Richard Shields- The Future is Bright The Past is Colourful- Preview Thurs 12 July 6-9pm at Paradise Works.
In many ways he went ‘too far’ becoming physically, spiritually and mentally involved with the small town of Cushendall- but that is just where he needed to go. His art practice burns as bright as the fire that burns and it comes from the very centre of his being which also burns as bright as the fire that burns as bright as the brightest fire that burns.
The Curfew Tower 2017 Resident Richart Shields is showing a new body of work born of his EVF project devised during his IMPOSE|LIFT residency. Shields is a Manchester based artist from Northern Ireland and was selected for this residency based on his explorative, research based practice combining drawing and performance. This residency focused on the socio political situation of The Curfew Tower and we knew Richard would explore all of the corners of this without holding back.
Shields describes that he has continued to explore issues surrounding the fractious history of his country, offering an alternative Ulster, in which art movements are at the centre of the troubles. Parallels are drawn between what some consider to be elitism within the arts and the secretive nature of Ireland’s paramilitary and masonic style fraternities.
We have had a sneak peek of his new film which is layered with outstanding wit, moments of brilliant connection- wiping our slates clean and welcoming us into a new future.
Instigate Arts presents a night of creative and artistic Do it Yourself, bringing together Manchester and Salford’s cutting edge, innovative and leftfield creatives, collaborators, collectives and spaces.
For De(Construction) artist directors of The Penthouse Debbie Sharp and Rosanne Robertson present a reverse sculpture that pairs raw materials of construction and the performance of destruction - reducing old hierarchical individualistic monumentalism to the communal experience of dust.
Over the past 5 years The Penthouse was born of and incubated by a piece of crumbling modernist architecture, we cooperated and revolted within its dust which we believe still resides within our bodies. Indeterminacy, ephemerality and moments happened within the dust of a previous era with cranes bringing the dreams attached to new concrete blocks all around us.
Boundaries between our bodies, structures, vibrations were destabilised.
The Queer female body within crumbling modernist structure has been an important yet non-formalised part of the experience with both artists exploring structure and the city on their own terms and inviting other artists to do the same.
The Dyke body forcing the destruction of built up Penthouse dreams and agitating ideals for an advanced and sleek future brings into force an ‘Other’ power. This power is more attuned to Mother nature who has the force to engulf all into the sediment layers of the Earth.
The boundaries of the artists’ bodies and the materials of the spaces in which their practices exist renegotiated- De(Constructed) within a live performance.
This act is reflective of the ongoing cycle of creation and destruction within DIY and artist led culture- creating a space for freedom.
artist lednew yearnewsartistsart studionew artthe curfew tower 17queer artqueer art show 5raw artoutsider artexperiemtnal artmanchestersalfordcushendall
Newly commissioned videos by Mykki Blanco, Cheryl
Dunye & Ellen Spiro, Reina Gossett, Thomas Allen Harris, Kia Labeija,
Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Brontez Purnell premiering on World AIDS Day
2017.
ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS is the 28th
annual iteration of Visual AIDS’ longstanding Day With(out) Art project.
Curated by Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett for Visual AIDS, the video
program prioritizes Black narratives within the ongoing AIDS epidemic,
commissioning seven new and innovative short videos from artists Mykki Blanco,
Cheryl Dunye & Ellen Spiro, Reina Gossett, Thomas Allen Harris, Kia
Labeija, Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Brontez Purnell.
In spite of the impact of HIV/AIDS within Black communities,
these stories and experiences are constantly excluded from larger artistic and
historical narratives. In 2016 African Americans represented 44% of all new HIV
diagnoses in the United States. Given this context, it is increasingly urgent
to feature a myriad of stories that consider and represent the lives of those
housed within this statistic. ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS seeks
to highlight the voices of those that are marginalized within broader Black
communities nationwide, including queer and trans people.
The commissioned projects include intimate meditations of
young HIV positive protagonists; a consideration of community-based HIV/AIDS
activism in the South; explorations of the legacies and contemporary resonances
within AIDS archives; a poetic journey through New York exploring historical
traces of queer and trans life, and more. Together, the videos provide a
platform centering voices deeply impacted by the ongoing epidemic.
This screening is programmed back to back with HIVideo by Balaclava.Q - A Global Exhibition of Video Art for World Aids Day. HIVideo is the moving image strand of Balaclava.Q- an international Queer Art Project and collective. HIVideo seeks to promote contemporary dialogue(s) on World Aids Day via video art from both a local and global perspective. HIVideo complements current discourse and the de- stigmatization / -criminalization movement by creating dialogue about HIV/AIDS via art – and the attendant aesthetics and politics.
