Launch Pad: For Posterity

13 February 2015 — 22 February 2015

Castlefield Gallery is pleased to present For Posterity, its next Launch Pad exhibition curated by CG associate member Lucy Harvey. The exhibition was selected from CG Associate members’ submissions by artist Hilary Jack and Castlefield Gallery’s programme manager Matthew Pendergast and will include work by Rosanne Robertson, Richard Proffitt, Cherry Tenneson, Fliss Quick, Hannah Leighton-Boyce, Lucy Harvey.

For Posterity brings together six artists whose practice engages with chance, failure and the functions of objects. Working across sculpture, installation, film and performance they present the transformative ways in which artists invent and reinterpret history, place and language.

The exhibition title is drawn from Harvey’s research into traditional crafts and Burnley-based filmmaker, Sam Hanna’s documentaries (1940-80) which, in his own words, depict “old English crafts captured for posterity”. Through collection, making and repair Harvey constructs fictitious artefacts and installations in response to our relationship with objects and our desire for legacy and authenticity.

For Harvey this Launch Pad exhibition is also an opportunity to expand her practice into curating and to interrogate her work alongside a group of artists who share a common fascination with process, yet produce very different outcomes. The exhibition presents a locus for visitors to consider specific local histories alongside current international interest in issues of authorship and the place of making in contemporary visual art.

During the exhibition opening times Harvey will periodically be in the gallery producing work, when she is not present her tools, ephemera and unfinished works will be left out for visitors to see. At times teetering on the point at which control is lost or given away in the making of new work, the exhibition explores how the legacy of human interaction is recorded in our manipulation of materials and how this is subverted, or preserved, in our absence.

During the public preview on Thu 12th Feb 6-8pm there will be a live performance by Rosanne Robertson, and on Sat 21st Feb 2-4pm there will be a screening of Sam Hanna’s films selected from the North West Film Archive, followed by a discussion with the exhibiting artists and Lucy Harvey.

Lucy Harvey is a Manchester based visual artist whose practice responds to our relationship with objects. Her small scale sculptures and site specific installations explore our desire for legacy and authenticity through making, repair and collection. She mimics and subverts the processes and functions of existing objects, places and archives to create artefacts for real and fictitious narratives.

Her interest in social history and museum collection has been the focus of artist residencies and commissions for Cadw and Arts Council of Wales, 42nd Street Manchester, Canal & Rivers Trust with Contemporary Arts Society and East Street Arts, National Glass Centre, The Library Theatre Company and Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Harvey has exhibited internationally and her work was acquired for the permanent collection of mima in 2009. lucyelsieharvey.com

Launch Pads are short exhibitions or performances that punctuate Castlefield Gallery’s curated programme providing artists, writers and independent curators with the opportunity to use the gallery as a test bed for the production, display and consumption of contemporary art. Launch Pads feature emerging talent selected from CG Associate members’ proposals (three times a year) and from the MA and BA art courses at Manchester School of Art (once a year).

More on the artists:

Rosanne Robertson graduated from Manchester School of Art in 2009 with a BA Hons in Fine Art, she continues to live and work in Manchester. She has had solo exhibitions at The Chinese Arts Centre (now Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art), Manchester; The Penthouse, Manchester; Islington Mill, Salford; and has performed at The Vazquez Rooftop, Brooklyn, NYC; Silent Barn, Brooklyn; Emergency, Z-Arts, Manchester; Supersonic Festival, Stryx, Birmingham; Les Instants Chavires, Paris; Nest, Brussels; and Roodkapje, Rotterdam. rosannerobertson.com

Richard Proffitt completed his MA in Fine Art, at the Manchester School of Art, after completing a BA Hons in Visual Arts, from the University of Salford. He lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. He has shown in group exhibitions throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe in group exhibitions with solo exhibitions at The Joinery, Dublin, Ireland; Wolstenholme Creative Space, Liverpool, UK; and The Vault Gallery, Lancaster. richardproffitt.net

Cherry Tenneson studied BA Interactive Art, and completed the MA in Fine Art at the Manchester School of Art in 2004. Since then she has continued to live and work in Manchester exhibiting both nationally and internationally. Selected exhibitions Becks Fusions, Urbis, Manchester; Salon Art Prize, Matt Roberts Art, London; Lost is Found, Cornerhouse, Manchester; and Meeting Point, Axel Lapp Projects, Berlin. axisweb.org/p/cherrytenneson/

Fliss Quick received her BA from Goldsmiths College in 2003 and holds a Masters in Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products from the School of Jewellery, Birmingham. She has exhibited extensively in nationally and internationally including, Atta Gallery, Bangkok; Lebuh Armenian, Georgetown, Malaysia; Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry; Velvet da Vinci, San Francisco; O3 Gallery, Oxford. flissquick.co.uk

Hannah Leighton-Boyce completed her BA Hons in Fine Art at Winchester School of Art in 2015 and her MA in Fine Art from Manchester School of Art in 2012. Recent works include The Event of The Thread (2014) commissioned by Lancashire County Council and Helmshore Mills Textiles Museum, funded by Arts Council England. Recent exhibitions include Godsbridge x, The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle; Anual La Escocesa, Barcelona; Contemporary Art Society North, PS Mirabel, Manchester; The Manchester Contemporary with Castlefield Gallery; Cloth & Memory {2}, Salts Mill, West Yorkshire; The Frost Art Museum Drawing Project, The Frost Art Museum, Miami. hannahleightonboyce.com

Lucy Harvey received her BA in Three Dimensional Design from the Manchester School of Art and completed her MA in Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design in 2008. In 2009 her work was acquired for the permanent collection of MIMA and she has since exhibited both nationally and internationally. Previous commissions include 42nd Street, Manchester; National Glass Centre, Sunderland; The Library Theatre Company. She has held artist in residence posts at Valle Crucis Abbey with Arts Council of Wales and Cadw; Canal & Rivers Trust with East Street Arts and Contemporary Art Society; Aberystwyth Arts Centre with support from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. lucyelsieharvey.com

Castlefield Gallery would like to thank the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Castlefield Gallery’s Launch Pad programme is supported by Soup Kitchen, Manchester.