Town to Towneley – An open call to Burnley Artists
Town to Towneley: Burnley Art Open 2026 is a new open-call exhibition celebrating artists with a connection to Burnley and the wider borough.
Presented in partnership between Creative Spaces Burnley and Towneley Hall Museum & Art Gallery, the exhibition aims to showcase the breadth of creative talent connected to the town - from emerging artists and young practitioners to established artists working across a wide range of disciplines.
Selected artworks will be exhibited at both Gallery OneTwoThree, in Burnley town centre and Towneley Hall creating a shared exhibition across both the historic setting of Towneley Hall and Burnley’s contemporary town centre creative space.
The exhibition will open on Saturday 18 July 2026 and run until Sunday 27 September 2026, with a programme of public events including an opening celebration, artist talks and creative workshops.
Artists aged 16 and over who live, work, study or are from Burnley Borough are invited to submit work.
Town to Towneley aims to celebrate the creativity of the borough and strengthen connections between artists, audiences and creative organisations across Burnley.
The exhibition will feature a number of awards including:
- First Prize
- Young Artist Award
- People’s Choice Award
Additional prizes supported by local Burnley businesses will also be announced.
Submissions to made on set days at:
Towneley Hall Museum & Art Gallery, 3-5 July, 12:00 - 16:00.
Entry Fee: £5 per artwork (non-refundable). Free for artists aged 16–20.
Artists may submit up to 3 artworks. Entry fees are payable at the point of submission and contribute towards the exhibition prize fund.
For FAQs and more details on how to submit, please visit the Towneley Hall website by clicking here.
General enquiries Email: info@burnleyartopen.com
Apply
Click the link below to visit Towneley Hall's website and download a submission form for the 2026 open call exhibition.
A–Z – Zara Saghir
OneTwoThree Gallery Exhibition 18th April – 4th July 2026
A–Z is a mixed media installation by Zara Saghir exploring the intersections of people, place, travel, and identity through the symbolic form of the rickshaw. Sculpted from found domestic items, these forms become vessels for storytelling, representing the emotional, cultural and physical journeys of individuals and families across towns, countries and communities.
The work reflects on how migration, whether through marriage, work, displacement – or opportunity, reshapes identity, belonging, and safety. It acknowledges the movement of people between towns, regions, and countries, including workers from diverse cultures who came to places such as Burnley to work in the cotton mills. These workers brought traditions, skills, languages, and ways of life that helped shape the character of the town and its communities as we know it today.
Drawing on the visual languages of Pakistani truck art and British canal art, the installation connects distinct folk traditions through a shared ethos of beautifying the everyday. In both traditions, working vehicles became moving canvases where identity, pride, memory, and belonging were expressed through colour, pattern, and decoration.
A–Z brings these traditions together to explore how journeys across streets, towns, and national borders shape who we become.
Exhibition Opening times: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 12.00 – 4.00pm
Location: Gallery OneTwoThree, 123-125 St James’s Street, Burnley BB11 1PP.
The commissions and exhibition were supported with a National Lottery Grant from Arts Council England.
Earth, Brick & Cloth – Ground Up
OneTwoThree Gallery Exhibition 31st January – 28th March 2026
Creative Spaces Burnley presents new Work created by members of Burnley Ground Up, with artists Mo Gowers, Rachel Hawthorn, Stella Townshend, Tony Wade and Fiona Hornby.
The artists were commission by Ground Up to work alongside the group's regular makers and creators:
Jonathan Platt, Amanda Platt, Margaret Hindle, Lisa Forbes, Helen Corteen, Jean Neil, Cath Rowley, Loraine Griffiths and Lesley Shutt.
Tony Wade: “Working with Ground Up was a wonderful experience, and I am grateful to them for sharing their knowledge and passion about Burnley. Over the duration of the project, we discussed Burnley’s landscapes, buildings, histories, food and cultures, and I hope the piece we created together reflects their love of place.”
Ground Up is a Burnley based art group with a 12 year history of community commissioning artists practice to create new work with local residents. They work predominantly with artists or artist groups with a particular interest in socially engaged practice. Ground Up is a small, open and welcoming group of mixed ability. Many of its members experience social isolation and multiple barriers (social, physical or economic), when engaging with arts and culture.
Ground Up meets every Thursday at OneTwoThree or the Salon, all are welcome to join these weekly creative sessions - no experience needed!
Exhibition Opening times: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 12.00 – 4.00pm
Location: Gallery OneTwoThree, 123-125 St James’s Street, Burnley BB11 1PP.