HIVideo is A Global Exhibition of Video Art for World Aids Day. HIVideo
is the moving image strand of Balaclava.Q- an international Queer Art Project
and collective, better known as TACTIC 2. HIVideo seeks to promote contemporary
dialogue(s) on World Aids Day via video art from both a local and global
perspective. HIVideo complements current discourse and the de- stigmatization /
-criminalization movement by creating dialogue about HIV/AIDS via art – and
the attendant aesthetics and politics.
In 2016 HIVideo was
screened at Manchester’s LGBT Foundation and worldwide across Toronto (Canada),
Paris (France), South Africa, Puerto Rico, New Mexico and Oakland (California,
US) in galleries, safe spaces and sexual health centres. In 2017 The Penthouse present HIVideo at
their homeParadise Works on the
Manchester > Salford border. HIVideo brings together international artists
and venues across 5 continents to showcase art films which look at HIV/AIDS
with the intention of a more direct action approach with a specific theme for artists.
Films will be screened on World AIDS Day in Rome, (Italy), Manchester (UK),
London (UK), Berlin (Germany), New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Colombia and various
other locations across the UK, USA and Europe.
In 2017 Balaclava.Q is working in partnership with RAMP: Recycled
Medicine Campaign, LGBT Consortium UK and the global movement Prevention Access
Campaign.
The artist films create awareness and promote discourse
specifically about the Prevention Access Campaign, a global movement which
seeks to educate communities on current findings and statistics which state
unequivocally that Undetectable = Untransmissable or U=U as it has been branded
by www.preventionaccess.org. At the very core of this year’s screening is a
message about intimacy without fear of transmission.
This screening is programmed back to back with Visual Aids- a program of newly commissioned videos by Mykki Blanco, Cheryl Dunye & Ellen Spiro, Reina Gossett, Thomas Allen Harris, Kia Labeija, Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Brontez Purnell titled ALTERNATE ENDINGS, RADICAL BEGINNINGS is the 28th annual iteration of Visual AIDS’ longstanding Day With(out) Art project. Curated by Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett. This event is part of
Manchester’s first Day With(out) Art programme from Superbia.
This year’s Greater Manchester serving of HIVideo 2017 is presented
by The Penthouse .
The Penthouse is an artist led Dyke|Queer
contemporary art project and space based in Manchester founded and ran by
artists Rosanne Robertson and Debbie Sharp. Curatorial and research projects
are focused on Queer art, radical practices, Queer feminism, experimental and
raw art- we consider the power at the margins.
The Penthouse is currently based at Paradise
Works in a luxurious corner suite- a
fitting home on the border of Salford and Manchester. Paradise Works is a new
artist run initiative providing studios & project space to a community of
proactive, intergenerational, contemporary artists established 2017.
HIVideo is produced by Balaclava.Q : An international Queer Art Project and collective. Connecting,
promoting and Creating Platforms for Queer artists.
Founded in June 2016 by Stiofan
O’Ceallaigh as a reaction to the Orlando, Florida massacre, Balaclava.Q is
a not-for-profit and relies solely on the passion, motivation and influence of
its volunteers, artists and advocates; an international queer visual art
project and collective that asks artists to look at tactics that disrupt,
activate, instigate and explore contemporary queer concerns. Currently
showcasing works by over 200 international queer artists, this project acts as
a platform and connector for artists and audiences.
This project is supported by a grant from Superbia. Superbia Grants provide financial support for LGBT events as part of Manchester Pride’s commitment to the quality and diversity of cultural events taking place throughout the year in Greater Manchester. https://superbia.org.uk
Hilton House, birth place of The Penthouse has been sold to oversees investors. Something dies with this sale and it isn’t The Penthouse, it is the old school. The Northern Quarter to many is a place to visit, get a coffee, spot a piece of graffiti and so on- to Terry and his family and to the un likely cross section of Hilton House tenants it was a community and a home within our own city centre. Just like artists, other people want to be connected to where they live and work. Development companies are spending a lot of money saying they can make this happen- selling back to people what they do naturally anyway if they are given the freedom and space.
