Escape at 2022NQ

This is an exhibition curated by Saoirse Higgins and Fabrizio Cocchiarella. It explores ways in which to escape the norm and features the work of 12 artists and designers. Viki and I went for a nosey after a Unit X meeting at Hilton House. This was a really interactive exhibition which would have used to intimidate me but I'm not so bothered about it any more so got stuck in. There were lots of headphones to pick up and have a listen to, projections into corners, video glasses, mirrors. It was really exciting. I really likes how it wasn't too obvious. I was still finding things at the end that I hadn't noticed at first. And it was good listening to the headphones from one piece whilst looking at another to see how it changed the feel of the piece.

Liminal Ladder by GraphicObject

Doom Run by Saoirse Higgins

Escape Walk by Morag Rose

Escape by OWT Creative

FAC13 Joy Division- Transmission

1+7+5=13

Liam Curtin's tour of the Northern Quarter

As part of UnitX, a number of lectures/talks/workshops have been arranged with different people about various different things such as the sandwich workshop with Constance Laisne. No information was given apart from a name, time and place. This put a lot of people off, not wanting to go if they didn't know what it would be about. But not knowing makes me even more curious, as I believe that great things can happen through spontaneity. So Viki and I went along to meet Liam Curtin outside Fred Aldous in the Northern Quarter, as timetabled. He then went on to take us on a walking tour around the area, telling us all about the history, anecdotes, local artists past and present, his involvement in public art, the manchester music scene and everything in between. As I am starting to look at Manchester in my research, the afternoon spent with Liam was priceless. He even talked about Factory Records and the start up of Dry Bar.

 Liam was employed by the Manchester City Council in the early 90's as Artist in Residence of the Northern Quarter, so was and is the driving force of all the public art pieces you will find around the area. He also took us to meet Wendy Jones with whom Liam set up Majolica Works in the 1980s. She makes beautiful ceramics and her studio is the oldest occupied building in the area. In Victorian times, the Northern Quarter was a very affluent area, but when the Arndale was built in the 1970s, it became marginalised and run down. But run down areas are the perfect spots for creativity, as studio space is cheap, so artists begin to move in, and with that comes cafes, bars and hangouts, and before you know it, commercial businesses and investors are getting involved, pushing up the prices, making an area more sort after. Which is why I could never afford to live in the Northern Quarter!

At the end of the tour, Liam took us to see his studio, and we went out onto his rooftop garden! I love how unless he had taken us there, we would have never known it existed.

NQ Street Sign designed by Tim Rushton and Liam Curtin

Sculpture out side Afleck's Palace designed by David Kemp

Mugs by Majolica Works

Constance Laisne Food Workshop 14th March

Today we wnt to a food workshop, only being told it was something to do with sandwiches. It was put together by designer Constance Laisne and curator Laura Mansfiled. There were round tables set up and we were split into groups of 6. In each of our places was a paper bag filled with an ingredient. There were also 3 additional ingredients on a plate. Also on the table were chopping boards, a selection of utensils (tools), paper plates and bowls. We were then given a loaf of bread per table and told to follow the instructions .

Our tables ingredients were:

Hummous

Avocado

Apple

Spring Onion

Walnuts

Rocket

Mushrooms

Lime

Carrot

Grapes

There were also a selection of additional ingredients on a seperate table that each group was allowed to choose 2 from if they wished.

We chose:

Oilve Oil

Coriander

Working together we made our sandwich and a side salad and swapped with the other tables. It was really fun and the sandwiches tasted great. I was so surprised with how well our chosen ingredients went together and I will definitely be more adventurous in the future.  It was a really nice way of getting to know people, and we found out that we all LOVE food.

Left: The other tables sandwich. Middle:Our sandwich. Right: Our side salad.

