Art Assembly Manchester 2022
Join artists across Manchester in one amazing day celebrating art and creativity.
Art Assembly is a one-day festival of art, brought to you by Art Fund with some of Manchester's leading arts organisations including Castlefield Gallery, HOME, Manchester Art Gallery, The Whitworth and The Manchester College.
The theme of this year's festival is 'City as Art School'. With new work by Greater Manchester artists popping up around the city, everywhere will become a spot for creative learning.
Everyone's invited on 18 June 2022 in Manchester.
On the day
Meet Me at Art Assembly
Join us in the morning with a live event at HOME led by comedian Russell Kane and a panel of special guests. Russell will dive into the festival’s theme, City as Art School, in conversation with Art Assembly artists, and MC, writer and theatre-maker Testament, who's been exploring what the artists are up to on the streets of Manchester. Get a sneak preview of what the day has in store, plus a special performance, interviews and more.
The event will be recorded and featured as an episode of Art Fund’s award-winning podcast Meet Me at the Museum.
What to see around the city
Parham Ghalamdar
At Manchester Art Gallery
Parham is exploring Manchester's hidden cultural gems with Fine Art students from The Manchester College and leading drawing workshops.
These drawings are being fed into an Artificial Intelligence engine to produce animations and videos; the still images are being used for ’zines; and the students are also creating large-scale paintings that will be displayed as murals or standing props in the gallery.
About the artist
Painter, animator, curator and researcher Parham Ghalamdar is both a skilled oil painter and graffiti artist. His art explores themes such as perception and the unfolding chaos of modern life.
Sally Gilford
Fred Aldous and Stevenson Square
Sally is working with students from Salford School of Arts, Media and Creative Technology to explore issues relating to women not traditionally included in the curriculum.
Large-scale installations referencing women’s stories such as the ‘First in the Fight’ suffragette banner, first unfurled in Stevenson Square on 20 June 1908, will spill out from art supplies shop Fred Aldous into the square, historically a site of protest.
About the artist
Artist and creative producer Sally Gilford works with people and communities to respond creatively to ideas of place, identity and heritage. Specialising in surface design and print, her work is bold, playful and inquisitive.
Robert Parkinson
On the streets of Manchester
Robert is working with photography students from The Manchester College to produce a guerrilla photography exhibition on the streets of Manchester using a portable printer. The project will be part-exhibition, part-performance, as he and the students move through the city.
About the artist
Artist Robert Parkinson’s work revolves around people – where they live, how they respond to their surroundings, and what makes a community. His art takes a number of different forms, including photography.
Sam Owen Hull
Location check back soon
Sam is working with children from Abraham Moss Community School on a project about the climate emergency, creating posters and billboards that will pop up in locations between the school and the city centre.
About the artist
Sam Owen Hull is an associate artist at Manchester Art Gallery, known for her workshops and creative projects that help young people to develop their voice through art. Her work incorporates elements of painting and embroidery and often explores the polarisation of society.
Maya Chowdhry
Multiple locations including St Peter’s Square and Manchester Art Gallery
Maya is working with students from Manchester School of Art to explore the idea of ‘space as a gift’, by creating pop-up plinth installations as platforms for performance art.
About the artist
Maya Chowdhry’s work toes the line between live art and installation, using elements such as projection, interactive audio and sensors to invite people in. Maya encourages audiences to use her art as a tool for creating their own unique experiences.
Anna FC Smith and Helen Mather
Multiple locations including Manchester Art Gallery, The Manchester College, HOME and Castlefield Gallery
Anna and Helen are working with fashion students from The Manchester College to investigate the lives of 18th- and 19th-century working-class botanists, who created societies for sharing their botany finds in pubs.
The group will envision their own 21st-century Botanical Club, working together to make badges, bags and other creations, and take their club to the streets with stencils power-washed on the Manchester pavement.
About the artists
Anna FC Smith works in a range of mediums including performance and sculpture. She is interested in the places where people meet to take part in daily or ritualistic activities, and her work often explores themes of history and community.
Helen Mather works predominantly in textiles, exploring how materials can tell vivid stories. Her work often touches on ideas of health and the body.
David McFarlane and Raheel Khan
At Manchester Art Gallery and Manchester Arndale
David and Raheel are working with young people from Manchester Secondary PRU to make their own maps which have personal meaning for them.
The maps will be brought to life using augmented reality – you’ll be able to scan a QR code and watch their stories animate before your eyes.
About the artists
David McFarlane works frequently with sound and music, developing everything from soundtracks and concert pieces to installations and interactive poetry displays. He is interested in themes such as interactivity, communication and the translation of information.
Also working with sound, music and installation, Raheel Khan is known for his interesting use of materials, previously including disused car parts and reconstructed textiles.
Olivia Glasser
At Manchester Art Gallery
Olivia’s film work Respawn asks pupils from Plymouth Grove Primary School big questions, like: Would you rather live in the online world or the real world forever? What would you do if you had control of your city?
Captured on video, they offer a unique perspective on childhood and what they want from adult life, imagining they have the ability to ‘respawn’ for the day.
About the artist
Artist and teacher Olivia Glasser is interested in how creativity can be embedded into society. She works with young people to build creative skills and recently programmed a series of arts workshops and events in unusual spaces in Salford.
David Blandy
At Manchester Art Gallery
David has been working with young artists from the Venture Arts studio to reimagine Manchester 8,000 years from now, resulting in a ’zine, Lost Eons: Three Worlds.
For Art Assembly, David and artists Niamh, Raven and George are transforming their collaborative work into an immersive installation at Manchester Art Gallery – inviting the public to join them in speculative world-building and share their own vision for Manchester far into the future.
About the artist
David Blandy is interested in the cultural forces that inform and influence him; in recent work, he has examined the idea of human consciousness within the digital world. His art spans performance, installation, writing, gaming, and sound, always with a strong collaborative element. He was nominated for the Film London Jarman award with Larry Achiampong in 2018.