The Penthouse has been freedom and space in the middle of it all- the young call PPI call centre workers, the alcoholic odd job men, the Jehova’s witnesses, the old school accountants, the communists, the ‘doctor’ from Libya who found space for his business in Hilton House and an ally in Terry, the drag queens, the artists, the musicians, the knocked off goods salesmen. Walking down the spiral staircase Terry has time for everybody he passes, he prays for his tenants when they are suffering from life’s cruelties. Terry is what will be missed most of all. We won’t focus on the sale of some crumbling concrete that will make the money Terry and his family are too old school to tap. We will focus on what Terry made that place for whoever needed it to get by. And we will make freedom and time and space for those who need it as far as we can in new ways when supporting artists and making platforms.
We’ve all got our missions, beliefs, statements, aims. The young lads from the call centres who smoke out the front used to annoy us but we became good neighbours. They always offered to help us out- they couldn’t believe how much graft we used to do in there- shifting, loading, building etc. “Your hardcore yous like”. I even forgive them for drawing penises on anything we ever tried to do around the building. In a funny way I think we gained their respect when we lit a rainbow of smoke bombs on the roof and we drew all over our car for Manchester Pride “Dyke Power” and spun off.
A lot of these young people have no opportunities- they are from parts of Manchester that doesn’t see any of the benefits of cultural investment. They don’t have a creative space, a community centre, a library, a place where they might find the thing they can do or love. The ones who are leading these call centres are trying to make something and even though they are annoying in many ways we hope they find the cracks in the system that gives them the money they see every other fucker benefiting from.
Image: HOMOCULT
Terry is for the underdog- whoever they might be. We had many many conversations about power and crooked systems- about religion, spirituality, sexuality. He gave us an English version of the Quran and we introduced him to Queer Art. We wrote QUEER REVOLT across the windows for a show as part of our IMPOSE||LIFT project curating The Curfew Tower (Northern Ireland). It is very visible from the surrounding area between NQ and Great Ancoats Street. He never said anything but when we asked he said he was “getting shit for it” but it’s our space and we should do with it what we need to. On talking to Terry about the EDL marches in Manchester that resulted in violence we told him about the Queer Resistance to the EDL racism and violence and he very much appreciated it.
It all happened out on the entrance to Hilton House and Terry had a quip for everybody. His Dad Mr Shafi- came round with his business hat on and little notebook to make sure business was taken care of. A shake of the hand and a nod, always happy as long as business was being done. They wanted the building to live and it did- first home to their thriving school uniform business that turned Hilton House into “the centre of the world” as Terry called it and then to a long line of ventures.
Looking around Hilton House many fallen pieces of it’s glamorous past can be found- elaborately patterned tiles, golden trim, brass handles, the empty ornamental fish pond. It’s time has passed. But it has been important- an incubator for our own way. Fiercly independent and a safe space for a thousand odd balls- we cried everyday of our last show there- Queer Art Show 5. People said it felt like family. This can’t be bought and sold.
Queer Art Show 5 (below)
We would like to say thank you to every person who made the last 5 years so special, interesting and important. You have brought yourselves, your ideas, your works, sounds, vibes and you have been yourself. Our space hasn’t been for everybody- we purposefully did not institutionalize ourselves and were often ‘rough around the edges’- this leaves uncertainties, gaps, leaps and imagination and you joined it all up with us.
We are not going to take this opportunity to say all of the great things we have done like some sort of PR stunt to big ourselves up ‘moving forward’. Being an artist led organisation involves business- no doubt- but it involves many other things if we let it- love, sincerity, connection, hope. We entered this venture together- a pair of dykes in love with a passion for the unknown, our art practices and the practices of our peers. We have learned a lot about what this means.
Thank you to Terry, Mr Shafi, his family and to all of the artists we have worked with over this time.
Announcing Richard Shields (EVF)- The Curfew Tower- IMPOSE||LIFT Artist in Residence.
We are pleased to announce that Richard Shields has been sent to The Curfew Tower prison from which he aims to rise through the ranks of his own organisation- The EVF. Richard has been selected due to his approach of blurring lines between his life and work- he describes “carrying out residencies in his own life.” Richard’s work becomes an unfolding document of his passage through this world often opening us up to fictional worlds and warping perceptions. Exploration via drawing and performance art bring together the live and the laboured processes that constitute his new worlds that lend from art history, personal history and local history often drawing the audience into the process.
