Northern Futures
“Northern Futures is a new, annual art & design award. It recognises and rewards the best emerging creative talent in the north of England”
Receiving a runner up prize in the Fine Art category at the inaugural Northern Futures Awards was both exhilarating and humbling, considering I was exhibiting alongside such talented cultural producers, whose careers I’m sure will be long and fruitful.
Two of the pieces of work I’m showing at Northern Futures were made as part of a residency project in Beijing last year, where I met artists from Australia, Brazil, China, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Vienna. And where the China International Gallery Exposition hosted galleries from Latin America, Europe, the U.S. and for the first time that year, galleries from Africa and the Middle East.
In an ever-globalised world, with global markets, global cultural products and global gallery circuits, you could be forgiven for reacting hesitantly to an award that promotes regional talent. But maybe it is precisely this emphasis on our cultural wealth as a region that can set us apart from the crowd.
We should shout about what we produce regionally because no one else is going to do it. And as the award’s site proclaims: “art and culture is integral to the renaissance of the north”.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Detail from Splash, 2008.