The commissions and exhibition were supported with a National Lottery Grant from Arts Council England.
Felt mushrooms. Ground Up with artist Rachel Hawthorn
Face Place – Gavin Parry
OneTwoThree Gallery Exhibition 29th November – 24th January 2026
Creative Spaces Burnley's Creative Director Gavin Parry presents a new photographic exhibition and working temporary photo studio. This is an evolving show of photographic portraits, a collection of contemporary memories, stories and responses of people living, working and connected to Burnley.
Central to the show is a temporary studio featuring a large camera that takes 20 x20 inch negatives. Recently built, it was inspired by the Victorian Camera (also on display here) and by an excitement about what might happen photographically when slowing down the process of taking portraits. In contrast to the speed of our digital world the process is purposefully unrushed and the process entirely analogue. The slow, performative nature of the camera, is an invitation for conversations, and to share impromptu thoughts, stories and ideas. With the resulting portraits forming a key part of these stories.
This wall will change during the show as more portraits are taken and are added.
Location: Gallery OneTwoThree, 123-125 St James’s Street, Burnley BB11 1PP.
Hope photographed by Gavin Parry at OneTwoThree.
Loam – Ninon Ardisson
Salon Exhibition 2nd October – 2nd November 2025
We are delighted to present Ninon Ardisson's new work "Loam", commissioned by Creative Spaces Burnley and the British Textile Biennial.
Loam is an immersive installation combining sculpture, found objects, speculative drawings, sound and more. Loam invites us to imagine environments that grow from the same ground, but which nurture different relationships between industry, ecology and community.
The piece was developed during Ardisson's recent residency in Burnley and is on show as part of the 2025 British Textile Biennial.
Location: the Salon, 160 St James’s Street, Burnley BB11 1NR.
In collaboration with British Textile Biennial, Pendle Plant Craft, Portia Winters and B-Side.
Ninon Ardisson with Narotam Horn and Jérôme Grard.
Zed's Garage – Zara Saghir
Artist in Residence, OneTwoThree – 28th August – 20th September 2025
For three weeks, Zara worked in residence from the Gallery at OneTwoThree, building on her sculptural work around personal experience and cultural critique.
Zara transformed our ground floor space into a garage in a new work that saw Zara collaborate with a group of local women to construct a rickshaw from stereotypically feminine and domestic objects.
The artist is inviting you to drop by the garage with your old household objects, you can meet Zara and even make a part of the rickshaw.
Location: Gallery OneTwoThree, 123-125 St James’s Street, Burnley BB11 1PP.
This commission was part of Creative Spaces Burnley's 123G! programme, funded by Arts Council England.
Sarah Lee – Riding a Bike in a Flight Suit
Exhibition – Sarah Lee – British Textile Biennial – October 2025
In text and imagery, artist Sarah Lee presents an epic embroidery that draws upon the pioneering spirit of the region's manufacturing companies, renowned for their high-performance fabrics and technical ingenuity.
Sarah is one of three early career artists from Venture Arts, Manchester, who developed new work in response to BTB2025 themes. The central piece (pictured) is a depiction of Amelia Earhart's flight suit, crafted from Grenfell Cloth made in Burnley.
From: 02 October – 12 October 2025.
Location: Gallery OneTwoThree, 123-125 St James’s Street, Burnley BB11 1PP.
Photo: Karen Green
Re:Fashion Challenge at OneTwoThree
Exhibition – Re:fashion Challenge – British Textile Biennial. October 2025
Creative Spaces Burnley are pleased to again host the British Textiles Re:Fashion Challenge exhibition.
The Work on show was created by three teams of young people over 4 days in August at Gawthorpe Hall Textiles Collection. Supported by expert fashion design Mentors and led by Amanda Odlin, Senior Lecturer in Fashion Design at University of Lancashire and Bev Lamey from Gawthorpe Textiles Collection.
From: 02 October – 12 October 2025
Location: Gallery OneTwoThree, 123-125 St James’s Street, Burnley BB11 1PP.
Photo: Jack Bolton
High Five for Heritage
An ongoing project celebrating Burnley's proud, stone-built heritage.
The story of a place is the story of its people. In brick, stone and cement, we celebrate our towns remarkable architecture and built heritage. Creative Spaces Burnley has been working as lead partner alongside Burnley Borough Council and Mid Pennine Arts through 2025 to bring to life some of Burnley's best loved places. The project is run by the Council and is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Rock Paper Scissors was an engagement exhibition, developed by artists at CSB, with the town's Cultural Consortium members and MPA. It was hosted by Gallery OneTwoThree over the summer of 2025.
