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Pre Raf alike - Ian Hartshorne

Art and Performance
Research Hub

Embracing, interrogating and responding to contemporary and historical issues through art and performance research.

The Art and Performance Research Hub brings practice- and text-based research together. We work locally and internationally through exhibitions, seminars, conferences, screenings, events, performances and publishing. Our models for creative and critical practice include everything from performer training to curating.

We also investigate art and performance through theoretical and historical writing about performance, painting, photography, printing, drawing, dramaturgy, screen art (including performance), sculpture and time-based arts.

Our work takes place in the public realm, locally and internationally, through exhibitions, seminars, conferences, screenings, events, performances and publishing. We contribute to the overall research culture and expertise at Manchester School of Art through the local and international profiles of our staff.

How we work

We develop and share internationally acclaimed digital media and performance. We recognise and embrace the importance of individual practice, as well as collaborative and inter- and trans-disciplinary work.

Our historical and contemporary research alike is relevant to socially engaged art practices. Challenging the boundaries of real and virtual sites allows us to examine both digital and analogue art and performance across platforms and realities.

We welcome new technologies and methodologies as well as cross-disciplinary collaborations with academic and non-academic partners worldwide. We also provide specific expertise and knowledge in digital materials and processes, as well as analogue media such as micro-fiches, slides, vinyl and film.

We’ve embraced new ways of making and disseminating our work online. The rich and innovative approaches to our research we’ve developed recently have led to rich and innovative pedagogy.

We lead and contribute to the postgraduate research student environment through seminars, lectures, roundtables, research training and research supervision. We also work collectively and across disciplines within the wider University ecology.

Research Focus

The Art and Performance Research Hub explores contemporary issues through rigorous intellectual research themes, including:

  • archives, museums, cultural heritage and domestic histories
  • power, politics, protest, site and communities
  • arts and health, social practice, policy and law
  • simulation, materiality, identity, fiction of the image
  • composition, dramaturgy, laboratory training
  • embodiment, gender and histories of practice

Selected Projects

Understanding how Britains religious communities adapted during — and responded to — the COVID-19 pandemic.

Improving equality, diversity and inclusion in partnership with social artists, audiences and policy makers.

Exploring and celebrating Asian cultures in Manchester and beyond through a community of international artists and events.

A space for critical encounters, presentations, provocation and dialogue.

Members and Associate Members


Exhibitions & Publications

Exhibitions

Hunt, A., 2024. Allan Rand 'Machine Breakers', Moon Grove, 23/2/2024 - 5/4/2024.

Biswas-Rodgers, S., 2024. Mixed Bathing World 2015 Triennial.

Ali, L., 2024. Tampered Surface Six Artists from Pakistan : an Exhibition of Sculpture, Painting, Printmaking, Photography and Mixed Media.

Bal, G., 2023. Curatorial: Power as the Basis of Right, MuseumsQuartier Wien, 12/11/2023.

Hunt, A., Casser, A., Balgiu, A., 2023. Ilse Garnier: a e i o u / Concrete Experience, Badischer Kunstverein, 10/2/2023 - 16/4/2023.

Hunt, A., 2023. Louise Giovanelli 'Always Different, Always the Same', Moon Grove, 23/2/2023 - 16/4/2023.

Hunt, A., 2023. Natalie Curtis 'Because I Want Nothing', Moon Grove, 2/11/2023 - 23/12/2023.

Hunt, A., 2023. Patrick Hartigan 'A Clay Hand', Moon Grove, 11/5/2023 - 8/7/2023.

Lacon, A., 2023. Sala Taller, Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo, 3/4/2023 - 30/6/2023.

Hunt, A., 2022. Behrang Karimi Rotpeter: 'Bild eines zur Dressur gezwungenen', Moon Grove, 20/5/2022 - 15/7/2022.

Hunt, A., Osbaldeston, D., 2022. David Osbaldeston 'A Pastiche of Different Techniques', Moon Grove, 24/11/2022 - 25/1/2023.

Warstat, A., Mock, J., 2022. S'attarder et regarder, ensemble et séparément - la photographie de Gavin Parry (Lingering and looking, together and apart – the photography of Gavin Parry, Maison Louis-Jardin du Mesnil-sur-Oger, Médiathèques Simone-Veil et Daniel-Rondeau d'Epernay, 17/9/2022 - 2/10/2022.

Mitha, A., 2022. Where is Home, Whitworth art gallery, 12/8/2022 - 26/2/2023.

Artefacts

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Copsey, R., 2024. 'Erosion 3', UK.

Copsey, R., 2024. 'Paintscape20', UK.

Copsey, R., 2024. 'Untitled2014', Moldova.

Atkinson, L-J., 2022. 'Lino LAB'.