FAC175

Hearing about Dave Haslam's lecture this week (gutted I wasn't able to make it!!!) got me thinking about the Manchester music scene and Factory Records. Everything Factory ever produced is catalogued 'FAC' followed by a number, so I decided to find out what FAC175 would bring me. To my surprise, it was an Origami Christmas Greetings sent out by the record label in 1986, designed by Paper artist Paul Jackson. The gift also included a cassette with 'Thick Pigeons Blue Christmas'. I contacted Paul and it turns out he was a tutor at MMU in the late 80s/early 90s (then referred to as Manchester Polytechnic) of Embroidery and Textiles!!! Peter Saville designed the Factory Records logo, and most of the album sleeves for the label, including Joy Divisions 'Unknown Pleasures' 1979. I also searched for FAC13 (1+7+5) which is the Joy Division single 'Transmission', artwork also designed by Saville in 1979. Turns out Saville studied Graphic Design at Manchester Polytechnic 75-78. The Factory logo depicts the silhouette a factory/mill. I plan to go out and photograph the empty and restored factories and mills around Manchester. I think they are a really important part of Manchester heritage as the city was built on industry, textiles in particular, and I want to explore that.

Factory Records logo designed by Peter Saville

Diagram from 'Folding Techniques from Designers; From Sheet to Sheet' by Paul Jackson

FAC175 Christmas Card 1986

 FAC13 Joy Division 'Transmission' 1979, sleeve desidned by Pater Saville

175!?!?!?

Where to start with 175? Here are some results from searching on Google

CHRISTMAS shoppers splashed out a whopping £1.75BILLION over the weekend.

Boycott in £1.75m move back to Yorkshire

China's tea output reaches 1.75 mn tonnes

Bank of Israel keeps interest rate at 1.75%

1.75% rise in Lewisham council tax recommended at cuts meeting

1.75kg of gold recovered from accused in theft case

175-day school year eyed as Manchester teachers voice opposition

David Beckham worth £175m

Harriet the tortoise, one of the world's oldest living creatures with links to famed naturalist Charles Darwin, has died in Australia at age 175.

Directors of Colchester-based building supplies company Kent Blaxill toasted the company’s 175th anniversary when they met for their first board meeting of the year this month.

Exhibition Celebrating 175 years of the - London - Royal College of Art

Route 175 Hillrise Estate - Romford - Becontree Heath - Dagenham Heathway - Dagenham Ford's

Not the most exciting of finds. I've also been researching the year 1838, as this is exactly 175 years ago. 

Points of interest:
Robert Carswell- Scientific drawings
John James Audubon- Birds of America
Toyohara Chikanobu- Japanese painter
Invention of Photography- 1830s
William Fox Talbot- Photographer
Gall Pizi- Hunkpapa chief
Joseph Nigg- Still Life
Gothic Revival
Victorian Era- 1837-1901
Victorian dress
Henry O'Studley-Carpenter
But again nothing has really stood out to me. Not to worry though, I just need to keep digging.

Unit X Launch Monday 11th March

For Unit X we are going to be working with Fashion and Film&Media Studies which I am really looking forward too. It will be nice to get a new perspsctive on things and see what other courses do too. We have been split into 4 groups; REVOLT, PLAY, RECORD, PERFORM. I am with seven others in sub-group PLAY5, which we have since re-named #58Yellow. 5 of us in the group out of 8 already know each other from Textiles, but the other 3 are from Film&Media so I am looking forward to getting to know them.

The theme of the project is the number175because this year is the 175th anniversary of the Manchester School of Art. I'm looking forward to the project and and think I will learn alot from working with other people.

