Last summer, Great Places ran a campaign to customers around two newly refurbished retail units next to the Community centre in the heart of Longsight, on Northmoor Road. The idea was to identify organisations that could offer something different to the community, as social enterprise or small businesses. Longsight Art Space was selected, following a shortlisting, presentation with panel and consultation with the neighbours.
Longsight Art Space is a new project led by Proforma, a non-profit visual art, performance and curating platform collective. The vision is to make Longsight Art Space an independent exhibition and live arts venue, with a real focus on community engagement. It seeks to platform local and underrepresented artists.
Identifying organisations that would benefit the community and provide something different was the key purpose of this retail unit project. The process was and remains challenging, however, Longsight Art Space has been a huge success.
The selection of Longsight Art Space could be seen as a risk, with the concept being something completely new for the area. The risk has paid off so far, it has been well received and the level of community engagement has been outstanding.
Longsight Art Space embedded themselves in the community by hosting the meetings of the newly reformed “˜Friends of Crowcroft Park’ group. The group is well attended by a cross section of the community and some exciting plans are shaping up for the park, many involving Longsight Art Space.
The first of these was a flower circle created in the park. This was the end of a series of workshops delivered from the unit, well attended by people from the local area. The flower circle was lay following a parade down Northmoor Road to coincide with the jubilee weekend. The project had a Caribbean theme and was carnivalesque.
Presenting artists from the Greater Manchester region, their aim is to commission new work for spaces outside of traditional galleries and support artists and curators through exchanges locally and internationally.
The way Longsight Art Space operates in a series of projects that follow on from one another. They usually involve an artist in residence, who puts on an exhibition whilst offering workshops, talks etc. with members of the community. The best way to keep up with their activity is via Instagram: @longsight_art_space
