The Flats Were Built in '69 is a sonic collage of Horace Lindezey's memories of growing up in Manchester and the music that has soundtracked his life. From Ancoats, The Crescent in Hulme, to his residence of almost five decades in Moss Side, the work is an homage to Horace’s parents, siblings and the people of his local community.

Produced by Castlefield Gallery's Artist Development and Creative Communities Producer Elly Lukoszevieze.

With thanks to Sarah Boulter and Venture Arts.

Listen to a playlist of some of Horace's favourite music HERE

Tale of the Frozen Bits: a conversation

Tale of the Frozen Bits is an exhibition of new work by artist and Castlefield Gallery Associate El Morgan, opening at Castlefield Gallery on 12 February 2023.

The exhibition explores something of the rich and surprising history of fertility drugs. Morgan’s work for the show touches on an eclectic array of materials and medical discoveries from Nun’s urine to midwife toads and industrial freezers. Across two film works, screen prints and merchandise Morgan crafts a unique take on fertility treatment bringing to the fore the practical mechanisms that surround having ‘bits’ of oneself stored and frozen for potential future use.

Ahead of the exhibition we host a conversation with the artist, Professor of Clinical Embryology at the University of Manchester Daniel Brison and Professor of Reproductive Biomedicine at the University of Manchester John Aplin.

If you would like to find out more about the subject of fertility treatment the website of the UK regulator, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority, is a good place to start  https://www.hfea.gov.uk, as well as Fertility Network UK https://fertilitynetworkuk.org

Chewing The Fat is a series of discussions curated by James Mathews-Hiskett unpacking diverse curatorial perspectives from across the North-West. Each discussion will bring together a small group of curators based in the region to consider how a range of different approaches and frameworks influence the way they work.

Stephanie Fletcher is an artist and curator based in Preston and Salford. Stephanie is assistant curator at The University of Salford Art Collection and also a co-founder and former director of The Birley artist studios and project space in Preston.

Chewing The Fat is a series of discussions curated by James Mathews-Hiskett unpacking diverse curatorial perspectives from across the North-West. Each discussion will bring together a small group of curators based in the region to consider how a range of different approaches and frameworks influence the way they work.

Bryony Dawson is an artist, curator and writer based in Manchester. Bryony is a member of the curatorial collective Soft Spot and recently curated the exhibition The Naming of Things at Castlefield Gallery. Current projects include the performance event series BASKET and a monthly reading group focused on art writing, theory and philosophy.

Thomas Dukes is a curator based in Liverpool and current PhD Candidate working with Castlefield Gallery and Manchester School of Art on an AHRC NWCDTP supported Collaborative Doctoral Award. Thomas was previously curator at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool.

Chewing The Fat is a series of discussions curated by James Mathews-Hiskett unpacking diverse curatorial perspectives from across the North-West. Each discussion will bring together a small group of curators based in the region to consider how a range of different approaches and frameworks influence the way they work. These discussions form a short series of podcasts which will be released throughout July.

Chris Bailkoski is Creative Director of PROFORMA, Greater Manchester and Longsight Art Space in Longsight. Chris is also Finance Director at SOUP in Manchester.

Laura Mansfield is an independent curator and researcher running multiple ongoing projects including FEAST Journal and Making with Mothers. Laura is also Castlefield Gallery Associates Coordinator.

Nathaniel Pitt is director of Division of Labour Gallery, Salford and Pitt Studio, Worcester. Nathaniel is also curator of The Manchester Contemporary art fair and curator of A Modest Show, the official collateral event for British Art Show 9 in Manchester.

John Powell-Jones, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and David Blandy talk about how computer and role playing games help us make sense of the world: unpacking our perceptions of reality, our understanding of morality and our awareness of different communities. They discuss their inspirations, working instinctively with different digital technologies and how embracing difficulty is integral to their work.

Find out more about CYBERJUNK here

Artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley uses the forms and imagery of video games to create works that consider "what archives have left out and how we can archive now.” Danielle works predominantly in animation, sound, performance and Video Games to communicate the experiences of being a Black Trans person. Danielle's practice focuses on recording the lives of Black Trans people, intertwining lived experience with fiction to imaginatively retell Trans stories. Spurred on by a desire to record the "History of Trans people both living and past" their work can often be seen as a Trans archive where Black Trans people are stored for the future.

