Download our first newsletter of 2018 as PDF here.
TEXT:
RECAP: Established in 2012 as an
experimental art studio and project space in Manchester’s Northern Quarter by
artist / curators Rosanne Robertson & Debbie Sharp (not just good friends)
The Penthouse built its foundations on experimentalism, DIY attitude, action
and as a test bed for over 300 artists.
The Penthouse has been described as:
elevating Manchester’s Underground to the
top floor of a tower block- The Wire
delivering
Manchester’s best sound art show on
our New York tour- The
Bushwick Daily
ad hoc art space the
Penthouse…is the best of the Northern Quarter Alt City Guide to Manchester- The
Guardian
The hands-on
environment is unlike any other… encouraging experimentation like nowhere else- The Skinny
We have challenged and explored our position as artist led
and Dyke|Queer led from all angles via residencies, workshops, talks and
actions including our curatorship of Bill Drummond’s Curfew Tower, Noise Above
Noise sound art series, Might & Main residency and symposium and when
invited to contribute to programs at People’s History Museum The Queers Are
Revolting, Royal Standard’s Dark Matter, University of Manchester’s
Contemporary Feminist Activism series and The David Hockney Gallery LGBTQ+
symposium.
Our relationship with experimentation, live art, sound, the
senses and the site-specific disregards boundaries between artists, the
personal and audiences. Our voice has not been governed, we refuse censorship of
ourselves and others. We encourage artists to explore all subjects personal to
them in a fearless way, we have worked with artists whose work has been
censored and stolen by police and we have provided safe space for exploration
of body, sexuality, identity, politics and activism. As artists whose lesbian
identity informs our personal practice we understand how vital it is to have a
space to be and follow our deepest lines of enquiry in a place where mistakes
don’t exist with support and connection to others across art forms.
IMPOSE||LIFT 2017-2018
For 2017 The Penthouse were selected as curators for Bill
Drummond’s Curfew Tower. During 2017 we selected 9 artists to carry out their
own residency projects exploring their situation to the tower and the surrounding town
of Cushendall considering themes of restriction and liberation and personal
politics.
Sophie Cooper
Sandra Bouguerch
Mary Stark & David Chatton Barker
Rowan Eastwood
Chloe Beecham
Juliet Davis
Hannah Leighton-Boyce
Richard Shields
Sophie Cooper took the
chance to invite locals to an open house
and a gig in the Tower kitchen with 3 Eyed Makara as well as launching her
Dial-a-Bone project and releasing The Curfew Tower Recordings, Cassette
on Crow vs Crow (sold out. Digital download available)
Mary Stark & David Chatton Barker carried out
their all-encompassing The Quickening project inspired by the forthcoming birth
of Mary & David’s first child that took the form of a 2 hour
radio broadcast on CAMP Radio
Richard Shields rose through the
ranks of his own organisation- The EVF-
The Esoteric Volunteer Force. He performed a EVF RECRUITMENT DRIVE
in both Cushendall and at Carbooty, Manchester, works from his project have
been exhibited by Sexy Boy Unites Salford at Paradise Works, Salford.
A full review of artists projects from
IMPOSE||LIFT will be released early 2018.
The
Penthouse curatorship of The Curfew Tower continues with QUEER CURFEW until
August 2018 resulting in an event for Festival of the Glens, Cushendall.
The Curfew
Tower 17 on Facebook
2017
saw The Penthouse host the 5th Queer Art Show: REVOKE curated by
Debbie Sharp. Queer Art Show has showcased Manchester’s local Queer emerging
and established visual artists since 2010 and supported artists who have
experienced boundaries to the exhibition of work. REVOKE brought an
international collaboration between Stephen Kelly and Ron Kibble making site
specific work and our Queer Art Show on wheels for the Manchester Pride Parade.
Manchester based artist Seleena Laverne Daye showed new work commissioned by The Penthouse celebrating
Queer People of Colour, especially those on the ACE spectrum. Highlighting misconceptions of Asexual people, to queer women of colour in literature (See
Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple) and to sometimes the only way POC and asexual
people can get visibility is to shock.
