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ISLINGTON MILL \\ NEWS \\ 6.2.20

This is our Newsletter of 6 February 2020. If you’d like to receive this occasional round-up into your inbox, sign up here.

 

Hello readers, welcome back to the newsletter. Hopefully you’ll forgive the hiatus given our recent piece of earth-shattering (in a good way) news. Yes, the final piece in our long capital fundraising bid has generously been realised, courtesy of National Lottery Heritage Fund. You can read all about that here. All things going to plan, the first hard hats will appear at the Mill around September, but in the meantime we have art, music and happenings to get on with. So here are a few of those…

Alena Ruth shares the skills and secrets of tufting for rug making in a full weekend of activity from 29 Feb–1 March. Produce your own beautiful one-off pieces with full supervision and support from this expert artist, while from ONE69A there is an evening workshop session teaching Marble Printing.

Artist announcements have begun for Sounds From The Other City 2020. The festival is back in full force at Islington Mill, Regent Trading Estate and our favourite venues the length of Chapel Street and beyond, roll on May!

We are super excited to welcome three new members of staff to our Islington Mill team. Rivca Rubin as Islington Mill Co-Director (working alongside Bill Campbell, Maurice Carlin and Rachel Goodyear), Stef Wyke who joins us as full-time General Manager, and Jess Coulson, our new part-time Project Coordinator. In the next newsletter we will introduce you to the new team members in more depth, but please join us in welcoming these fantastic new additions to the Mill family.

The GMCA bOlder programme in partnership with Castlefield Gallery is a talent development programme for 10 contemporary Greater Manchester visual artists aged over 50. We are very proud that two Mill artists have been selected to join the project, Patrick O’Donnell of Islington Mill Art Academy and Claire Hignett, Mill tenant and former Academy member. The group pf artists will receive tailored support from Castlefield Gallery, funded by Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Claire will represent Salford, and Patrick Stockport. Castlefield Development Coordinator, Jane Lawson will lead the programme which will include one-to-one coaching, professional development and research trips. The opportunity was devised in response to lack of professional development opportunities for older artists nationally. It’s the first UK scheme to tackle the dearth of skills and training for this age group.

More artist development opportunities are available through Critical Mass, a new artist learning and development project by Mark Devereux Projects. Providing a comprehensive programme of critical conversations, skill sharing and career development support – the content will be fully tailored to the requirements of each individual artist. Deadline: Sunday 8 March 2020.

Plus, our friends at The Lowry are Celebrating Everyday Creativity in Salford with 20 awards each for £500, available to individuals to bring their own creative ideas to life as part of The Lowry’s exciting annual Week53 festival. Available to any and all Salford residents with creative ideas. Get involved!

Back at the Mill, ONE69a now offer quality Direct To Garment printing with a state of the art direct to garment printer. Place an order with no minimum via the DTG site . Great for merch, gifts, art and experimentation. Read more.

Beyond the Mill, AHRKH / Golden Ratio Frequencies has been invited to perform both solo and Immersive Sound Bath work at VAC ZATTERE as part of the VAC Foundation’s series for the Venice Biennale on the 22 February.

We sign off this newsletter with this fantastic behind the scenes video on the Manchester Street Poem Project from MIF2019 which brought together creativity from homeless people to produce an unmissable installation that centred the experiences of homeless people themselves. The testimonies are so brilliant and necessary, huge well done to everyone involved.