easa Gallery
easa 010 gallery
For eighteen months between May 2009 and November 2010, a group of students opened and ran a free art gallery in the centre of Manchester. The gallery ran nineteen exhibitions. Simultaneously, the students hosted three international residential conferences for over 500 people, renovated derelict buildings, built artists’ studios, and handled a terrifyingly large amount of money.
The students were part of EASA, the European Architecture Students’ Assembly. This self-organising gathering has been meeting every year since 1981, creating a two week alternative school of architecture in the summer. Events have been held on trains and battleships, in castles and behind the Iron Curtain. It has grown so that now representatives of more than 43 countries in and around Europe meet to exchange ideas and find new ones, always in an interesting way and always on the tightest of budgets. In November 2008, in the Turkish Architect’s Association building in Nicosia, EASA decided to grant responsibility for organising the 2010 Assembly to a team from Manchester. Twenty-one months to go. The gallery at 43 Hulme Street was both a vital part of the organising strategy for the summer Assembly and a happy coincidence. Raising the kind of money that summer assemblies had relied upon in the past was always going to be tough in the UK, especially two years into a prolonged economic downturn. Arts funding bodies need evidence of competence, and commercial sponsors want profile. An established exhibition space was one way of proving ourselves to the wider world and gaining friendly contacts within the city. It also proved one way of realising one of our core aims in hosting EASA in 2010: that we would truly integrate with the city up to, during, and after the Assembly itself. When the developers ASK heard about our bid to host the 2010 Assembly, they contacted us with an interesting offer: no, they didn’t have any money to give, but there was a small self-contained office building near the BBC that was currently vacant, unlettable and scheduled for demolition. Would we be interested in occupying it?
Moving In The building, a two-storey white cube, had been converted from a warehouse to their own office by architects Stephenson Bell. At 260 m², there was more office space than we could possibly want. The high quality interior, with white painted brick walls, oak floors, track lighting and giant pivoting doors, was immediately suggestive of an art gallery. We knew many people who would jump at the chance of exhibiting here. The day the keys were handed over was also the first time anyone had been inside the building for at least two years and the oak front door was wedged tightly in its steel frame. The only solution was for ASK’s contractors to smash it off the pivot hinge with a sledge hammer. There were more problems waiting inside. A two year dripping leak had soaked the carpets of the ground floor, and in the airless darkness mould had gradually risen up the plasterboard walls and thickly furred shelf after built-in MDF shelf. Next to this, the bullet hole in the window seemed trivial. EASA is made up entirely of volunteers. Every event is organised by a new group of students, and our new recruits brought rubber gloves, mops and bleach. It took two days to clean the mould, and then the quarter-ton front door had to be repaired and rehung, the walls repainted and locks changed. The process of improvement and refinement continued throughout our time in the building.
Events The gallery gradually gathered momentum as more people became aware of it. Starting with our own exhibitions, we invited students from the school of architecture. Then the school of art took an interest. From there, word spread across the creative networks of the city. This book describes the exhibitions hosted. They range in scale and ambition from single person retrospectives to interactive sound pieces, group shows, documentary works made by artists staying in the gallery, postgraduate final crits and giant murals. Every exhibition was different; all were interesting. Coordinating them was a rewarding challenge.
legacy 43 Hulme Street was intended to be demolished in 2011 as part of the First Street masterplan for the area. The continuing economic slowdown has resulted in a pause in these plans. From the outset, it was agreed that EASA would occupy the building until November 2010. As this date approached, it became clear that the building would be standing for some time. Conscious of our desire to leave a positive legacy for the city, we began to consider if we could pass the favour of the space on to another organisation who could continue to use it for interesting events. Blank Media Collective, the organisers of the Unbuilt exhibition (page X) impressed us with their professionalism and commitment. They were looking to establish a more permanent base in the city and together we arranged with ASK that they would take over the building. A new coat of paint later, and the building is home to a photography studio and office, and regularly hosts diverse exhibitions. A small part of the EASA spirit was left behind in Manchester.
Apollo theatres
exhibitions and events
01: painting competition and opening party
easa uk 2010 ask developers
43 Hulme Street is next to a gyratory system where two of the city’s busiest roads intersect: the elevated Mancunian Way and Princess Parkway, connecting the city centre with the airport. Research shows that the side wall of the building is seen by more than 30,000 drivers each day. The building itself provided an ideal billboard for a supergraphic celebration of EASA arriving in Manchester, raising awareness in the host city. A competition was announced and received expressions of interest from five continents including Arup’s New York office. The entries were judged by a panel including representatives of the building owner ASK, Manchester City Council, Visit Manchester, and school of architecture. The official opening of easaHQ at 43 Hulme Street was timed to coincide with an exhibition of the entries and the announcement of the winner. Congratulations to Nicos Yiatros of Cyprus! Implementing the design proved a new challenge. The design was considered ‘advertising’ by the UK planning regulations and as such required advertisment consent. Once this was achieved, we actually had to paint thousands of green squares onto the walls...
