AirSpace Gallery

22/04/2024

***COME AND JOIN AIRSPACE STUDIOS***
2 spaces 1 small, 1 medium - both with great natural light - ready to rent now
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contact the gallery to arrange viewings - and then submit the simple application and one of these studios could be your’s

13/11/2023

Our next project is in support of our brilliant friends as they take over the gallery with a series of items for sale and unique events throughout the week -
Opens this Friday 17th 4-8pm
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The Portland Inn Project CIC will be showcasing and selling products as part of their social enterprise - from the famous Portland Pigeon to brand new hand-printed napkins. The ‘PIP’ social enterprise is an important part of the work they do and each product is carefully designed and made by many hands. As part of the PIP shop, there will be opportunities to get involved in special events which share the organisation’s street-level production processes in a gallery setting. Not only is this a great opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes on some of their production, it’s a chance to purchase something very special before christmas!

Opening on Friday 17 November at 4-8pm and hosting special events until we close the shop at 5pm on Saturday 25 November.

We’ll be selling a range of beautiful products, made by many hands. So this is your opportunity to
a. Treat yourself
b. Treat someone else
c. Find a very special christmas present for your loved ones
d. Experience first hand how we make some of our products!

More information here > https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/public_entry/pip_shop

Our neighbours Drop City Books have pulled together some books inspired by the show, so why not visit them when you come to see us!

AirSpace Gallery is a collaborative, artist led project in Stoke-on-Trent, providing professional development opportunities, studio and exhibiting space and support for artists.

07/11/2023

This Saturday and Sunday 11-5 we are hosting a market sale featuring Clay College potters and guests - each with a unique approach to their craft - Come and meet the artists , have a browse and buy some beautiful pots

04/11/2023

looking forward to this last weekend of .cobbing ‘s - it’s been a fantastic 6 weeks and we’ll be sad to see the show go, so if you’ve not seen it yet, or you fancy a second or third look, we’re open today and tomorrow 12-5

01/11/2023

Late Announcement
Delayed Opening Times
Thursday 2 November
Due to exhibition documentation - Social Substance will open at 2.30 pm on Thursday 2 November - apologies for any inconvenience

17/10/2023

THE JOYFUL NEWS WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR… THE RETURN OF POTTERAOKE
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TICKET LINK - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/potteraoke-tickets-740096176587?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios

For our end-of-exhibition social, join hosts Mavis and Mabel for the latest episode in the world renowned pottery/karaoke mash up. Choose a clay related song from the specially themed Social Substance list and sing your heart out while throwing a pot on the wheel.

The winner takes home a very special prize.

The evening will also see one-time only DJ sets from two of the world's leading song spinners - THE DAFT PUNKS and THE CHEMICAL SISTERS all helped along by a well stocked bar.

Don't miss out on the cultural event of the year!!

Order your FREE ticket in the link in our bio
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This event marks the last of 7 performance works responding to the themes of .cobbing 's Solo Exhibition, SOCIAL SUBSTANCE delivered as part of 2023's

15/10/2023

lovely start to ‘ dropin workshop today - My Body In My Hands invites us to make quick intuitive shapes which will then be photographed in the hand of the maker and added to Sam’s growing archive

14/10/2023

Our next workshop is tomorrow Sunday 15th from 12-5 - will make intuitive clay sculptures with you and then photograph them for the growing online archive My Body In My Hands
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A facilitated drop-in workshop where visitors of any age would be given some terra cotta clay and encouraged to create a palm sized form exploring and describing how it feels in their body. This can be as naïve, humorous, poignant, or sophisticated as the individual chooses. There is a catalogue of the objects already made to show the previous creations. With the visitors permission, the object will then be photographed in their hand and uploaded onto Instagram with the hashtag and and added to the curated online gallery . The artefacts can be taken away or they will be fired them and added to a final iteration as an installation at a future date.
This workshop is open to ALL skills and abilities - and ALL materials will be provided

14/10/2023

setting up the Olde Genuine Pottere Workshoppe - where you can order your own clay artwork today 2-4

