Foxmaster: prefurnished – A ceramic design workshop

Led by Joe Hartley and members of the ANEW recoverist community.
£10, £5 limited tickets for Castlefield Gallery Associates and anyone on a low income.

Join us for this special workshop and add to our current exhibition ANEW Way To Peel an Orange.

In the session you will learn some simple ceramic processes such as rolling, pinching, coiling and slipping to build a range of items which will be fired and installed in a chicken coop in the exhibition.

Some of the items may be practical and some might have more speculative purposes. Do chickens dream of fine art? Joe Hartley believes they do! Part of the task will be considering how the design of the objects will enable them to be placed in the coop, whether they will be attached to the inside or outside, hung from the roof, or placed on the floor –  it’s all up for grabs, or pecks! During the session everybody will also make a ceramic egg, these will all be fired and put in the enclosure. Ceramic eggs put off rodents that might be interested in real eggs and they also train the chickens out of the habit of pecking their own eggs.

Joe Hartley spent five months as artist in residence with ANEW (Tameside, Greater Manchester), a service led by and working with people in recovery from substance use. During the residency they hatched two chicks which are represented in the exhibition by the artwork Foxmaster (2025), a cage made with an unwanted part of an industrial machine. After the exhibition when they are old enough the ‘RECOVERIST Chickens’ will be relocated to ANEW along with the cage and the objects made in this workshop. The chickens will be looked after by staff and future clients: a celebration of life and new beginnings as well an opportunity to highlight the importance of caring as part of the recovery process.

RECOVERIST = recovery + activist

ANEW Way to Peel an Orange is a Portraits of Recovery and Castlefield Gallery commission, developed and presented in partnership with ANEW, funded by Brian Mercer Trust, The Howarth Trust, supported by Arts Council England, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Manchester City Council.