Free For Arts Festival 2012

Last Friday saw the opening night of Free For Arts Festival

in Manchester, fortunately the Autumn weather persisted against the rain. For the fourth year running, numerous exhibitions held in bars, office blocks and stores can be found in the city centre and the Salford areas. These unique spaces for a not-for-profit festival remains a wonderful example of the talent the North West has to offer.

After walking in the wrong direction away from the first preview we realised it wasn’t a joke and the usual office blocks that is Piccadilly Place was the same Piccadilly Place as was told. Building 4 held three of the festival’s offers, the first; Free For All, (Part I) featuring the best of the festival’s open submissions for the third year running, showing an array of varying work; from sculptures and photography to paintings and drawings. A small representation of the mediums employed throughout the festival. Emma Victoria Hardaker’s visual installation is particularly unnerving; her performance in the film tense and strange. Her interest lays in her own psychological state using OCD as her basis for a hung existence, transmitting awkward moments to the viewer. ATIC Studios captures the essence of the festival itself with ceramic business tablets up for grab - centring around art for free – hopefully they will have produced more for the rest of the week. Their finger-paint-prints on a row of ceramic slabs brought back a touch of nostalgia and the want to imprint physical representations of ourselves. “The Looking Show” space left us wondering what could possibly be displayed in the shop window setup, staring for a second how conceptual could we possible make this piece before reading the sign giving performance times. For those curious head down between 6pm and 6:30pm on 22nd, 23rd and 25th for a glance of what we missed on the night.

Further down the unit clusters of smokers’ chatter and half-drunk sangrias were scattered in between exhibitions, probably discussing Meat The Family and their centre sculpture, a half worm figure with what I can only assume to be intestines spewing out. Grotesque is obviously the theme here, with a more collective narrative running through this space than the previous where the three artists – Burford, Harrison and Southwell – mix photography, drawings, paintings and latex play on portraits, churning a freak-show response. This “work in progress” of the artists’ scattered work with no particular order interchanges between the mediums they employed. The idea being works that are succinct with each other, drawing no separation between the artists. Collectively the room has elements of Bacon’s abstractness and a further exploration of Sherman’s questions on figures in society. If you fancy its something to look out for post FFAF.

Proper Normal, Pal extended the take over of Piccadilly Place’s usual suited atmosphere, where the majority of attendees, skateboard-clad. waltzed around the exterior of the room, careful to miss the centre piece of entrapment-like wires forming a geometrical meshed universe – a slight health hazard for those blessed with deteriorating sight. After finding a comfortable space to walk around the room without accidentally slicing head off, you could allow your head to wander upwards to the floating cloud, a true representation of where it should be – up there. Otherwise a few ordinary objects dotted around the space were given a platform – just some recognition for the work they do – in particular the cardboard chair on top of the cardboard hill, sitting proudly. The far corner flicked a slide show of a man’s tale, a kind of silent movie style one line narrative.

From this starting preview, it was on to the Bay Horse in the Northern Quarter for the Graduate Photography Showcase and a short film by Joel Peck in the basement. There was a little detour prior for a quick drink and change, although the free sangria was much appreciated Friday called for left over vodka and left over apple juice. On arrival, if you have ever been to the Bay Horse the inside looked like the Bay Horse except the wall hangings had changed from their usual decor to the artists’ work; scattered around the bar. Best overview would be to take a seat and observe from a distance unless you don’t mind leaning over fellow drinkers to take a closer look. Then hovering around them a while taking in – favourite would probably be the tourist-esque ones – and then wonder whether you’re invading the group’s social space, before moving to the next artist.

The festival continues throughout the week with these exhibitions and various other events and workshops available if you fancy tapping into your creative sphere. FFAF ends this Friday 26th October with Islington Mill hosting the closing party. For further details of the week’s line up head here

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