Rogue Artists Studios Residency

Thanks to support from Arts Council Wales and Rogue Artists Studios co-director David Gledhill I was able to spend 5 weeks on a Manchester residency there in 2024. The artist accommodation is in the former caretaker’s house, overlooking the looming listed former school that now houses over 80 artists in the studios.

I wondered how to enter into the life of such a rich place and community and what kind of work it might inspire. With alarms going off in the night, and awareness of the massive task of maintaining the fabric of the buildings, it seemed natural to assume the rôle of caretaker. One of the routine tasks for the artist community was meant to be keeping the school yard in order by weeding. But what does taking care mean when only moss and ‘weeds’ grow?

To take a closer look I returned to the idea of a portable viewing device from the Hafod residency. This time I housed it in a headpiece made of weeds, drawing from memories of the shelters made in A Private Land. 

I was lucky enough to be invited to show the video from that project as a guest artist in Rogue Women 3, curated by Margaret Cahill and Jen Orpin. Being included in this exhibition was key to the residency – connecting past work to ongoing experimentation and feeling truly part of the artist community, if only for a short time.

This blog gives just a tiny summary of everything the residency offered in terms of relationships, Wales/Manchester connections, personal learning, but through 2025 I have been reviewing all the material gathered and creating new moving image work. This will be shown in exhibition at Elysium Gallery, Swansea in February 2026.

More to follow…