Off The Fence! at 2022NQ

My intention was to attend the opening night party, but as usual, it took my boyfriend and I far too long to leave the house and didn't got there until after 10, not realising it was closing by 11. However we still managed to have a quick nosey around. "Off The Fence! is an exhibition to see if we should climb down off of the fence or sit in the middle with no opinions and making no decisions." There were a series of screen prints by Manchester based designer Nathan Linney aka 'Loose Bait'. I also got chatting to Ffion Kilby who, working with cousin Jacob Greeves, created 'Atmosphere'. Ffion told me how she had been inspired by Su Blackwells work at the First Cut exhibition at Manchester City Gallery. The piece was really interesting to look at. The way the light shon onto the piece cast shadows of the leaves and branches onto the book it was displayed on. I also liked how the photos that inspired the piece were displayed either side. I soometimes wish work was diplayed like this more often. I think displaying development or inspiration along side a piece can enhance the overall feel and enable the viewer to get a better sense of the artists vision. Rebecca McDonnell's 'Clear Series' was really atmospheric. There were 3 photographs were in black and white, used the light source and relflection to create geometric shapes. She worked into the negatives by scratching to create texture. Corin Hall's mixed media pieces were really interesting. By projecting a photo of a woman's face onto a human sculpture, the image becomes distorted and resembles the characteristics of a lion. Also exhibited were the prints of Robert Lomas, depicting the profiles of Neil Armstrong, John Lennon and Patti Smith accompanied by their insight. The use of colour was really interesting, using brights and blending techniques.

Try Again by Loose Bait

Atmosphere by Ffion Kilby and Jacob Greeves

Clear Series by Rebecca McDonnel

Human+Human=Animal by Corin Hall

Neil by Robert Lomas

Beryl Korot- Text and Commentary

Text and Commentary, first exhibited in 1976-7, is a complex multi-channel installation made up of several different components, including five woven samples, mirrored by five video screens featuring the warps being set up onto the looms. There is also 2 sets of scores. Weavers notations in pencil on graph paper, showing an enlarged section of each of the five weave samples, and pictorgraphic notations that indicate the rythm and pacing of the weaving process. All together, these components show the same information but in a variety of scales, media and contents.

Callum Innes

A selection of Callum Innes work is currently on display at TheWhitworth Art Gallery in Manchester including A few pieces from his Exposed Paintings series and his entire Watercolour series. The exposed paintings are really interesting. He layers oils paints over each other and then uses turpentine to remove layers. This process leaves behind complex layers of colour and tone.

Exposed Painting Violet
2011

 The watercolour pieces were displayed laid out in a long table, as if artefacts in a museum. I thought this was a really unusual yet interesting way to exhibit the work, and made me feel really comfortable to inspect each piece closely. Each piece was no more than 20x20cm, and consisted of two colours, layered over each other, resulting in an unclassifiable hue. Watercolour is a perfect medium for this effect as the colour is very vibrant yet reains translucent, enabling the colours to both be seen. Unfortunatly photography was not allowed so I was unable to show the way in which the work was displayed but here is an image a found of one of the painings.

Cobalt Turquoise / Scarlet Lake  2012

Glam! The Performance of Style

 My boyfriend and I decided to take our Mums to Tate Liverpool for Mother's day. They both grew up in the 1970's so I thought this would be a great exhibition to take them to. The exhibition was split into two sections, exploring the influences of glam in both the UK and USA during the 1970s. I have only ever really associated glam with music. But the exhibition made me realise how much it affected and was affected by art, film, performance, photographty and society as a whole. It was a way of life.
We saw alot of memorabilia from the era such as album sleeves, magazine spreads and clothing. There were photographs by Nancy Hellebrand depicting young working class people in their run down bedsits, surrounded by posters of their Glam Rock idols, with hair and make-up to match. This really shows how glam was accessable to anyone. It was a mind set that anyone could have, no matter how rich or poor. Glam enpowered people and enabled them to be anyone they wanted to be.
Richrd Hamilton was an important figure in Glam. 'Fashion Plate' was on display which I really enjoyed seeing. The process of the pice is alot more complicated than you would think. He built up the photomontage in the same way one might put their make up on. The piece actually uses make up as a medium, which was a major part of glam.

Glam pushed the boundaries of erotisism, identity and androgyny. Cindy Sherman looks at identity in her work. Displayed were a series of photographs, showing Sherman made up looking completely different in each piece, some female, some male. This androgyny is an important theme in glam and was also explored by David Bowie. This scared alot of people at the time, and people who pushed these limits were assumed to be homosexuals.  

I realy enjoyed the exhibition and now know how much of an impact glam really had on pop culture, the arts, and vice versa.