123 - Artist Residencies 2024/25
Elliott Flanagan
Elliott Flanagan is a visual artist, poet and writer. His text based practice examines contemporary masculinity via psychogeographic dreams and disorienting post-industrial backdrops of exotica and lovesickness. Local landmarks transfigure into divine monuments, fast paced reality blends with fragments of memory and a personal high pop culture. He writes, performs, makes videos, shares stories, creates meaningful exchange and collaborates, exploring ideas about class, identity, and transfiguration.
He takes photographs and makes field recordings of the anthropocene. He records oral histories, selects tracklists, works with artists, musicians and communities, and uses found footage. He gathers this all together and it becomes a performance, film, installation, a book, poem, short story, spoken word, travel writing, sound art, radio show, or a collaboration. It is all one thing, it should all be together. Flanagan opens a personal archive for you.
His book Recreation, influenced by his background growing up in Burnley, was published by Pendle Press in 2023.
Elliott Flanagan performing Souvenirs at Tate Liverpool in 2023. Photograph courtesy of the artist.
Zara Saghir
"Through my own personal art practice, I investigate taboo societal problems within my British South Asian culture, interrogating values, power, and hierarchies. I tend to use my personal experience through my own creative practice, to make space for people who have been overlooked and silenced, to find their voice and become advocates of social change."
Zara is Assistant Producer at The British Textile Biennial and Super Slow Way.
Read more of the interview with Zara at the Creative Lancashire website.
Zara Saghir, artist and creative producer. Photo: Christina Davies.
Gavin Parry
Taking inspiration from early 20th century high street photography studios, Gavin Parry's residency will recreate a photographic portrait studio that will use a large bespoke camera and a 20x 20inch paper negatives to make the portraits.
It is a slow, laborious and considered process. This isn’t an act of nostalgia for a pre digital world, but a reframing opportunity for a different type of contemporary photographic space. A way to reignite a sense of wonder and awe back into being photographed (something that our daily exposure to digital has arguably diminished) and to create a space for a different type of meeting point between camera the subject. A space where the act of being photographed is more reflective and encourages a greater sense of ‘presence’ for the sitter. A slow way of photographing where the act of being photographed might reveal something surprising back to the subject (or not, - the possibility is part of the work).
The residency will work in partnership with Blaze, a local, dynamic organisation supporting young people’s creative citizenship.
Discover more about Gavin's practice here.
Mike Kushner © Gavin Parry & Dave Penny. From Silence of the Photograph- Stories about hearing loss.