Richard Shields is a Manchester based
artist in that much of his early career involved responding to sites
located in the city, surround by a local peer group. The artist went
on to develop a studio practice referencing personal situations from
his life there, however Shields is not from Manchester. Originally
from Bangor, County Down in Northern Ireland, Shields moved to
Manchester looking for something different.
Having been brought up, unbaptized in
an apolitical house by parents of Catholic and Protestant heritage
Shields was not influenced by one of the country’s prominent
political or religious viewpoints, which resulted in a diminished
sense of national identity and tribal unity.
Growing up in Northern Ireland in the
80’s and 90’s Shields was witness to news reports of violent
acts, political speeches, heavy police and army presence, bonfires,
marches, sectarian graffiti drawn on random objects and painted on
community walls and stories of mysterious characters who would go in
and out of prison throughout ‘the troubles’ only to find a new
lease of life, leaving prison behind them.
Queer Art Show 5: Revoke explores what it means to REVOKE- to invalidate, reclaim and reverse in the anniversary year of 50 years since partial decriminalisation of the homosexual act with the Sexual Offences Act 1967 . Curated by artist and director of Manchester’s artist & Dyke led project space The Penthouse Debbie Sharp - QAS5 brings together ideas of restrictions, criminalisation and fighting for freedoms within LGBTQ+ lives.
QAS5: Revoke- HUB
The site to Queery is opened up with a free and open space for LGBTQ+ artists to explore the themes, to explore themselves, to make a mark or just to be. Come as you are. Open to all whether self defined as an artist or a creative Queer or just interested.
- Free materials and refreshments.
- Wear clothes you don’t mind getting scruffy/paint on etc.
- Guidance and support available from artist directors Rosanne Robertson and Debbie Sharp.
There is a curated space from the hub as part of Queer Art Show 5: Revolt - meaning works created during the hub can be included in the QAS5 exhibition.
Email thepenthousenq@gmail.com if you have any questions or access requirements.
—
Queer Art Show 5: revolt is supported using public funding from Arts Council England.
This project is supported by a grant from Superbia. Superbia Grants provide financial support for LGBT events as part of Manchester Pride’s commitment to the quality and diversity of cultural events taking place throughout the year in GreaterManchester. https://superbia.org.uk
A Queer Revolt- See our new video by film maker Sophie Broadgate of A Queer Revolt- an action by a bunch of riotous Queers occupying the city skyline with a rainbow smoke flag. Organised by The Penthouse as part of IMPOSE||LIFT as part of our curatorship of Bill Drummond’s Curfew Tower- paired with action in Cushendall titled Pinning Our Colours to the Mast in which we raised a rainbow flag at the tower and declared it a Queer space.
The passerby heard at the end of video shouted “Queers should die”.
Queer Art Show 5 explores what it means to REVOKE- to invalidate, reclaim and reverse in the anniversary year of 50 years since partial decriminalisation of the homosexual act with the Sexual Offences Act 1967 . Curated by artist and director of Manchester’s artist & Dyke led project space The Penthouse Debbie Sharp - QAS5 brings together ideas of restrictions, criminalisation and fighting for freedoms within LGBTQ+ lives.
Queer Art Show 5: REVOKE 24-29 August 2017
Preview Event- Thursday 24 August 6-9 pm (Entry donation to Lesbian Immigration Support Group)
Exhibition continues Friday 25- Tuesday 29 August 1-6pm (except Saturday)
Queer Artists Float Manchester Pride: Saturday 26 August 2017 (show opens at 5pm until late).
The space of defiance, subversion and perversion is cracked wide open offering a free creative hub for queers, artists and creatives to explore themselves, their art and the idea of what it means to revoke? An exhibition of contemporary Queer art from Manchester based LGBTQ+ artists including HOMOCULT , Queer Day School, Rebel Dykes, Seleena Laverne Daye, Stiofan O'Ceallaigh & Ron Kibble, Michael Lucas, Debbie Sharp, Rosanne Robertson, Greg Thorpe, Sonny J Barker, Heather Glazzard, Kerry Karlof, Hannah Mclennan Jones and more.
The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 focused on private space- sexual acts were now not deemed criminal if in a private space between two consenting men over 21. In response to the act of controlling homosexual lives within private space QAS5 celebrates the public space as with newly commissioned public intervention piece titled Fly for Freedom by Debbie Sharp which invites 100 members of the public to fly a rainbow kite for freedom in a central public Manchester space. QAS5 also takes to the Manchester Pride parade with a Queer artists float celebrating Queer art, expression and visibility.
