Category: Uncategorised

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’.