"Throughout history, Black queer and Trans people have been erased from the archives. Because of this it is necessary not only to archive our existence, but also the many creative narratives we have used and continue to use to share our experiences." Brathwaite-Shirley

Brathwaite-Shirley's work has been exhibited at: ICA, London; Arebyte Gallery, London; David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles; Quad, Derby; Science Gallery, London and TATE Modern, London.

www.daniellebrathwaiteshirley.com

David Blandy investigates the stories and cultural forces that inform and influence our behaviour. Collaboration is central to his practice, examining communal and personal heritage and interdependence. He has developed a gaming art practice writing original RPG’s, examining social justice, climate change and posthuman futures. He works in installation, performance, writing, gaming and sound, and has had national and international solo exhibitions of his work. Nominated for the Film London Jarman award with Larry Achiampong in 2018. He has exhibited & performed at venues nationally and worldwide such as Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Art Tower Mito, Tokyo; Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Helsinki; Tate Modern, London; The Baltic, Gateshead; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Spike Island, Bristol; Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany; MoMA PS1, New York, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai. He is represented by Seventeen Gallery, London.

Dr Alex Mason speaks with Hardeep Pandhal and David Steans, about Sardonic Harmony. Sardonic Harmony is a collaborative lyric video featuring writing and sound by artists Hardeep Pandhal, Roy Claire Potter, Stefan Sadler, and David Steans. Pandhal was invited by Castlefield Gallery to make a new work to be presented online coinciding with the inaugural exhibition of the Manchester Hip Hop Archive; a heritage project that preserves and celebrates the history of Manchester-based rap music and hip-hop culture.

To find out more and to watch Sardonic Harmony click here

Dr Alex Mason is an early careers researcher, using literature, film and Hip Hop to explore the relationship between race, higher education and architecture. He currently works in the Arts & Humanities Knowledge Exchange team at the University of Sheffield, organising projects that creatively explore and centre marginalised histories, people and places. Alex recently co-organised the international Hip Hop & Higher Education online conference, which celebrated the critical and creative elements of Hip Hop whilst interrogating its current relationship with UK universities. He writes regularly for Bad Form Review and can be found at @adrm25.

For this special Halloween podcast Jocelyn McGregor met with Dr Maisha Wester and Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes ahead of her solo exhibition at Castlefield Gallery in 2022 to consider our changing perspectives towards horror. Thinking about the relationships between horror cinema, body horror, surrealism and McGregor’s work they discuss the enduring power of horror’s transgressive nature and how it might speak to or challenge our understanding of gender, race and the politics of our time.

Dr Maisha Wester is a visiting lecturer at the University of Sheffield, sponsored by the British Academy’s Global Professorship fellowship. Her home institution is Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research focuses on racial representation in Gothic Literature and Horror film, Black Diasporic Gothic literature, and sociopolitical appropriations of Gothic and horror tropes in racial discourses. She is the author of African American Gothic: Screams from Shadowed Places (2012), co-editor of Twenty-First-Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (with Xavier Aldana Reyes, 2019) and author of numerous essays including Gothic in and as Race Theory and Nineteenth-Century British and American Gothic and the History of Slavery. She is currently at work organising the exhibition His House to Our Home as part of the Being Human festival; the project will also feature a global digital gallery of community-generated artwork.

Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and Film at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-lead of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies. He is author of Body Gothic (2014), Horror Film and Affect (2016) and Gothic Cinema (2020), and editor of Horror: A Literary History (2016) and Twenty-First-Century Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (with Maisha Wester, 2019). Xavier is chief editor of the Horror Studies academic book series published by the University of Wales Press.

Find out more about Jocelyn McGregor’s solo exhibition, Mantle at Castlefield Gallery in 2022  HERE

Nicola Ellis is joined by Dr Marsha Bradfield and Andrew Wilson to discuss collaborating with people in different environments, and workplaces with particular reference to Ellis’ artist placement at Ritherdon & Co Ltd (a family-run manufacturer of specialist steel enclosures, est. 1895) and her exhibition at Castlefield Gallery (13 June – 1 August 2021) which presented a body of work from this placement – to see documentation and other resources relating to that exhibition please visit: castlefieldgallery.co.uk

Dr Marsha Bradfield describes herself as an artist-curator-educator-fundraiser-researcher-writer and company director. Marsha teaches on several courses as well being a PhD supervisor and researcher at Chelsea College of Arts. As part of her own practice, Marsha creates events, artworks, exhibitions, curricula, websites, publications and other projects that explore the subject of interdependence – the way in which things are connected to, and rely on, one another taking forms like relationships, systems and exchanges. She recently completed a fellowship in AI and machine learning for the BeFantastic TechArt triennial in Bangalore (2020). She is also a founding member of Incidental Unit, the third iteration of Artist Placement Group. Marsha recently co-curated a six-city touring programme to explore their legacy across the UK.

Andrew Wilson experiments with structures that facilitate collaboration between

In the first of a new series of Podcasts, created in collaboration with Venture Arts, artist Sally Hirst explores the Obstructions exhibition at Castlefield Gallery.

Venture Arts is a visual arts charity based in Hulme, Manchester (UK), working alongside learning disabled artists to create exciting new collaborative visual art work.