14/10/2023

TODAY 2-4pm performs in our window - setting the space up as a pop-up ceramics studio - taking commuission requests for YOUR very own bespoke works
don’t muss your chance to own a piece of unique clay art work
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Morven Mulgrew, HIGH BROW INTERACTIVE SELF REFLEXIVE WINDOW SHOPPING PERFORMANCE CONCEPT
Mulgrew invites you to observe a real life artisan potter at work in her genuine studio recreation. Observe the artist's creative process live in action, commission pottery works in real time through an interactive high tech digital communication system and leave with your very own piece of pottery. No money will change hands!!
W: www.morvenmulgrew.co.uk
I:

07/10/2023

CLAY’S INTERROGATION by performed in the AirSpace Window on 07 Oct 2023
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Part of the .cobbing exhibition in partnership with

07 October, 2023 2-4pm
AirSpace window
Luca Bosani, Clay’s investigation
Bosani assumes the role of interrogator working for Private investigation company TLSB. Presenting ‘Clay’ as a subject rather than a material, Bosani digs deep into the character of Clay asking. “Can we really manipulate clay at our will?”, “What are the underlying narratives between human touch and our psyche?” and “What if clay is not only an artistic material but an enemy or an obscure character to be surveilled and interrogated?”
W: www.lucabosani.com
I:

03/10/2023

Still a couple of tickets left for the first workshop this Sunday - tickets link below

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/public_entry/social_substance_the_workshops

and Caitlin Kiely and Clem Rousset will deliver an experimental print / zine making workshop in response to .cobbing ‘s exhibition
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Working with an archive of visual material which is both closely and abstractly associated with the clay as a material, participants will treat the images as a raw material in which to think, with which to sculpt, and to tell stories through. Themes in the exhibition such as the merging of forms and identity, connectivity, narrative and relationships will offer a range of lenses through which to see, connect and make associations with the images.
Whilst sifting through the image archive, we will do a word association exercise in relation to a selection of the images. This will support our participants to form more abstract / personal connections and observations.
From this we will explore the process in its own right and how what we do with the image becomes a visual demonstration or investigation. Whether that be the sequencing of images or the process of adding, layering, cutting, extracting, removing, assembling, scrunching up, folding out.

Each participant will leave with their own Zine
This workshop is open to ALL skills and abilities - and ALL materials will be provided.

02/10/2023

We have a Studio available from November 1st
A small but sweet space with great light via 2 windows - and only £55 a month
Application details via the studio section of our website

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/studio_space/studio_8

27/09/2023

We have 4 FREE creative workshops in response to William Cobbing‘s - in experimental print, clay making and drawing
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Free tickets sign up details are in the link

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/public_entry/social_substance_the_workshops

25/09/2023

Thanks to for a generous, insightful write up of the and .cobbing ‘s in today’s

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/sep/25/british-ceramics-biennial-2023-review-50-shades-of-clay-from-high-flying-potters

22/09/2023

Announced!! 4 creative workshops as part of William Cobbing’s exhibition Social Substance

All free to attend - some booking required - all materials provided, suitable for all skill levels

AirSpace Gallery is a collaborative, artist led project in Stoke-on-Trent, providing professional development opportunities, studio and exhibiting space and support for artists.

17/09/2023

Mavis&Mabel
Potteraoke
Venue: AirSpace Gallery
Date: 04 November, 2023 7.30-9
I: /

For our end-of-exhibition social, join hosts Mavis and Mabel, for the latest episode in the world renowned pottery/karaoke mash up. Choose a clay related song from the specially themed Potteraoke list and sing your heart out while throwing a pot on the wheel. The winner takes home a very special prize.

This, and all performances are FREE to attend. Social Substance is delivered in partnership with The British Ceramics Biennial

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/project_entry/ssocial_substance_the_performances

Rebecca Davies is from London and lives in Stoke On Trent. She has a deeply embedded and collaborative practice that crosses illustration, design, performance and event.
She studied illustration at Glasgow School of Art and graduated from the RCA Communication Art & Design course in 2010, receiving the Sheila Robinson Prize for Drawing. In 2013 she was made an Artsadmin Associate Artist. She has run participation projects with Turner Contemporary, Tate, South London Gallery, and was lead artist of the Whitechapel Gallery Community Workshops for 3 years.

