SPARK #34: Trees Not Cars
Event
SPARK #34: Trees Not Cars
05 April 2025
11am - 1:30pm
Central Retail Park
SPARK #34: Visit to the site of the Trees Not Cars campaign in Ancoats, hosted by Katy McGahan and Rae Story
SPARK artists are invited to visit the site of the Trees Not Cars campaign in Ancoats, Manchester, with a view to creating works that respond to this and other hotly contested, inner city landscapes, including the Save Ryebank Fields campaign in Chorlton. The session includes a tour of the site.
Manchester City Council’s original plan for the derelict 10.5 acre Ancoats site which is bordered by Great Ancoats Street, one of the most polluted thoroughfares in Manchester, and overlooked by a primary school and GP practice, was for it to be converted into a carpark. Finally, in response to tireless campaigning on the part of the Trees Not Cars local residents’ group, a strip of green space for public use has now been factored into the design – but it is hardly the ‘green lung’ that this heavily polluted area so desperately needs. What’s now being offered has been described by local campaigners as more of a ‘path’ than a park – but, all the same, it is a win, and that should definitely be celebrated!
Weather permitting, Katy McGahan will facilitate a 16mm phytogram filmmaking workshop using plants collected by participants in and around the site
- 11am – Brief updates on the Trees Not Cars campaign from Trees Not Cars representative
and Save Ryebank Fields campaign by a representative from Friends of Ryebank Fields - 11:20am – Tour exploring and enjoying the biodiversity of the site, led by environmental educator Colette Mooney
- 12:15pm – 16mm phytogram filmmaking workshop led by Katy McGahan
- 1:10pm – Reflections and next steps, facilitated by Rae Story
Refreshments will be provided but please do bring your own reusable cup.
Read more about the campaigns here:
Katy McGahan is a filmmaker and multi-disciplinary artist based in the High Peak, Derbyshire. She uses moving image, audio, collaborative practice and activism to interrogate the tensions that exist between our ongoing disconnection with the rest of the living world and our simultaneous efforts to re-connect with it. She is interested in making work that re-evaluates our place within nature in this time of flux. She runs participatory workshops and radical film and audio courses under the banner of Hyenas in Petticoats. She is a founding member of the Notice This Tree climate action group which is currently touring towns and cities across the UK.
https://www.katymcgahan.com/
Rae Story
Rae’s practice is fundamentally about connection. Using drawing, painting, photography and sound recording she creates opportunity for relationship; with self, others and nature/environment. She is particularly interested in how we can improve the urban environment to support health and wellness and has worked in arts and health in Manchester for 25 years.
Her multi-disciplinary work seeks to inspire others to find their own means of self expression, employing creativity as a tool for exploration and playfulness. Often this activity culminates in ‘meta’ works: bringing together work from many contributors to form a larger whole that goes beyond what could be achieved individually.
https://raestory.cargo.site
https://www.instagram.com/verdant.city
SPARK
The SPARK network was set up by Castlefield Gallery in 2022 to facilitate a Greater Manchester/North West-based network of artists wanting to intervene in the climate crisis. The gallery initiated SPARK in response to the high demand for places on the 2021/22 SUSTAIN programme focussed on low carbon artmaking.
Field and Forest (SPARK #31A) follows SPARK sessions at Manchester Art Gallery, Rogue, The Birley (Preston), Eccles Friends Meeting House, Manchester Museum, AIR Gallery, Paradise Works, Editional Studio, Cadishead and Little Woolden Moss, Gallery Oldham, the John Rylands Library, Dunham Massey, Lindow Moss, Castlefield Viaduct, Gallery Oldham and The Atkinson; and a group exhibition and events programme at Rogue Studios.
Castlefield Gallery continues to provide admin and co-ordination support via its Artist Environmental Lead, Jane Lawson. https://www.instagram.com/sparkartistsnetwork/
Image: Photo of the site by Katy McGahan
