Tameside is has been my home for over ten years now. It’s where I live, work and create. It’s where I climb hills, much around the market, constantly discover new districts, diversions and distractions and where I am constantly inspired and amazed by the abundance of beauty in the borough. I love the diversity, the landscape, the heritage and most of all the cultural energy of Tameside.

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Not only have I found a home here with friends, a warm and welcoming community but I’ve also found a home to make my art amongst creative practitioners and now work with an organisation that is a cultural leader and a beacon for all forms of arts across the country.

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So being asked to curate a collection of artworks that celebrate Tameside felt like a real honour and an exciting opportunity to create an impact on the culture vision of the borough. I’ve invited artists who’s work I love, who’s work I own in my personal art collection and who’s work reflects the both the built and natural ecologies of Tameside.

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Stephen Marland is a font of all knowledge on Modernist Architecture across the North West and being Tameside born and bred, he was the first person I thought of when it came to selecting a group of artists to work with. Stephen and I are both long terms members of and collaborators with The Modernist, so it felt only natural to continue some of the amazing work of the Manchester Modernist Society and shine the light on the awesome architecture that borough boasts.

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Julian Bovis was until very recently, a fellow Woodend Mill Studio’s artist and my neighbour in the building. I’ve been a huge fan of his work for many years. Julian is an urban landscape artists who’s large-format illustrations focus on the built environment with particular emphasis on repetition, graphical pattern and perspective. I was keen to work with Julian from the start, as I was a huge fan of his works depicting cities across the country. The work he has produced for this collection represents Tameside as a power that feeds our neighbouring city of Manchester through it’s landscape and it’s people in glorious flourishes of bold colour; a proud piece representing a pride in our heritage and unique location in the foothills of the Pennines. Each borough of Tameside is represented in the different styles of housing in the piece, which relate to Julian’s research around each of the towns, each of our homes, is right there within the piece.

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May Wild Studio are new collaborators and it’s wonderful to be building new connections and new working relationships through these commissions. Their work investigates the route of the River Tame from it’s rising place on Denshaw Moor, down through Mossley, Stalybridge, Ashton-under-Lyne, Dukinfield, Denton and Hyde, until it confluence with the River Goyt and it’s formation into the River Mersey in Stockport. May Wild Studio are a social arts practice, creating artworks that challenge the conventions between visual art and traditional craft making by using storytelling, collaboration and participation to encourage conversation around themes of sustainability, nature, climate change and local/global environmental issues. It felt really important to me to have them on board for this collection to get their unique insights into how the borough’s ecology flows from place to place and gain knowledge from their connections to Tameside as a place abundant with green space and thriving natural habitats.

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With my own collages, I’ve focused in on one particular building, my absolutely favourite building in Tameside; The Concord Suite in Droylsden. I think it’s beautiful, which I know is a controversial opinion as most people will call it an eyesore! But this period of architecture, Modernist, Brutalist in nature, holds all the utopian ideals of an aspirational time that looked to a better future and for me, all those values are still tied up in the fabric of the building. Although it sits there, unloved, neglected, empty, it still has the beauty of a monumental moment in time and I hope that people can start to look at the modern architecture of Tameside differently through these works.

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