02: MAnchester architecture and design festival Manchester Society of Architects (MSA) Centre for the Urban Built Environment (CUBE) RIBA NW Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) Manchester Architectural Research Centre (MARC) 2009 saw the inaugural Manchester Architecture and Design Festival, set up as a replacement for the discontinued national Architecture Week. The month long event brought together awards, lectures, discussions, building visits and exhibitions, coinciding with Event Month at the school of architecture. Event Month brings all the students out of their usual studios for one day a week to work on shorter, more experimental projects. The closing party of the MADF took over virtually the whole of 43 Hulme Street, with all the rooms and the big open plan office area filled with the Event Month exhibition. Work included films, drawn work, models, hanging displays, and paintings, on diverse themes exploring materials technology, place, history and politics.
03: Msa A+U mA final crit and exhibition
Manchester School of Architecture
Manchester School of Architecture’s MA unit chose 43 Hulme Street as the venue for their final exhibition, an integral part of the assessment; final crits took place in front of the work on the walls. Projects all had a strong theoretical approach and a great variety of themes were explored including globalisation, public health, agriculture and branding. The students made the most of the opportunities provided by being out of the university, spray painting graphics on the walls, setting up hydroponic systems and turfing one of the galleries.
04: isolative urbanism book launch
The official book launch of Isolative Urbanism: an ecology of control, co-edited by Richard Brook and Nick Dunn. The book is “...the first published research output from the Re_Map unit [at the Manchester School of Architecture] and the essays collected together are concerned with the relationship between urban conditions and space, public and private. In particular, the book has a primary focus on how the ownership of space is demarcated, enclosed, implied and enforced. This situation is heightened and accentuated in the context of a town with a singular economic force, particularly when said force is the manufacturer of military hardware. As the essays establish a general view of their focus, they also make explicit the manner in which their area of study may be considered in the context of Barrow in Furness.� The architectural projects that resulted from the theoretical enquiries recorded in the book were exhibited alongside the launch and included 3-D printed models, large scale screen prints and interactive displays.
Bauprint Manchester School of Architecture
05: an urban ecology of chance
Daniel Staincliffe Arts Council of England Confucius Institute Interval Arts Red Gate Gallery Beijing
Daniel Staincliffe Arts Council of England Confucius Institute Interval Arts Red Gate Gallery Beijing
An Urban Ecology of Chance was the UK exhibition of a body of work produced by Daniel Staincliffe during a month’s residency at the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing. The works represented and explored the artist’s interest in the chance encounter, of the kind only possible in one of the world’s great metropoli. His installations were minimal and cerebral, celebrating transient events. They included found objects, typography, sound and video recordings and photographs. Daniel was the first fine artist to exhibit at the gallery and it was with his works that the ‘white wall’ effects of the space became clear.
06: a maquette of modality
Bryn Lloyd-Evans
Lloyd-Evans mainly works in 3D and describes his sculptures as ‘dysfunctional minimalist products that function within the context of art’. His work often takes its starting point from the inherent story of the material in question, be it a social context or aesthetic connotation. His sometimes perplexing theories on the use of materials and appropriated items allows him to fall into the sphere of Arte Povera or Neo-Dadaism. In this new body of work Lloyd-Evans explores ideas of modality, a term coined to unpack the notion of ‘realism’, a suggestion that the action told is not actual, but merely potential. By taking the role of model maker, Lloyd-Evans fabricates maquettes that slip in and out of familiarity. The use of the maquette prompts the processes of progression: a physicalisation beyond its current state. Exploring themes of repression, subversion, censorship, affluence, humanity and freedom, ‘A Maquette of Modality’ invites questions of how to deal with the world beyond its previous earthly confines. If we are able to accept this reality, then it is possible to receive the content of the objects in question. Selected works include ‘Preparation For Re-Painting’. Lloyd-Evans depicts the apparent use of X-rays, graphic editing programs and the Internet in the preparation for re-painting religiously censored material. In ‘The Rules Of The Socialist Playground’ an instruction manual explains how to construct a child’s slide. The slide resembles aesthetic qualities of romantic Socialist architecture. Other works portray more menacing scenarios. In ‘Shoot An Orator’, maps, diagrams and photographs highlight building tops with the best vantage points to shoot an orator at ‘speakers corner’ in Hyde Park. With additional pieces including audience interactive works (‘The Subversive Meeting’ and ‘Garage, Workshop, Ammunition Box, Ballot Box, Jury Box, Moving Box, Soap Box’), we discover the catalyst of Lloyd-Evans’ practice is the engagement of the spectators and their willingness to question the works’ objectives beyond the environment of the gallery.
