Project:BABE 'Becoming' Exhibition

I'm submitting some work to project:BABE's 'Becoming' exhibition really soon and they asked me to do the launch poster for it too, here's the first version!

Taboo Exhibition

After the Manchester Art Gallery Zine Fair I decided to investigate the Taboo exhibition being held at 2022NQ by other Interactive Arts students. The premise of the exhibition was to explore the notions of 'taboo' within our culture and the pieces covered a diverse range of topics including  sexuality, mental health, feminism and dreams.

piece in centre by Saffina Bhatti

Although I missed some of the more performance based pieces by being at the Zine Fair, I thought they still retained their intrigue after their initial display and were interesting just as abandoned objects or displays. My favourite pieces were the two sculptural works, coincidentally both dealing with issues of feminism, by Saffina Bhatti and Emily Rusby respectively, and the illustrated narrative by Nat Dunning.

by Emily Rusby

There was also a mostly architectural illustration exhibition being held in the room next door which I really enjoyed. They were taken from practitioners from a variety of disciplines and were mostly by graduates from a number of different universities. My favourite piece on display in this room was the comic by Zac Gorman which had a gorgeous use of colour.

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Manchester Art Gallery Zine Fair

As part of their Thursday Lates season, the Manchester Art Gallery recently hosted a Zine Fair presenting work by a variety of different Manchester based artists and groups.

There was a good amount of people selling their art in a fairly diverse range of styles and it was great to see such a huge turnout. It's also exciting to see zines continue to rise in popularity and visibility and starting to become embraced by such prominent authorities as major galleries.

I ended up spending over my budget but I regret nothing! My favourite stalls were Project:BABE, John Allison, Joe List, Sugar Paper Zine, Young Explorer Zine amongst very many more. Here is a rubbish photo of some of the marvellous zines and comics and things that I bought.

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The First Cut

I recently visited Manchester Art Gallery to see their newest exhibition, The First Cut, a showcase of contemporary papercut  art. 

From the Manchester Art Gallery: 

"31 international artists who cut, sculpt and manipulate paper, transform this humble material into fantastical works of art for our stunning new exhibition.

Wonder at giant sculptures inspired by far away galaxies that spiral from the wall, explore a walk-through forest of paper trees and marvel at miniature worlds that explode from vintage staple boxes or emerge from the page of a book. 

Flocks of birds and butterflies cut from maps appear alongside artworks that feature dark fairytale imagery. Guns and grenades fashioned from paper currency and sinister silhouettes comment on social, political and economic issues."

Wuthering Heights by Su Blackwell

Map of my Entire Life by Rob Ryan, his largest single papercut to date

Wonder Forest by Manabu Hangai

Close up of a gorgeous piece which I forgot to record the title / artist for!

I really enjoyed the exhibition and one of my favourite parts was peering into glass boxes which contained tiny paper mountains. The large scale pieces worked really well in the space and gave a nice contrast and juxtaposition to the smaller pieces.

I also really enjoyed the Clore Interactive Gallery which I believe is a fairly recent addition to the Gallery. We spent most of our time lying in the giant kaleidoscope.

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Manchester Fanzine Convention 2012

Yesterday afternooon myself and the lovely Hebe went to check out Manchester Fanzine Convention, I'd been wanting to go for the last couple of years so I was super excited! It was at Victoria Baths near Rusholme, a beautiful old disused swimming pool.

As well as the stalls selling all kinds of artists' books, fanzines, screeprints, crafts, etc, there was also an exhibition called 'Shape & Situate: Posters of Inspirational European Women' which was incredible.

I also managed to catch a bit of Salford Zine Library's film 'Self Publishers of the World Take Over' (chapter called 'Freedom of Self Publishing' below!) while Hebe did a linocutting workshop.

Wonderful!

March at The Whitworth Gallery

After another afternoon of drawing old buildings around the University of Manchester campus, I dropped by the Whitworth Gallery for the first time in a while to see their newest exhibition, Cotton: Global Threads. 

The pieces I most fell in love with were Lubaina Himid's illustrated kangas. 

(The kanga  is a colourful garment worn by women and occasionally by men throughout Eastern Africa. It is printed cotton fabric, about 1.5m by 1m, often with a border, and a central part which differs in design from the borders. Kangas are usually very colorful and commonly feature a message often in the form of riddles or proverbs.) 

I also managed to catch the last couple of weeks of Dark Matters which was wonderful. My favourite pieces included were Paula Rego's super creepy and totally amazing etchings of famous nursery rhymes.