My new exhibition - The Industrial Tourist

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Andy
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So today I set up my new exhibition at Astley Hall in Chorley, and I'm dead chuffed as it looks better than I'd expected! You may or may not know my work, but I specialise in black and white industrial landscapes, and it's really nice to be able to exhibit them in a nice sized gallery space in my adopted hometown (especially as it's only 10 minutes from my house).

The exhibition consists of 50 photographs taken across the North of England (and Wales) over the past 15 years or so and takes in the Lancashire and Yorkshire textile mills, steelworks, slate quarries, coal mines, shipwrecks and all sorts of mechanical and industrial stuff! My work is a combination of documentation and interpretation - if you want to know what that looks like, then have a look at my website www.mechanicallandscapes.com

The exhibition opens at 12:00 on Saturday 16th November and runs until 22nd December. Astley Hall is open 12-4 but only at weekends - it is not open during the week.

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Just been to this and it’s brilliant, well worth the visit, and has certainly encouraged me to create a better body of work, rather than randomness

Well done @viewfromthenorth

Cheers, thanks for coming over for a look and good to see you again! I’ll have to drop you a line about going to Dinorwic, maybe over the Christmas break?
 
Glad I managed to get over to Chorley today to see these pics. Great photos in a lovely space. Well worth the visit. (y)

However, Father Christmas was in residence downstairs and the place was overrun with small children!

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Glad I managed to get over to Chorley today to see these pics. Great photos in a lovely space. Well worth the visit. (y)

However, Father Christmas was in residence downstairs and the place was overrun with small children!

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Thanks for visiting, glad you liked it! I was actually in there myself yesterday as I’d not really had a proper look at it. That may sound daft as it was my exhibition and I only live 5 minutes away, but the museum staff put most of the pictures up and on the opening day I spent most of the afternoon talking to people. It was nice to spend some time just seeing how it all hung together and reflecting on it all (and what I’d do differently next time!).

But yes, there were a lot of people around!
 
Looks really good but a bit too far for me to make it unfortunately. Looks like a nice exhibition space. How did you fund it? Did you ask for / get an exhibition fee?

Thanks! Feedback from the staff at Astley Hall has been very positive, with some visitors apparently saying it's the best exhibition they've seen there which is both humbling and gratifying as I put a lot of work into it. It is a very nice space but will probably be the last exhibition to be held here as the plan is for the room to be converted to exhibiting the museums own collection that is currently in store. Exhibitions like mine are going to be in another building on the site which is a nice space but not as good as this!

I self funded this. I used prints out of my portfolio and used frames that I already had from my previous exhibitions and borrowed the rest. This is a council owned facility plus I'm not famous enough to commend an exhibition fee! I just turned up one day and asked them about having an exhibition, then nagged them for a while after. But at least they haven't charged me to exhibit either, which some places do.
 
It may be different in wales but here it should be possible for a publicly-funded venue to apply for funding from the Arts Council to pay an exhibitor an exhibition fee. It shouldn't matter how famous you are. Look at it in this way; you are provding entertainment for the public and should be paid for that. If they are not used to hosting exhibitions it might be difficult to persuade them to do it.

It sounds like it was worth all the time and effort you put into it though.
 
It may be different in wales but here it should be possible for a publicly-funded venue to apply for funding from the Arts Council to pay an exhibitor an exhibition fee. It shouldn't matter how famous you are. Look at it in this way; you are provding entertainment for the public and should be paid for that. If they are not used to hosting exhibitions it might be difficult to persuade them to do it.

It sounds like it was worth all the time and effort you put into it though.

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind in the future. My understanding is that payment for exhibitions is not the norm at smaller local venues and that the exhibitor is more likely to be asked to pay.
 
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