SPARK #47: Preston Double Dip
Our May SPARK session sees us taking a double dip in Preston. We’ll start with an artist tour of Nerissa Cargill Thompson’s solo exhibition The Problem Lies Upstream, followed by a workshop led by Jackie Haynes on Blue Sky Interventions into Climate Breakdown.
The Problem Lies Upstream refers to the fact that many of the problems on our coasts and beaches are caused by activity further away. Dropped litter and flushed sanitary products get washed down drains into the water system and eventually pumped out into the sea, where it is often joined by other beach litter left by day trippers.
In 2022 Fylde Council commissioned Nerissa to make the Green Loop collection in order to highlight the issue of plastic pollution on the Fylde coast – an important seaside area for the people of the North West and a place filled with memories of day trips and family fun. Nerissa made the pieces in response to research and beach cleans, finding out about local pollution issues from Love My Beach and the Ribble Rivers Trust as well as her own explorations. The collection formed an art trail across local businesses in Kirkham and St Annes.
With Preston being upstream of the Fylde Coast, showing these works at The Harris acts as a reminder of the knock-on effects of our actions on local areas that are dear to us and also on the wider world.
After visiting Nerissa’s exhibition at The Harris, we’ll take a 2-minute walk down to The Birley where the House of Haynes Costume Exhibition and Archive will be open to the public. After a lunch break (please bring a packed lunch!), Jackie Haynes will take us through a Costumed Writing Exercise: Blue Sky Interventions into Climate Breakdown. Inspired by John-Paul Brown and Sophy King’s exhibition The Guardians of Living Matter, we’ll create a costumed persona and find out how he/she/they contributed to solving the climate crisis.
Nerissa Cargill Thompson
Explores environmental issues through contemporary textile art made using recycled textiles and concrete cast in plastic waste. She aims to make people consider the world around them and their responsibility to the environment. Her work explores juxtapositions of structure, texture and colour, particularly where nature meets human. She creates her signature textiles using a combination of embellishing and embroidery. The embellisher blends the fabrics together to create subtle variations in texture and tone to mimic lichens. She adds recurring shell motifs using a combination of free-motion embroidery and hand stitching. The concrete captures the embossed patterns of the plastics representing man-made structures and gives a weight and presence more in-line with its legacy like future fossils. The naturally inspired textures of the textiles emphasise the way our waste becomes subsumed into the environment but also how nature fights back.
https://www.ncargillthompson.co.uk
https://www.instagram.com/nerissact/
Jackie Haynes
Established House of Haynes Fancy Dress Hire in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in 1995. For seventeen years, she developed a business of making and hiring costumes to the public, alongside bespoke commission work such as making costumes for performers, and a wholesale range. In 2012 she changed direction, creating an art practice from her existing costume-making skills. She completed MA Textiles at MMU. Her interests led to an art practice-based PhD at University of Cumbria, where she studied the German Dada artist, Kurt Schwitters. Jackie’s recent artwork features in Things of the Least at Manchester Art Gallery, and The Long Haul at the Williamson Gallery in Birkenhead for Liverpool Independents Biennial. The Long Haul is by the collaborative duo, Artist A & Artist B, namely, Jackie and Heather Mullender-Ross. Jackie is currently developing her costume collection as a mobile, hands-on archive and resource for community groups.
https://jackiehaynesartwork.wordpress.com
https://www.instagram.com/jackiehaynes123456/
https://www.thebirley.com
Access Info
The Harris is wheelchair accessable: full access info available at https://theharris.org.uk/accessibility/
The Birley’s public spaces are on the ground floor and have step-free access; full access info available at https://www.thebirley.com/accessibility
Getting There
For those going by train, the 9:50 from Piccadilly gets into Preston at 10:32 and it takes around 15 minutes to walk from the station to The Harris. This train calls at Oxford Road (9:53) and Deansgate (9:56).
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. SPARK #47 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, The Atkinson, Castlefield Gallery, Northern Roots, Salford Museum and Art Gallery; 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.
To join the SPARK email list, please email jane@castlefieldgallery.co.uk
Image credit
Nerissa Cargill Thompson – Choice (mixed media, 2022)
Follow SPARK
@sparkartistsnetwork