2017 saw an invited bunch of riotous Queers take to our roof
in REVOLT as part
of our exhibition from curatorship of The Curfew Tower- titled IMPOSE||LIFT in an
action captured here by Sophie Broadgate. This event was part of Manifest
Festival who triumphantly joined up Manchester’s Artist Led on the occasion of
Manchester International Festival. Listen
here for Manifest Podcasts.
Sound Experiments: Manchester’s Women
& Non-Binaries: The Skinny
“…the emergence of spaces such as The Penthouse
and earlier Islington Mill, brought Manchester central spaces for sound-based
events outside of a commercial setting. Rosanne Robertson co-founded The
Penthouse, along with Debbie Sharp, and tells us about the Northern
Quarter-based studio’s relationship to Manchester’s scenes: “The Penthouse
is about tackling the model of art as luxury commodity and more about the
necessity to find space.”
Read Article
We ended the
year as part of International Queer Art Collective Balaclava Q screening
HIVideo on the occasion of World Aids Day. Works by the collective including
mention of Rosanne Robertson’s Be Enraged Become Explosive named after AIDS
activists Fierce Pussy were included in this
article for OUT.COM.
“…Where were queer women during the AIDS epidemic
of New York in the ‘80s and '90s? A new audiovisual work from Manchester artist
Rosanne Robertson remembers their role: Be Enraged, Become Explosive, which borrows its
title from the wheat-pasted activism of the Fierce
Pussy collective formed
in '91, premieres today on World AIDS Day—in 19 cities around the globe.”
We would like
to thank Stephen Kelly for his extension of this platform to build on into
2018.
https://balaclavadotq.com/
OUR MOVE: 2017 has seen The Penthouse move from
our first home on the top of Hilton House- a building that provided a valuable
start full of freedom, square footage and skyline- into Paradise Works- an
artist run initiative on the Manchester and Salford border providing studio
space to 30 intergenerational artists and projects whose outlook is local,
national and international we believe
artists hold a vital role in the development of a vibrant and diverse city.
FIND US
The Penthouse
Paradise
Works
East Philip Street
Salford
Manchester
M3 7LE
Find us at our new home at Paradise Works on East Philip Street on the
border of Salford and Manchester
(10 min walk from Victoria Train Station). Google
Map link
www.thepenthousenq.com
https://www.paradise-works.com/
CONTACT US
thepenthousenq@gmail.com
https://twitter.com/ThePenthouseNQ
UP NEXT:
PUSH-
(DE)CONSTRUCTION
HOME, Manchester
Fri, Jan 18, 2018
6:00 - 7:00 PM
DE(CONSTRUCTION) – DEVELOPING THE CREATIVE SCENE, DIY STYLE
AT HOME, MANCHESTER.
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. Find
out who’s doing what, where and how and enjoy an evening of art, performance,
music, video and conversations.
ANTI-MONUMENT
A reverse
sculpture by artists Debbie Sharp and Rosanne Robertson.
For
De(Construction) artist directors of The Penthouse Debbie Sharp and Rosanne
Robertson will 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.
MORE INFO AND TICKETS
FOLLOW
OUR WEBSITE FOR FURTHER 2018 NEWS including our new program.
www.thepenthousenq.com
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
We would like to thank all the artists who have
been part of our actions, exhibitions, residencies and events and to our
audiences engaging fearlessly with new experimental, Queer and ‘Outsider’ Art.
We would like to thank Arts Council England for
their support of our projects with Grants for the Arts.
We would like to thank Bill Drummond for his
Curfew Tower.
We would like to thank Hilary Jack, Lucy Harvey
and all at Paradise works for our new home.
We would like to thank Stephen Kelly and
BalaclavaQ.
We would like to thank Superbia for their
continued invaluable support.
We would like to thank Instigate Arts for their
support from the start.
We would like to thank Fred Aldous for their
generous support from the start.
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