07: interactive invasion
Caiti Berry Manchester School of Art (Interactive Arts)
Interactive Invasion was the weekend long takeover of easaHQ by interactive arts students from the Manchester School of Art. Interactive arts is a hybrid course which encourages its students to develop their own diverse range of creative, practical and theoretical experimentation. The students devise their own working plan, which develops throughout the course. easaHQ provided an opportunity for interactive arts students, (mainly the third year students, who are preparing for their end of year show) to gain access to a blank backdrop; a space for the students to show off the diversity of their practice and indeed the interesting nature of the course, providing an unusual and diverse exhibition.
08: castlefield contemporaries
Artists from the Castlefield Gallery, Manchester: Shuhebul Alom / Jenny Core / Jamie Crawford / Amy Gough / Andrea O’Brien / Genevieve Rainbow / Rosanne Robertson
Castlefield Contemporaries showed the creative works of seven Manchester based artists who had come together as a new collective formed through Castlefield Gallery. Like Interactive Invasion, this was a group show arranged around the artist’s place of work rather than a cohesive theme in their art. As a result, the show was as diverse as the artists behind it, with drawings, recordings, mixed- and multi-media works and site specific installations.
09: apollo theatres
Andrea booker / cube open
The installation of Apollo Theatres on the side of easaHQ was the first time it had been seen in the public realm. The illuminated sign, created from brass and coloured glass letters salvaged from the Salford Apollo cinema, is one of several signs that the artist showed as part of CUBELab, an artist’s residency programme hosted by CUBE, the Centre for Urban Built Environment. Booker uses reclaimed and abandoned commercial signage salvaged from buildings in Manchester and Salford to supplant the original meaning and in doing so makes a statement about social identity and displacement. Each piece is given the title of its address of origin and intended to make a statement about the cycle of the urban regeneration, renewal, decline, veneration and revival of the urban environment and the subsequent process of ghettoisation which inevitably results. ASK were initially delighted to be able to host a competition-winning artwork on the side of one of their buildings, but developed significant reservations when the text of the sign became apparent: SOS. Given that the economic slowdown had seen many Manchester developers go bust, they were very concerned that this sign should be read as a statement on their financial liquidity. However, they agreed on condition that the painting scheme for the outside of the building be completed before installation.
10: the end is near
Ed Wiffen / Caitlin Howard / Sophie Lee / Jerome Cooper Manchester School of Art (Fine Art)
This group show was curated by students who considered that narrative, historically important to the fine arts, was also a worthy subject for contemporary art where it is often ignored. The artists’ diverse styles included printmaking, film, audio installations and artefacts from events narrated in the films.
11: sesam: first sight easa: An exhibition
Our own exhibition was to be a landmark survey of the life, spirit and achievements of the EASA network, beginning with the announcement of the winning workshop proposals for easa010 Manchester. Taking over the whole easaHQ gallery for two weeks, it brought together images, thoughts and artefacts from previous assemblies all over Europe, and the results so far achieved by the Manchester team. The idea was to communicate to the new host city just what EASA – a continually renewed international network of students, a summer school, an autumn conference – is. We would combine the exhibition with a Small European Student of Architecture Meeting (SESAM) that would provide a practical demonstration of the idea and allow visitors to the preview to meet EASA participants in the flesh. The exhibition used the different areas in the gallery to explain various aspects of EASA. Upon entering, visitors were faced with a wall-sized map of Europe showing the locations of all historical EASA events. Superimposed upon this, threads each representing a single person converged from all the participating countries upon Manchester. An irregular pile of TVs screened various videos from past events as a kind of information overload.
Exhibition designed by Thomas Bennell Ji Hum Kim / Jo Sharples / Shinnosuke Takayanagi / Miles Reay-Palmer / James Hills / Jack Richards / Bhavika Mistry / Dido Graham
SESAM organised by Alex Maxwell / Chris Maloney / Emma Uncles Tutors: Sam Patterson / Yvonne Michel Participants Jose Adrian Mora / Franziska KÜppel / Martin Gustincic / Ana Doles / Nicolas Roussey / Maurizio Neri / Brian Jordan / Billy Mooney / Fernando Gonzales The exhibition was arranged around a timeline that threaded as a spine through the building. On this were marked dates, places and any other important information we could find. The idea was to represent the number, geographical spread, and diversity of past and future events. Smaller rooms upstairs were themed around workshops, lectures and accommodation. A scaffolding bunk bed festooned with sleeping bags and roll mats demonstrated the standard of living expected at EASA: it is a deliberately communal experience, avoiding the sterility and expense of hotel rooms. The SESAM would be a further opportunity to gain publicity and perhaps attract sponsors, whilst providing our team with a practice run for the challenges of feeding, housing and organising a much larger number of architecture students. Named first sight, it was themed around the experience of coming to a new city for the first time. Participants received walking tours from those who know the city best, and a tour using URBED’s Routemaster. The exhibition they produced occupied a downstairs room in the gallery and was based around their initial impressions of Manchester.
