The outcomes, the exhibitions and the experiences
Exhibiting our artists work is really important to us and our artists. It challenges some perceptions around who is and who isn’t an artist. It also challenges some of those negative perceptions around what people with a learning disability can and can’t achieve. During this project it was important to us to have a couple of opportunities to share work, and for everyone attending to the studio to be able to engage with this if they wanted to.
We’ve worked with a couple of really supportive partners during the project who shared these wants – Manchester Museum and Manchester Craft & Design Centre. The museum exhibition included all our artists and was created in response to the Museums Heritage Futures exhibition.
This work started with workshops in the museum that allowed our artists to explore the museums collection, handle items and study them. We then continued work in the studio, creating drawings and then producing ceramics works that were later exhibited. Pre-Covid this was intended to be inside but post-Covid we changed this to the window on Oxford Road for maximum visibility. Consequently the exhibition was seen all hours by thousands of people. We did a series of trips with our artists so they could see their work, all of whom were really pleased and proud.
Everything you need to know about Heirlooms is here.
The team at Manchester Craft and Design Centre have approached their exhibition with us in a really collaborative manner. Laura Feltham from MCDC visited the studio on a number of occasions to get to know them and learn about their work. Together Laura and the artists (Jenny Hinchcliffe, Dylan Yardley, James Kingsford, Emma Slater, Sam Bradley and Laura Negus) made decisions regarding what they will show, how it will be displayed, titles and colour schemes.
During their final planning sessions Pure’s artists visited the centre to decide upon a final lay out and a title – Excellent, Exciting, Endless Possibilities, each contributing a word that they felt represented the exhibition which they then arranged to form this title. The final outcome for this work is the workshop mentioned above.