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Thank you to everyone who came to the launch of the exhibition and French book launch, it was a splendid evening. Click here for some photographs from the installations across the public realm of Grandpré and the Abbey of Chéhéry.

I have now uploaded and added images from this experimental exhibition to the site, click here to see the project page

Rogue Project Space, Manchester | 22-28 January 2025 (by appointment)

We are proud to invite you to a private viewing of Nothing remained unchanged but the clouds, a pilot exhibition at Rogue Project Space, Manchester this January.

Inspired by a project Alan Ward started in the first Covid lockdown (2020) to identify the location of a WWI German photographic negative, Nothing remained unchanged but the clouds tells the story of community, rebuilding and memory in the small French town of Grandpré in the rural Ardennes.

Using the photographic negative and subsequent collecting of German postcards written home from Grandpré, Alan established an online repository of memory and artefact, aiming to reflect the importance of the town’s local and everyday history. Growing his connections and relationships with people now living in Grandpré, Alan has gone on to undertake a series of residencies supported by the municipal council. He has created pop-up studios, scripted an alternative artist walk of the town with academics from the UK and Germany, and resident’s shared their special places, familial memories, postcard collections and ephemera.

During 2023 Alan was granted Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice funding to further explore both professional and creative partnerships with a focus on this project. He has been working with artist Jeffrey Knopf and curator Mark Devereux to examine the liminal spaces of those postcards, the cross fertilisation of art, heritage and artefact, and consider how these inform an understanding of Grandpré’s past, present and future.

This pilot exhibition represents the first presentation of this brand-new body of work we are aiming to show in future resolved exhibitions across the UK. We would like to invite you to a private viewing of this exhibition, where we will be available to share further details and stories of the project. Collectively we are keen to hear your professional responses, critique and advice on the work and next steps for this fascinating project.

Rogue Project Space
Rogue Artists Studios
4 Barrass St
Openshaw
Manchester M11 1WP

Please email or call me at: alan@alanjward.co.uk | 07980305340
to arrange a time to visit the exhibition

During my year of DYCP in 2023, it became clear to me that I needed to update and refresh how I presented the work I’ve been involved in. Thanks to a collaboration with Leanda Ryan – someone I’ve worked with on numerous websites, including cambridgerules1848.com – I’m delighted to have a new virtual space to which I can add work, that now allows filtering by project and topic.

Going forward, I will also be adding book design work that I complete for other artists, galleries and institutions, as I bring the other strand of my worklife’s history ‘Axis’ to a close and focus on my studio practice.

Axis Projects Publishing will now be incorporated into this site and will continue to be serviced and developed here. We are just finalising how the e-commerce aspect of that will function, but books can still be purchased here until that switches over shortly.

Extremely pleased to say I am the lucky recipient of an Arts Council England ‘Develop Your Creative Practice’ (DYCP) grant for 2023.

DYCP will allow me to explore a more experimental output to my practice: combining new research, mentoring & practical skills. I’ll develop inclusive analogue & digital approaches to visual storytelling & establish a network of national & international partners for future collaborations, building strategies to support the sustainability of my long-term practice.

Focused on my interest in place, memory & the messages from a WWI postcard collection, I’ll undertake a residency in the French town of Grandpré, Ardennes to test new approaches within collaborative engagement. I’ll experiment with live performance, audio & film installations & how these can build potential for digital storytelling platforms in future projects. Documentation will be disseminated digitally & via pop-up installations for feedback/critique to help build an important legacy for future social art projects.

I’ll research my core themes, including visits to archive La Contemporaine, Paris; Anti-war Museum, Berlin & Postcards for Peace. Dr Corinne Painter (Intercultural Studies Lecturer, Leeds University), Lara-Marie Hägerling, (Technische Universität Braunschweig) & Prof Matthew Jefferies (Programme Director German Studies, Manchester University) will provide translation expertise and cultural context to increase the conceptual rigour & build relationships for future commissions.

I’ll complete training in virtual platform storytelling & coding: audio production & editing; video techniques, editing & integration. Mark Devereux Projects will provide mentoring to reflect on my practice development, build plans for future projects & establish a strategy for new opportunities.

Image: from La Vojo Returne residency.

Pleased to have two preparatory pieces from ‘La Vojo Returne’ selected for this on-line show during December.

Public Preview
14 May 3-5pm, Touchstones Rochdale
All Welcome

Last Sunday I was commissioned by Mid Pennine Arts to make a series of portraits of Clarion cyclists as they converged on the last Clarion House just north of Nelson in Lancashire. The weather held fair and it was a privilege to photograph over 90 cyclists who celebrated Clarion Sunday. Many of these riders have contributed data of their journeys. In some instances they also photographed or filmed their rides for me to look at and consider for the limited edition bookwork I am now making. All participants will be included and many contributed their thoughts on the importance of the Clarion’s cultural heritage. This commission is part of Pendle Radicals, a wider look at radical thinkers and activists who have shaped not only the local landscape but the nation. I was also commissioned to mark these people and their importance with a series of stone etched panels. The Clarion panel is at the bottom of these images from the day.

As a devotee of cycling culture and fashion, I designed a special musette for each cyclist, with the declaration #I_Am_Clarion emblazoned on it – filled with Clarion and Pendle Radicals goodies. Now I will begin to reflect on the day, process the portraits and produce a lasting document celebrating the Clarion cycling movement and its Socialist roots – to be added to the musette! As the beautiful banner says ‘Fellowship is Life’, ‘Socialism the Hope of the World’.

