Exhibition dates | 7 – 21 March 2020

Venue | Grundy Art Gallery is currently closed to the public due to the Coronavirus situation. This exhibition closed early; however, you can view some of the exhibited artwork in the gallery on this page.

This exhibition was the latest part of the Venture Arts-led Conversations Series (in partnership with the Whitworth and Castlefield Gallery), bringing together artists from Blackpool and Manchester. They worked together to investigate how artists are labelled, who makes art and who it is for. The exhibition also included works on loan from the Whitworth’s Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, the UK’s largest collection of Outsider art.

From October 2019 to February 2020, artists from our studio and artists who responded to an open call met regularly at The Blackpool Centre for Independent Living as part of The New Langdale’s communication through art programme. The New Langdale is a community based daytime service for learning disabled adults. Working with Blackpool based artist Tina Dempsey, and supported by the group’s regular coordinators, participants made new work together, testing out new approaches, techniques and materials. The participants enjoyed research visits to Grundy Art Gallery and the Whitworth (experiencing a talk and tour of The Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection), and a visit to Venture Arts to meet other artists and to hear more about their work.

Conversations Series II – Other Transmissions was presented by Grundy Art Gallery as part of its participation in Access Fylde Coast, a Coastal Communities funded project that is being led by Disability First, Blackpool. It follows on from Grundy Art Gallery’s summer 2019 presentation, NDACA – Art, Anger and Rights from the Disability Arts movement, an exhibition curated in partnership with the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA).

As Grundy Art Gallery had to close to the public before the exhibition run had finished, we thought you might like to view a selection of pieces that were featured in the exhibition (at the top of the page).