Anna Francis is an artist and researcher whose work aims to create space to discuss and reframe city resources, through participatory art interventions. She creates situations for herself, the public and other artists to explore places differently. In recent years the interventions which Anna has worked on focus on the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and use an action research process to recognise untapped resources, plan responses to disused sites in the city, take action to change the way these sites are viewed. Through this, Anna aims to gain an understanding of the role of artists, arts organisations and communities in the development of places.

Together they set up The Portland Inn Project CIC in 2016 in a residential area of Stoke on Trent, working in collaboration with other artists, arts organisations and residents to improve their community and renovate an old pub building.

16/09/2023

Jake Wood

Venue: AirSpace window
Date: 28 October, 2013 2-4pm
W: www.jakewoodartist.co.uk
I:

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/project_entry/ssocial_substance_the_performances

The penultimate act in the Performance Programme sees Jake Wood in a Clay WorkOut. All performances are FREE - delivered in partnership with

Jake Wood invites you to experience his new performance work ! The performance draws upon Woods wider practice which is concerned with debunking ideas of fitness, work and exercise. Wood is a competitive bodybuilder and fitness model.
Wood will perform a typical leg day workout, using lumps of clay as the weight. The exercises will consist of heavy compound moves such as squats, lunges and deadlifts, followed by isolation movements that will involve leg extensions and clay hamstring curls to really put the stereotypical saying of ‘chicken legs’ to bed. Starting with a 5-minute warm up, then will perform 5 sets on each exercise with a 90 second rest to catch his breath. Wood will be battling both the weight and mass of the clay through humour and slapstick comical gestures. While resting, Wood will be practising his posing routine to show off his juicy clay gains!

Jake Wood is an artist based in Gillingham, Kent, who draws on a culture that is concerned with de-bunking the ideas of fitness, work, and exercise, he explores this by integrating his own use of the gym and physicality into his performances using tongue-in-cheek humour and slapstick comical gestures.
Wood considers his practice inherently intrusive, invading different kinds of spaces and environments, the general public becoming unwitting participants captured on video.
Wood has recently been exploring the intersections between bodybuilding and q***rness through the artist being a ‘gay bodybuilder’. Through these two paths, Wood has integrated this into his wider practice and seeks to make audiences aware of q***r spaces that exist. It’s not just about ‘q***r spaces’ but actually q***ring spaces.
Alongside his art practice Jake also works at the University for the Creative Arts and is a Digital Associate for Electric Medway.

15/09/2023

Josh Woolford
Cascade
Venue: AirSpace window
Date: 21 October, 2013 12-4pm
W: joshwoolford.co.uk
I:

no.5 of 7 performances as part of in partnership with

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/project_entry/ssocial_substance_the_performances

Transdisciplinary artist Joshua Woolford builds upon their ‘Cascade’ body of work with a durational performance that explores the personal, familial, and cultural histories held within clay.

Their performance, which was initiated at the V&A in London earlier this year, draws inspiration from the overlapping material cultures of the Arawak, Taíno, Kalinago, West African, and European peoples across the Caribbean.

By drawing on these artifacts and repositioning them in direct relation to each other, Woolford confronts the violent histories of settler colonialism and the trafficking of enslaved people which is evidenced through the geographical proximity of these previously disparate forms.

The use of unprocessed wild clay that the artist dug up themselves in North London reflects their desire to both meet and present themselves through this body of work. Having mixed Afro-Caribbean and British heritage, the act of sculpting Caribbean and West-African forms using British soil speaks to the complexities involved while grappling the intersections of colonial history and identity within the wider context of environmental processes and elements.