12: organic logic: opinions are chaos: a to B
Joseph Lindley is a musician trained in fine art. For this solo show, he opposed the habitual dominance of the visual in art. Each gallery space was given over to a different sound installation, including call/response microphones in separate galleries and a work where the internal interference of a mixing desk was fed back in a closed loop and amplified. Visitors were encouraged to adjust the mixer’s settings to produce a series of alien sounds.
13: test
The artists behind Interactive Invasion returned with a new body of work and a different curator.
14: control
Kit Turner / Vikram Kaushal / John Hyatt / Naomi Kashwagi / Michael Barnes-Wynters / Laura Coucill / Richard Morton / Mary Kim Naylor / Gary Clarke / Flis Holland / Agata Alcaniz / Marta Julve / Sarah Hardacre
Bringing together architects, urban theorists and artists, Control explored how our societies influence our actions and the causes and motivation behind this control within an urban context. In the artists’ words: “We move from one enclosed environment to another: from the family environment to school, from school, to work. We are required to negotiate a network of roads, public spaces and buildings, in a manner dictated to us. We are required to pay our taxes, to conform to a generally accepted aesthetic, to remain compliant as part of a process in which the operation of a mass of society is maintained. CONTROL examines these elements of power, regulation, supremacy, mapping, repression, restraint and domination within the context of the Modern City. The exhibition is a presentation of drawing, sculpture, photography, graphic design, video and performance by emerging and established artists based in Manchester.”
15: unbuilt Blank Media Collective / part of future everything
Almost a decade ago, undergraduates commenced architecture degrees amid a booming economic climate. Now, as these students graduate into a recession, and as architecture takes the biggest hit of any professional group, Blank Media Collective believe this is an exciting opportunity to showcase their work. Unbuilt is an exhibition that fits with the stride of our times, recognising that emerging architectural talent is struggling to find a place within the industry. Each year produces a batch of recent graduates with fresh ideas and new portfolios. This exhibition champions a selection of these architects as they explore elements of their creativity and renew their passions. Unbuilt is an exhibition highlighting the work of non-practicing architecture graduates and has been developed to utilise the significance of easaHQ (European Architecture Student Assembly) and promote the shared objectives of the respective organisations. The show has been curated by the Blank Media Collective exhibitions team from an open submission call and incorporates a diverse range of media. Images reproduced with kind permission of Blank Media Collective / Guy Tavenor
15: easa 2010 the 30th european architecture students assembly
16: 36 exp. Manchester University Society for Emerging Artists
At a time when digital photography allows a virtually unlimited number of exposures that can be deleted at will, 36exp. sought to rediscover the contact sheet produced by a roll of film. Over a period of six months, artists from across the world were encouraged to submit work. Finally, 36 were chosen for the exhibition – the number referring to the quantity of photographs that can usually be taken on a standard roll of 35mm film. For each artist, a mounted and framed contact sheet was shown alongside selected enlarged photographs. The exhibition preview coincided with the launch of a hard back book documenting the project. Curated by Jack Howard and Sarah Hill Artists: Jon Austin / Marsha Balaeva / Philip Bedford / Ben Bishop / Jessie Bond / Samuel Boxall Chris Butler / Katarina ThÜlin Chittenden / Nadia Connell / Ashley Cullen / Graham Darlington / Sophie Determann / Mark Devereux / Victoria Erdelevskaya / Helen Flanagan Robert Flynn / Sam Francis / Ayse Hasan / Sarah Hill / Simone Hodgson / Jack Howard Simon Jones / Scott Ramsay Kyle / Carita Laamanen / Eleanor Marechal / Katarzyna Perlak Lucy Ridges / Vidisha Saini / Helen Smith / Chris Spackman / Matthew Thomas / Darn Thorn / Al W. / Liz West / Alexander Williamson / Frances Wilson
17: found/ free for arts
Manchester school of art
Found and 36exp were simultaneous occupiers of the gallery, the first time we had combined two independent exhibitors. This increased visitors and exposure for both events. Free for Arts is a non profit umbrella for a month of art events and exhibitions throughout Manchester and Salford each October. Found, an exhibition by students from Manchester School of Art, was themed around the idea of using found objects.