In the Making is an exhibition of painting, drawing, collage, fabric, photography, interaction, installation, sound, sculpture, design and moving image at Salford Museum and Art Gallery from 17th December 2022 to 26th April 2023, by the group Ten Obstructions: artists Maya Chowdhry, Jack Doyle, Jane Fairhurst, Sarah Feinmann, Tina Finch, Sabrina Fuller, Claire Hignett, Paddy O’Donnell, Christopher Rainham and Ian Vines and curated by Claire Hignett and Ian Vines.
Salford is In the Making of the work in this exhibition. Its inspiration and subject matter is Salford’s geology and archaeology; its geography, waterways, industrial history and development; the art in its gallery and objects in the museum, its people and their voices.
The exhibition demonstrates the process contained In the Making of an art work. The ten artists explore how years of research and practice yield a particular line of enquiry. They show how an idea is worked and re-worked until it delivers meaning. They demonstrate how the very media and methods – paint, photographs, cloth, dyes, sculpture, stitching, stone or sound shape the art . They evidence what emerges when an idea is carried from one medium to another. They trace the ancient, the mysterious and the mystical. They find ways to weave together past, present and future.
Collaboration was a constant In the Making of this exhibition. The group offered one another friendship, criticism, support, debate and discussion. They came together three years and five exhibitions ago through a Castlefield Gallery artists development programme.
In Waves, Maya Chowdhry’s interactive sound installation, she makes visible the transformation of Salford’s waterways, particularly in relation to climate change – making field recordings or imagined soundscapes from the Victorian Gallery’s landscapes.
Maya took as a starting point the paintings hung in the Victorian Gallery at the museum that featured these waterways, and then made a series of field recordings, and imagined soundscapes, in the specific locations, for example Blackfrairs Bridge. She also include locations not featured in paintings in the gallery, that might have not existed in victorian times, such as Kersal Wetlands – created as part of a flood protection scheme.
In From Here to There Jane Fairhurst shares how she used the development of one medium, textile, into another medium, paint – both requiring craft skill, and both rooted in a magical past – weaving futures or shamanistic cave painting.
Jane Fairhurst From Here to There
Sarah Feinmann’s Like Water Under the Bridge focuses on Woden’s footbridge over the Irwell, all that remains from the regeneration of the area, former site of Ordsall Dyeworks. She prints with natural inks and dyes, on paper, printed and collaged surfaces.
Sarah Feinmann Wodens Bridge
In Skinhead Tina Finch uses acrylic paints to explore the impact of the paint itself on portraiture, creating skins whose its colours and textures evoke ageing, time and memory, She was inspired by Geoffrey Key’s Aged Head, currently on display in the Langworthy Gallery.
Tina Finch Skinhead
Sabrina Fuller’s film The Big Ship Sails (Don’t Let Your Dreams Leak Away) celebrates Manchester Ship Canal as a metaphor for realising dreams and visions – locals speak of dreams, docks, dredgers, futures, pasts, possibilities, swing bridges, vessels and visions.
Claire Hignett’s May Day, M’aidez develops her interest in narratives of safety and protection through exploring the emotions evoked by the drape of clothing, linking personal research into a dressing-up dress to one from a painting in the Victorian Gallery.
Claire Hignett In Safekeeping – Safety Blanket
In Final Cut? Paddy O’Donnell explored a potential connection between the Victorian Gallery and film; in so doing expressing his delight in its Baroque splendour.
Christopher Rainham’s From One Silence to Another uses stones from the Museum’s collection to make a painting of stones – stones which tell the story of the Earth; stones as tools, houses or monuments; stones which have their own beauty, and stones powdered into paint .
In Double Vision Ian Vines devises a variety of double images – figures, landscapes or everyday objects – through photographic collages, inverted photographs or photos with actual objects, including a piece inspired by the Victorian Gallery’s model of the Solar System.
Ian Vines, Cosmic Clockwork
Jack Doyle’s Tiles builds on the museum’s collection of Pilkington decorative tiles – imagining himself as a nineteenth century designer for the company.
Claire Hignett Why would anyone keep a broken gravy jug
Claire Hignett Feel the Fear – Hold me Tight
Sarah Feinmann Like Water Under the Bridge
Jane Fairhurst Protective Amulet Installation
Textiles and Paintings
Jane Fairhurst Protective Amulet Series