The Location

Within the compounds of the imposing grade II listed Victorian building, is now the Rogue Artist Studios. It was formerly the Varna Street Primary School which had since moved to a purpose-built premise a short distance away.

The Rogue Artists studios was established in 1995. It stands as an artist-run Community Interest Company providing accessible studio space which is situated close to Manchester city centre. As the largest independent studio group in the North West, it comprises of more than 85 artists working in 57,000 square feet of space in the former Varna Street school buildings. Artists and members range from graduates to established practitioners that comes from a wide range of discipline : drawing, film and video, illustration, installation, interactive art, painting, performance, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and textiles.

The Science + Industry Museum

As part of our Precedent study, there will be a visit to a museum and gallery to grasp the idea of how to design an exhibition space.

First off is a visit to the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester, This would be a guided tour by the exhibition staff. During this visit, take note on the various type of display methods and items on display. How are certain displays framed? How are they placed on a pedestal or on a wall?

Note that even displays require space of its own and also an array of lighting techniques to enhance the displayed pieces. This is among the strength that the Science and Industry Museum have in their methods of display.

The visit will take place during the first week of Events and further details will be shared in the session plan and coming close to the date of visit.
Scan the QR code in the poster to be linked to the Site location.

Do note that since the location of the Museum is not far, thus it is accessible by bus. Prepare change or a bus pass for the day. And some pocket money for lunch together. Looking forward to the trip!

Session Plan Week 2

Going into week 2, our focus would be to plan our creative outputs for our publication and presentation to TASC at the end of the week. We will be based at the Stephen Joseph Studio in the University of Manchester area. This is where we will spend most of the time on sharing ideas, utilise our skills in art, photography and 3D modelling to provide a comprehensive proposal for a creative exhibition space. As we work as a team, Q&A and discussions, also sharing of skills is encouraged and paramount to the success of our publication and presentation. There will be recaps at the end of each days to ensure smooth workflow throughout the following week.

Finalised Publication

This would have been the final production outcome, a publication that compiles the participant's design journey. Unfortunately due to Covid-19 outbreak, we could not make this publication into reality. Though, giving readers a recap of the proposed journey, we started off with getting to know the important players of this project ; the TASC collaborators. participants from Year 1 and Year 2 along with Masters year 1 with the supporting players like the Rogue Artist Studios. This journey then would've proceeded to site visits around Manchester, the Science and Industry Museum and the Whitworth Art Gallery. This is to expose participants to understand what is an exhibition space and how does it function.

The publication would have also include a site analysis and measured drawing of the 2nd Floor Hall within the proposed Grade II listed building. As per TASC, it is suggested to be the location for the Rogue Young Artists to exhibit their work.

The highlight of this proposal would have also included a Permanent and Temporary Exhibition design proposal. Where the participants are separated into two groups to propose a flexible fixed (Permanent intervention) and flexible modular (temporary intervention) exhibition space.

This journey would 've then end, with the presentation of proposals to TASC and the publication will be handed to TASC as a composed suggestions of ideas for them to use in any means necessary. Publication such as this could be useful to inform and attract potential investors, either from the general public, government or any interested parties. As TASC is a Community Interest Company, this project can only be realised with potential investor's funding in the future. Thus it is hoped that this project will continue to take a life of it's own even after the Events 20 period has ended.