My #I_Am_Clarion commission comes under the umbrella project ‘Pendle Radicals’ by Mid Pennine Arts, check out the beautiful etched stone panels I created for the wider project which feature in this episode of Songs of Praise.

The panels were etched for us by Scribblestone near Halifax, who worked on my previous Cambridge Rules 1848 commission. Using a warm local stone to reflect the environment they are set in, they mark key locations that are touched by Radical Thinkers from Pendle’s past.

I believe I get a small walk on part, but haven’t seen the rushes so can’t confirm this!

Pendle Radicals will be airing on Sunday 12^th Sept at 1.45pm on BBC One and will be available to watch online afterwards @  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000zp4l

Updated clip link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09vm2pb

We are reaching the point in the project where the final stone will be installed in Egypt and the book can be printed and published. There will be more images and announcements about this shortly.

This image shows the extent of the publication, 800pp in 32pp sections. It will be exposed bound, so I’ve been experimenting with adding details to the sections that can be read once bound. It will be a miniature scale version of the sculpture with a sleeve. Here, the sections have been squeezed between two pieces of sample stone for the sculpture.

Clarion Sunday 2021
Sunday 13 June
The Fellowship of the Wheel (working title)
An artist’s project by Alan Ward to celebrate this unique and historic event.

We are looking forward to seeing you next year, it is disappointing that Clarion Sunday hasn’t been able to happen this year, as I’d been looking forward to working alongside MPA, to create an artist engagement with your cycling community. By way of a small homage to the rides you would have made, I have created a little lockdown virtual ride to Clarion House from my home in South Manchester.

Just prior to the shutdown, I’d purchased a gravel bike to begin to explore a little more off tarmac. My ride encompasses some of those surfaces, as I make my way through Greater Manchester. The film was made using a mapmyride plotted route, which was imported into the wonders of the Google Earth app. It’s a little bit of fun and references the fly-throughs of TDF stage previews and dreaded spin classes.

For Clarion Sunday 2021, we want to make your day a bit more special, and offer you something to remember it by.

I am an artist, photographer and designer, but also a devotee of cycling culture. I would like to document your club rides to Clarion House next year, using the data provided by tools like Strava and Garmin, and include photographs and notes from the journey to Jinny Lane. Between now and then I will be seeking your help with planning this. On Clarion Sunday 2021, I will be present to take a formal portrait of each rider with their mount, using a pop-up studio, and MPA will thank participants with a small one-off memento of Clarion Sunday to take away. Afterwards, I will assemble and interpret all the material gathered into a limited edition publication, and each participant will be sent a copy, with MPA’s compliments.

If you are interested in taking part you can contact me by email 

Clarion Sunday is already a very special event. Through this project, we want to capture some of that, and give your members something unique to remember it by. We hope you will be willing to help, because we can’t do it without your participation. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you next year!

——

MPA is an arts and culture charity working in Pennine Lancashire. Our project Pendle Radicals is a part of a programme to celebrate the Pendle Hill area. Pendle Radicals explores the stories of the nonconformists, dissenters, independent thinkers and change makers who have been drawn to this rugged, rural landscape over the centuries.  From the founder of the Quakers, who had his vision at the Pendle summit, to campaigners for women’s suffrage and the pioneers of the Labour movement.

Clarion House is a central point for many of those stories, and a special place for Pendle Radicals.  One extraordinary tale is the 125+ year narrative of the Clarion movement and the National Clarion Cycling Club. What we want to do, though, is capture a snapshot of today’s living tradition of Clarion Cycling, your club, your members, and their ride on 13 June 2021.

Pendle Radicals is a part of the Pendle Hill Landscape partnership programme, made possible by support from National Lottery Heritage Fund.

See also: https://pendleradicals.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/clarion-sunday/

Inevitably, things are being cancelled and delayed.

I should have been completing a commission with Mid Pennine Arts to create a celebratory engagement with the National Clarion Cycling Club on Sunday 14 June. 

This will now take place in 2021 on Sunday 13 June.

The working title for this commission is ‘The Fellowship of the Wheel’, and I will explore the journeys and landscapes of rides to the last Clarion House at Roughlee, Lancashire.

Clarion Cycling Clubs from across the North and North-West regions will converge at Roughlee, recording data from their rides for me.

On the day I’ll be using a pop-up photographic studio to complete a series of formal portraits of riders and their bikes. Along with the data, stories and incidental photographs gathered from each club, I will then create a limited edition artist publication of the living tradition of Clarion Cycling for each participant.

“The beauties of the countryside could be enjoyed by mere possession of the magic wheel …
Hence, Socialist Cycling Clubs, the product of fellowship and mutual help, sprang into existence all over the country.”

Tom Tyas, Handforth Clarion (pre-First World War quote)

Mid Pennine Arts is an arts and culture charity working in Pennine Lancashire. This commission is funded by Pendle Radicals, part of a programme to celebrate the Pendle Hill area. Pendle Radicals explores the stories of the nonconformists, dissenters, independent thinkers and change makers who have been drawn to this rugged, rural landscape over the centuries.

Image: self-portrait from ‘Grimpeur’ a previous cycling project.

I was also due to speak at the ARA National Conference about Photographs from Another Place, however The Archives and Records Association have postponed their conference until 2021 (date to be confirmed).

I was going to be presenting a paper with my daughter, Bethan, on our approach to research and how we went about initially interpreting the Gearing photographic archive, which then informed my work.

Image: From pop-up studio that featured in ‘Place’, Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, December 2019.
Place was the engagement strand of Photographs from Another Place.