes of our podcast, interviewing local creatives, and allowing our audiences to remain engaged with artists and their ideas. To stay up to date with what’s happening at OUTPUT, please visit our website, where you can join our mailing list and follow our social media channels.

For 2021 Caustic Coastal is reimagining what an artist-led space can be – with a new focus on filming everything we do! Our new model puts the processes of making exhibitions, and the people who work on them centre stage, with a regular series of Youtube videos exploring an ever expanding range of topics… Caustic Coastal Youtube
We are also no longer (ever) open to the public. In shifting our output to film, and documenting ‘everything’, we hope to be making ourselves and our projects more public, giving an insight into the often unseen behind-the-scenes, and providing the artists we work with a greater platform to explore and voice their ideas.
TL:DR Artist-led space becomes Youtuber.
(oh and we’re also making NFTs now!)
Published 09.05.2021 by Lauren Velvick in Features
6,431 words