Amartey Golding and Joe Hartley In-Conversation
Event
Amartey Golding and Joe Hartley In-Conversation
17 October 2025
5pm - 7pm
Castlefield Gallery
This is a blended event:
– in person at Castlefield Gallery
– online via zoom
£3, limited free tickets for Castlefield Gallery Associates and anyone on a low income.
Co-chaired by Amanda Braithwaite (Community Programmes Lead at ANEW) and Matthew Pendergast (Castlefield Gallery Curator and Head of Programmes).
This event brings together two artists who will be reflecting on their experiences and what they have learnt from recent projects centred around co-created artworks.
Amartey Golding is a British artist whose practice explores themes of masculinity, nationhood, violence and vulnerability. In 2023, Golding began working with groups of imprisoned men at HMP Altcourse in Fazakerley to make a suit of armour. The latest piece in his ongoing Chainmail series, Chainmail 4: Silent Knight (2025) was exhibited at FACT, Liverpool (23.5 – 8.10.2025). The exhibition was the final part of a multi-year project by FACT called Resolution, which looked at how art can affect public attitudes and influence decision-making in the justice system.
ANEW Way to Peel an Orange (03.08 – 19.11.2025) is Castlefield Gallery’s current exhibition of co-created work developed by Joe Hartley and the ANEW recovery community. Joe Hartley spent five months as artist in residence at ANEW (Tameside, Greater Manchester), a service for people in recovery from substance use. Guided by Hartley’s diverse approach to making as well as the skills possessed by the clients and staff a body of work emerged in the context of ANEW’s experienced and creative approach to recovery. Rooted in collaboration and creative exchange, the residency was an evolving journey of making and reflecting.
Join us to hear more about what it took to make the artworks produced by these projects. How valuing time spent together, and taking risks with openness and humour, fed into works which don’t just speak to the experiences of the people involved, but to us all and the wider world in which we find ourselves living in today.
Amartey Golding (b. 1988) is a British artist whose multidisciplinary practice is Interested in the grey-That point at which two polar opposites become indistinguishable. His favourite area of concern is violence and vulnerability, more specifically the point at which the vulnerable and the violent become indistinguishable and the search for antidotes to this dynamic. His work reflects on the allure and burdens of these themes.
Golding began his practice as a teenager, selling his first works from his youth hostel room. He went on to study Architecture, Space, and Objects at Central Saint Martins before leaving to focus entirely on his practice. His design background continues to inform his work today, often blurring the practical with the conceptual.
Golding works across a wide range of mediums, including drawing, printmaking, sculpture, film, chainmail, and wig-making. He draws on a wide array of cultural references – from popular culture and folklore to intuition and hearsay – to inform his work. His process prioritises the knowledge of everyday people.
One of his most acclaimed ongoing projects is the Chainmail series, which emerged after the tragic murders of two of his godson’s friends within a week. Golding began making chainmail armor for loved ones. These garments evolved into ceremonial pieces, growing in both size and weight. The garments, heavy both physically and symbolically, serve as memorials for individuals and ideas deserving of reflection. Always heavier than the wearer, the heaviest suit exceeds 200kg, underscoring the paradox between safety and burden.
Golding has exhibited internationally, with solo shows at institutions including TRAMWAY Glasgow, The Power Plant in Toronto, and has been commissioned by the V&A Museum, Autograph ABP, and Film and Video Umbrella.
As a designer, Joe Hartley focuses on ever-evolving spaces, usually working with groups of people, and ongoing exploration of materials and processes. The projects he delivers are collaborative and complex – ‘final finished products’ are not the aim. Although physical manifestations of ideas make appearances, the outcome is always experiential, emotional, temporary, and importantly iterative, influencing the future direction of projects.
Joe believes strongly in the creative experience being inextricably linked to the human experience. Whether exploring the endless possibilities of a pinch pot with a group of eight people, or over a year what a space can be in the form of a garden with forty-five people, the aim is always to use these explorations to conjure safe conversation so that what is created together fosters a sense of belonging for all. Hartley is currently working alongside Take Action, Onward Homes and the residents of the Rock Street area in Broughton, Salford with funding from Greater Manchester Environmental Fund to develop outdoor spaces to meet the needs of the people who live around them.
Images
Banner:
- Amartey Golding, Resolution, 2025, FACT Gallery ©Rob Battersby.
From left to right, top to bottom:
- Amartey Golding, photographed by Ben Catchpole.
- Joe Hartley. Image courtesy of Joe Hartley and the ANEW recovery community.