Performances

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Stinton, C., Jetzer, C., McGarrigle, C., Muir, H., 2024. 'Liturgie', The Place, London as part of Tete a Tete Opera Festival, 25/7/2017.

Books

Pinchbeck, M., Babbage, F., 2026. 'Ways of Staging: The Berger and Mohr Trilogy', Intellect.

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Pinchbeck, M., Smith, O., 2024. 'Following the Score: The Ravel Trilogy', Intellect, Bristol.

Hunt, A., Curtis, N., 2024. 'Natalie Curtis 'Because I Want Nothing'', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Sophie, K., Cornish, S., Bax, O., Patterson Kelly, W., 2024. 'These Mad Hybrids: John Hoyland and Contemporary Sculpture', Slimvolume / Ridinghouse.

Hunt, A., Power, J., 2023. 'Jess Power 'UFOs'', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Chilver, J., 2023. 'Journal of Contemporary Painting Volume 8 Numbers 1 & 2. Special Issue 'Minor Painting: Outsiders and Outliers'', Intellect Journals.

Hunt, A., Giovanelli, L., 2023. 'Louise Giovanelli 'Always Different, Always the Same'', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Buchler, P., 2023. 'Pavel Büchler Variable Pieces: Letterpress prints 2011-2023', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., 2023. 'Rick Buckley Under a grey blanket Berlin, 9.-19.11.1984 Old World Apes', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Lebahn, D., Römer, S., 2022. 'All Go Rhythm - This is a Free Concert', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Fry, J., Stanley, B., Haines, L., 2022. 'James Fry 'A Licence to Rock and Pop: An Inventory of Attitude'', Slimvolume.

Hunt, A., Evans, C., Potter, CR., 2022. 'Sudden Wealth with Roy Claire Potter', Slimvolume.

Book Chapters

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Pinchbeck, M., 2023. 'A dance of absence: (in)visible dramaturgies within A Duet Without You'. In Dechery, C. (eds.) Performing collaboration in solo performance: A Duet Without You and practice-as-research, Intellect, Bristol.

Child, D., Weeks, H., Grey, K., 2023. 'Civic Responsibility in Times of Crisis: Museums and Galleries in Northern England during the Covid-19 Pandemic'. In Pandemic Culture, Manchester University Press.

Hunt, A., 2022. 'Elizabeth MaGill'. In Elizabeth Magill: Flag Iris, Miles McEnery Gallery.

Child, D., 2022. 'Johanna Unzueta's Tools for Life: Engaging a politics of Labour within the Art Institution'. In Edinburgh Companion to Curatorial Futures, Edinburgh University Press.

Media

BBC Radio 4, 2022. 'Taxi Drivers'.

Journal Articles

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Hunt, A., 2024. 'Atiéna R. Kilfa', Artforum International, January 2024.

Singleton, H., 2024. 'On the Hill: Representations and retellings of the Pendle Witches' history within the rural landscape of Lancashire, England', Revenant, TBC (Forthcoming).

Hunt, A., 2024. 'Stephen Willats', Artforum International.

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Hunt, A., 2023. 'Hannah Starkey', Artforum International, April 2023.

Hunt, A., 2023. 'Pam Glick', Artforum International, November 2023.

Hunt, A., 2022. 'Allison Katz', Artforum International, May 2022.

Hunt, A., 2022. 'Minor painting: Outsiders and outliers', Journal of Contemporary Painting, 8 (1), pp. 3-29.

Non-Peer Reviewed Articles

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Conference Papers

Child, D., 2023. ''Considering Art's "Building Site" for Production Studies: The Case of Art Fabrication'', Simpósio Internacional de Estudos da Produção: Aquitetura, Projecto s Canteiro, Centro Mariantonia da USP, São Paulo, Brazi, 4/4/2023 - 5/4/2023.

Child, D., 2023. 'A Question of Class: Marxist Art History in the UK', (De)Politicising Art Studies. Marxist Traditions since 1968, Technical University Berlin, 10/11/2023 - 11/11/2023.

Warstat, A., 2023. 'Seeing Nothing – Empathy and Invisibility (Or “Blackness is the site where absolute nothingness and the world of things converge', 16/11/2023 - 15/12/2023.

Warstat, A., 2022. 'Exhausting metaphor – Andrea Fisher and the infinitely deferred image', Times of Metaphor : A Symposium on the Temporal, Metaphorical, and the Still and Moving Image, Royal College of Art, 8/7/2022.

Other Outputs

Simpson, ES., White, B., 2024. 'Auditory Learning'.

Biswas-Rodgers, S., 2024. 'Flights of Passage by Sutapa Biswas. Part of RadioCity2014/15, Tate Britain'.

White, B., Simpson, E., 2023. 'Toward Usership: Collaborative data mining in an orchestra's record collection.'.