Castlefield Gallery Patrons and Guardians Contemporary Art Trip: Salford

We’ve decided to open up one of our Castefield Gallery Patrons and Guardians events to the public, so you can try it out and maybe join our scheme:

Join Castlefield Gallery Curator Matthew Pendergast and Director Helen Wewiora for a curated itinerary of visits around some of Salford’s galleries, studios and artist-led spaces!

Limited capacity – book your tickets here before Thursday 23 November, 12pm. 
Cost: £15 + £1.96 booking fee (all charges are inclusive of VAT)

Programme of the day:

Meet at Salford Museum & Art Gallery (SMAG) at 1:30pm, for a tour of Islington Mill – 200 Years in the Making. Islington Mill is a former cotton spinning mill on James Street in Salford. Since 1996 it has provided a home for artists seeking new ways to create, think and flourish in community and collaboration. The exhibition at SMAG seeks to shine a light on the people who give this building and this community life. After the tour, we will explore the museum’s permanent collection as well as the gallery’s other temporary exhibitions.

We will then walk to Islington Mill itself where we will meet with the mill’s co-director Rachel Goodyear who will give us a tour of some of the studio spaces and talk to us about the future of the mill. This will be a chance to discover the brand new residency space on the fifth floor, from which we will get a fantastic view of the Greater Manchester skyline and think about what the future may hold for artists in the city.

After a coffee break, we will walk to Oceans Apart to explore their current exhibition Fast Friends, curated by Brian Mountford, featuring paintings by him and seven other artists he has met and got to know over the years in different circumstances. Bringing their works together, this exhibition opens a conversation about friendship and what painting can do.

We will end the day at Paradise Works where we will meet several artists including Jeffrey Knopf and Adam Rawlinson, two former Salford Scholars who will be showing work at The Manchester Contemporary with Castlefield Gallery and the University of Salford Art Collection (17-19 November). They will give us a tour of their studio spaces, after which we will visit In the Membrane, an exhibition curated by Jessica Bennett that delves into the realms of the uncanny. This exhibition showcases the works of three artists: Fleur Yearsley, Gabriel Kidd, and Isaac Jordan each offering a unique perspective of the world we live in and its connections to identity, loaded objects, and the subtle presence and absence that linger in our surroundings.

Optional:
You are welcome to join Helen and Matthew as they head over to Sale, to see Sentinel at the Waterside Arts Centre at 6:30pm. Sentinel is a multi-sensory performance of electronic music from composer Richard Evans, based on his critically acclaimed album of the same name, appearing as part of Prism: A Winter Festival of Music & Light.