The live/durational nature of Woolford’s performance challenges the expectations of sculpture as a solid and enduring form, drawing attention to the malleability of clay and the potential the material holds for redefining our relationship to existing structures
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Woolford graduated Cum Laude from the Design Academy Eindhoven (Media and Culture), and more recently with an MA from the Royal College of Art (Contemporary Art Practice). They are the 2023 Research and Interpretation Artist in Residence at Tate and a New Contemporaries 2023 Artist.

Notable exhibitions include live performances at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, as well as exhibiting and performing in multiple institutions across London, including HOME by Ronan Mckenzie, Soho House, Somerset House, Black Cultural Archives, the V&A and Tate Britain.

14/09/2023

Morven Mulgrew
HIGH BROW INTERACTIVE SELF REFLEXIVE WINDOW SHOPPING PERFORMANCE CONCEPT
Venue: AirSpace window
Date: 14 October, 2013 2-4pm
W: morvenmulgrew.co.uk
I: Mulgrew

Halfway through the SocialSubstance Performance Programme, Morven Mulgrew takes commission requests in the window.
All performances are FREE - delivered in partnership with

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/project_entry/ssocial_substance_the_performances

Mulgrew invites you to observe a real life artisan potter at work in her genuine studio recreation. Observe the artist's creative process live in action, commission pottery works in real time through an interactive high tech digital communication system and leave with your very own piece of pottery. No money will change hands!!

About Morven…
I am an anti-disciplinary artist. I make objects, clothing, environments and performance using materials and process as a starting point for investigation. I am interested in trying to make home-made, lively, absurd and layered work, and I like to play about with the boundaries and hierarchies between the professional and amateur. I like to take risks and am stimulated by working in a way in which I do not know the outcome. I am excited by the exploration into matter, and the relationship between the matter I manipulate for artworks and the matter of me and my own body. Using my hands to make art brings me pleasure, new ways to communicate and a way of exploring my time on Earth. I like to work with the parameters I find myself in, problem-solving my way out of tricky corners and thinking with my hands and on my feet.
I have a focus on ceramics and am currently doing a Bsc in Planetary Science as part of my exploration into materials, matter and meaning.�I graduated from GSA (Sculpture) in 2004, and Ecole de Theatre de Jacques LeCoq in 2012.�In 2022 I showed ceramic work at Sierra Metro Gallery, Edinburgh, funded by Creative Scotland. In 2022 I also toured in Europe with a show funded by ACE by
Lucy McCormick that I designed and performed in. It is called Life: LIVE! and has visited London, Lisbon, Hamburg and Slovenia to date.

13/09/2023

Luca Bosani
Clay’s investigation
Venue: AirSpace window
Date: 07 October, 2013 2-4pm
W: www.lucabosani.com
I:

the 3rd of 7 performances in sees Luca Bosani interrogate Clay. All performances in the programme are FREE to attend

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/project_entry/ssocial_substance_the_performances

“Clay is an obscure and muddy subject, who has now been tormenting me for a while. First of all, he seems to be everywhere. Where rocks are in contact with water, air or steam; in my office, inside kilns, in museums. You name it, you find him.

Clay, what a name. It stands for “clay worker,” and more intriguingly for “mortal.” It sounds morbid, doesn’t it? He seems to be there to remind us that our bodies will eventually return to the soil.

Clay, the shapeshifter, the ghost, the thick boy whom we all think are capable of manipulating at our will. Through our hands, modelling him with our fingers, water him down. But no. We are not in control of Clay, he is in control of us. Always.

Presenting ‘Clay’ as a subject rather than a material the intention is to investigate our deeper relationship with the medium. Can we really manipulate clay at our will?

What are the underlying narratives between human touch and our psyche? What if clay is not only an artistic material but an enemy or an obscure character to be surveilled and interrogated?

Bosani will test these ideas, including tactile interactions with ‘Clay’, exploring his and my identity, bringing humour and absurdity into our relationships and inserting this investigation in the larger narrative of themself as a fictional Private Investigator for a company named TLSB.

