A Portrait of Levenshulme2022
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A collaborative project with Ciara Leeming for which we were invited to be the first artists-in-residence at Levenshulme Market. We successfully applied for Jubilee Funding, via Forever Manchester (Arts Council) and used this to run three workshops in which we supported residents and visitors to the market to create their own photographic self-portraits, collages, drawings and postcards with reflections on Levenshulme. We wanted to build a portrait of our urban village, and all of the fantastic people who make it what it is.
In total, participants created 134 pieces of artwork, 103 postcards and 171 photographs: we hosted a community exhibition of all of the work at Levenshulme Old Library, and you can view our zine below (limited edition run of 250 sold at a low cost to commemorate the project, with profits split between funding for the next artist residency at Levenshulme Market, and Heart Murals - a mural artist in the area)
https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/new-artists-in-residence-at-levenshulme-market/
https://levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/2022/05/24/a-portrait-of-levenshulme-exhibition/
In total, participants created 134 pieces of artwork, 103 postcards and 171 photographs: we hosted a community exhibition of all of the work at Levenshulme Old Library, and you can view our zine below (limited edition run of 250 sold at a low cost to commemorate the project, with profits split between funding for the next artist residency at Levenshulme Market, and Heart Murals - a mural artist in the area)
https://aboutmanchester.co.uk/new-artists-in-residence-at-levenshulme-market/
https://levenshulmeoldlibrary.org.uk/2022/05/24/a-portrait-of-levenshulme-exhibition/
Levy Lockdown Zine
2021
"#levylockdownzine is a collaborative, hyperlocal effort to document and make sense of the strange period of global history we are living through. As the UK entered its third national lockdown in January 2021, I invited people living in Levenshulme to share their images and thoughts about the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on them. This 64-page zine features the work of 36 contributors." |
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Lockdown has been a blessing and a curse - I’ve been through trauma and been lonelier than I ever thought possible... but I’ve also had time to sit with myself and to reflect, and to be with my children. Most importantly, I discovered a community of kind, patient, supportive and generous friends and neighbours who nurture me and love me. That community of people that surround me and my children has made me strong again.
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Lockdown Levenshulme
2020
A group exhibition, curated by me for Levenshulme Old Library CIO.
This work is a collaboration between photographer and artist Laura Deane, and poet Valerie Page. Lockdown forced artists of all media to adopt different working practices, and to participate in the use of social media. For Laura and Valerie, this meant utilising social media to share their work and to contact other artists. The resulting conversation led to an amalgamation of the two lockdown diaries; Laura's photographic records on Instagram and Valerie's daily poems, published on Facebook.
Laura Deane works with text, found images, photographic imagery and stitch, to create mixed media work that encompasses the banality and transience of everyday life, with memory and nostalgia. These particular collages marry Valerie's poems with photographs taken on the same day - the resulting combinations can create harmonious or conflicting narratives that weave together the dual experiences of the two artists, highlighting very different lifestyles, in different locations, during lockdown. The use of envelopes alludes to the daily banality and repetition of the lockdown periods, as well as the communication between the artists. Stitching reflects the connection between artists and experience, as well as the threads that bind images and text.
Ultimately, the work seeks to celebrate the everyday reality of lockdown in humorous ways.
Laura Deane works with text, found images, photographic imagery and stitch, to create mixed media work that encompasses the banality and transience of everyday life, with memory and nostalgia. These particular collages marry Valerie's poems with photographs taken on the same day - the resulting combinations can create harmonious or conflicting narratives that weave together the dual experiences of the two artists, highlighting very different lifestyles, in different locations, during lockdown. The use of envelopes alludes to the daily banality and repetition of the lockdown periods, as well as the communication between the artists. Stitching reflects the connection between artists and experience, as well as the threads that bind images and text.
Ultimately, the work seeks to celebrate the everyday reality of lockdown in humorous ways.
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Rebel Daughters
2018
The Point, Doncaster
The Point, Doncaster
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TRACES
Cotton wall-hanging, with Polaroid photographs and stitch |
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“Textiles… carry utterances or traces of voices
from other times and places”
“the word ‘text’ (from Latin textus) originally meant ‘to weave’”
Giunta and Sciorra, 2014
Levenshulme, Manchester, has been home to generations of my family. The area has changed immeasurably, and I wanted to recapture the traces of what once was. The concept of the project developed from walks around the area to lull babies to sleep, and the realisation that this location would be forever imprinted into the next generation of my family – I want to give them a sense of belonging here.
Levenshulme was originally a farming community and the farmland could be traced using OS maps from the turn of the 20th century. Trace images of the farmsteads were captured using largely defunct analogue technology – the physical photographic material degraded and the chemical captures faded, leaving inaccurate imprints, just as our own memories do. Traces of the farm buildings left traces upon the fabric for which the area was famed, and traces of memory from generations of family were woven into the fabric, just as our memories weave into the fabric of our own stories.
“The oral role of women as transmitters of information about the past emerges… implicitly and by chance, due to the lack of public acknowledgement given to them by men”
“…it is the women, not the men, who must have passed on the stories in the female line. It was the women, in other words, who attached political significance to their own ancestry and offered it to their children”
Van Houts, 1999
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