Art Assembly 2022 to explore City as Art School
On Saturday 18 June, Art Fund with a collective of Manchester’s leading arts organisations will present the one-day festival, ‘Art Assembly 2022 - City as Art School’. The event celebrates the idea of the city as an art school and champions culture as part of educational experiences for all people.
The festival advocating art and creativity is organised by Art Fund with Castlefield Gallery, HOME, Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth and The Manchester College. It will present newly co-commissioned and co-created artworks and installations across the city, from established arts venues, busy squares and streets to billboards, pavements and more.
Eight new art works by ten Greater Manchester artists, developed and produced in collaboration with students and learners will be situated throughout the city to explore how everywhere has the potential to become a place of creative learning. Their work encompasses a broad range of media, from film and painting, to textiles, installation, performance and music.
Sally Gilford’s commission with the University of Salford's School of Art, Media & Creative Technology students tackles women’s issues not often discussed within the curriculum.
Linked to the area’s previous life in textile production and used as a shorthand for something that is rubbish or nothing, large-scale bobbin installations in art supplies shop Fred Aldous will spill out towards the Outhouse referencing women’s stories such as the First in the Fight suffragette banner first unfurled in the Square on 20 June 1908.
Fred Aldous originally produced the baskets for transporting bobbins and is now a place outside art school walls where a strong creative community exists while the Outhouse on Stevenson Square was a place where historically people gathered to protest.
As part of Art Assembly 2022, Art Fund has also committed a £10K Student Opportunities grant to fund four new paid opportunities for young people in the Student Art Pass network to work as Art Assembly Coordinators. These four roles will support the Marketing, Production, Front of House and Evaluation of the festival, and promise an exciting, short-term, paid opportunity for each student to gain relevant knowledge, skills and experience of working in the arts and cultural sector.
For further details and how to book tickets for the events and podcast, visit the Art Fund website.
For all press office enquiries please email communications@salford.ac.uk.