How do our legal systems, religious systems and societal structures affect Queer lives and what does it mean to the importance for the space and support of today’s Queer art? In a current cultural landscape of looking back at radical Queer practices as with Queer British Art exhibition at Tate Britain we concentrate on the now. Queer Art Show 5 was brought into existence based on a distinct lack of Queer art, DIY action and critical and political discussion over the period of Manchester Pride in 2010. QAS5 operates with the ethos of Queery Everything- explore ourselves, our art and our spaces for freedom and defiance in the face of homophobia. Queer Art Show 5 welcomes all to share this space in celebration, defiance and solidarity.
Announcing current Curfew Tower, IMPOSE||LIFT artists in residence- Juliet Davis and Hannah Leighton-Boyce.
The Penthouse are happy to announce the next artists to take on The Curfew Tower and call Cushendall their home are Juliet Davis and Hannah Leighton-Boyce selected due to their responsive and process driven practices that revel in the power of the moment.
“We
will be travelling to Cushendall by bike and ferry, taking the time
to physically experience the journey, going against accelerations of
time to re-engage with our own rhythms. This slowing down will allow
conversations between ourselves and people we meet along the way to
grow and develop, and will prepare us for the experience of
restriction embodied in The Curfew Tower.
Throughout
the residency we will continue to explore the contrast between the
liberation experienced through movement/travelling and the
physicality of restriction in relation to gender, the body, landscape
and the voice. During the whole of the residency we will be
‘unavailable’ and ‘inactive’, exchanging the dissembodied
interaction of screen based presence and the ‘being’ or ‘online
voice’ (communication criticized for resounding within an echo
chamber) with the isolation of the tower and physical presence of
being in and engaging with life and people in Cushendall.
We
will be developing conversations around physicality and power of the
voice as pure sound expression, its universality, physicality and
intimacy as way of listening, sharing, resisting and opposing”.
Juliet Davis:
The works Juliet Davis creates take hybrid forms between live performance, intervention,
installation, video and publication; exploring both lived,
experienced spaces and the gaps between social conventions to propose
new ways to inhabit the everyday. Davis uses pre-existing movements,
situations, words or shapes from our daily lives which are shifted
and made uncanny, creating awkward situations which blur the lines
between ‘art’ and life.
Juliet Davis studied a BA Visual Art at EESAB School (Rennes,
France) and BA Interactive Arts (Manchester School of Art, UK), and
graduated from an MFA at EESAB Rennes in 2014. She has exhibited,
performed and given talks and workshops in various art centers and
festivals including Bétonsalon (Paris), Inact (Strasbourg),
Excentricités (Besançon), BaM// (Chambéry) Manchester Art Gallery
and The Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester), The Manchester
Contemporary (Manchester), BALTIC (Newcastle-Gateshead), Harris
Flights (Preston), HEAD (Geneva), and Depo (Istanbul). She’s
co-founder of LEGROOM with artist/choreographer Amy Lawrence, a
movement/art platform exploring the possibilities of what movement
can be, which has recently opened a space in Manchester city centre,
supported by Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces.
Hannah
Leighton-Boyce is a Manchester based artist whose
works explore present day and historical narratives surrounding
objects and place through site-specific actions, sculpture,
drawing, sound and installation. Her working process combines
research and an exploration of process and materials. She is
interested the performative nature of objects; the qualities of
surface, stories and impressions made on it by its original function
and points of friction between these narratives, surfaces, and
ourselves.
Recent
works have derived from museum archives and found objects that
explore politics of labour and industrial legacy including; a
collaborative live sculpture made with residents of Helmshore,
Lancashire (2014), set within the context of the area’s industrial
heritage; and a sound installation at Touchstones Rochdale (2016)
funded by a New Opportunities Award, which explored the resonant
properties and work history of objects from the museum’s
collection. She is currently developing research through a residency
at Glasgow Women’s Library for an exhibition at Castlefield Gallery
in 2018.
Hannah Leighton-Boyce- The Event of the Thread (2014)
Juliet Davis- MULL IT OVER
(with them), durational intervention by LEGROOM in the Whitworth
Art Gallery, WARP Festival, 2016. image: from video by Sophie
Broadgate
Juliet Davis- I was the assembly hall, video by Juliet Davis, Sophie Lee and Horace Lindezey, part of Outsiderxchanges project, 2016.
Hannah Leighton-Boyce- Instruments of Industry (2016)
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