Luca Bosani (he/they b.1990, Rho, IT) is a neurodivergent, gender-non-conforming artist. In the last two years, he developed his identity and personality as TLSB private investigator & UPO specialist. Taking the cinematographic stereotype of the private investigator (e.g. Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe), Luca dismantles this hyper-masculine identity to introduce a q***r private investigator in drag.

Bosani’s practice is in an open conversation with the history of sculpture and performance, bringing an innovative and experimental contribution to the mediums.

12/09/2023

Naima Khan
Fragments and Remnants
Venue: Spode Rose Garden
Date: 30 September, 2013 1-3pm
W: www.naimaomarkhan.com
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The 2nd of 7 performances in Performance Programme takes place in the
All performances are FREE to attend

Fragments and Remnants is a reflective journey inspired by her upbringing in Apartheid South Africa and my enslaved ancestors brought to The Cape of Good Hope to serve various European colonial powers between the 17th and 19th Centuries. She imagines the life they lived in their ancestral home, free to roam the Earth, building a life in tune with their natural environment until the arrival of European colonialists in search of resources to support their economy back in Europe.
She methodically lays leather hard clay tiles in a grid to demonstrate the collective energies of thousands of labourers in regimented industries designed to generate generational wealth. Each alternative tile is then painted with white and green stripes as if planting a flag on newly discovered land, but I paint the adjacent tiles with the clay from the graves of my ancestors. I use clay to show our close connection to nature and dependence on this valuable resource for shelter and sustenance, but the possession of this land depends on the nations with a more powerful army.

Bags of clay are then carried across the pristine floor of tiles symbolic of how the resources of these newly discovered lands are shipped back to Europe, often destroying the natural balance in the process.

Naima Omar Khan’s artistic practice explores the fragmented history of her enslaved heritage by drawing on her mixed-race community's oral histories and traditions to articulate a narrative that demonstrates the resilience of her forefathers and mothers to survive and build a cohesive society and thriving community bonded together through shared adversity and challenges.

She reflects on the cultural symbolisms and practices of her African, Asian, and European roots to weave a metaphorical journey demonstrating the existential presence of her lineage in the absence of documented historical records.

11/09/2023

William Cobbing
So You
Venue: AirSpace Window
Date: OPENING NIGHT 22 September, 2013 8.30pm
I: .cobbing

First up in our SOCIAL SUBSTANCE Performance Programme sees .cobbing in the AirSpace window on the Opening Night

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/project_entry/ssocial_substance_the_performances

ALL PERFORMANCES ARE FREE TO ATTEND

A performance in which the two protagonists have a very different experience of the same situation. I can't
see what's going on and depend on someone deciding to sit opposite me and hand me a clay ball, which I then model into a portrait for them. Modelling blindly, I focus on a kind of haptic symmetry, with the portrait forming as an equivalence of the size of my hand, and impressions of fingers. It's a slapstick way of making, with absurdly extruded shapes, oversized noses and ear-like forms, as the person sitting opposite me watches the story unfold.

Starting from a sculptural sensibility, William Cobbing’s practice encompasses a diverse range of media, including ceramic sculpture, video and performance. For the past twenty years he has created surreal performative pieces that show the protagonists engaging in repetitive, almost compulsive and absurd cycles of manipulating formless clay surfaces. His work alludes to concepts of entropy, underlining the extent to which earthly material is irreversibly dispersed, giving rise to a definitive blurring of the boundaries between the body and landscape.

08/09/2023

just 3 days to apply to run a workshop with us - part of the programme - in response to .cobbing exhibition - full details in link

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/opp_entry/social_substance_the_workshops

29/07/2023

ARTISTS WORKING WITH PERFORMANCE - It’s the last weekend to apply for one of our 5 opportunities to perform during our .cobbing exhibition as part of the 2023

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/opp_entry/performance_open_call

13/07/2023

*!*!ARTISTS WORKING WITH PERFORMANCE*!*!Just a couple of weeks til deadline for proposals to perform as part of our partnered .cobbing exhibition

https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/2020/opp_entry/performance_open_call

08/07/2023

our studio artists’ exhibition WAKE has woken - open today 12-4 and then through to JULY 24