Elizabeth Wewiora

As part of the newly opened Paradise Works artist studio and exhibition space, I was invited to take part in their inaugural exhibition Politics of Paradise. After spending time with local residents connected to the near by River Irwell, I was invited to delve deeper into the surrounding area through a series of river based walks. After discovering the fallen fruits from apple trees on land opposite Paradise Works, I decided to respond with Rotten Apple. A forgotten object, loaded with references to nature and paradise, was transformed through analogue technologies and an urge from myself as the artist to return to the simplest of my own pleasures - colour darkroom processing.

Thanks to photographer Steve Iles for the installation shot for Politics of Paradise (work showcased alongside work by Kieran Leach, 2017). 

‘Record, Archive, Rewind’ was created in response to the recent news of the forthcoming closure and sale of Crusader Mill, current home to Rogue Artist Studios. The studio has 20-year history of occupying the Crusader Mill space, and at the time was my own studio base by 2018 will be developed into inner city apartments. 

The work was exhibited at the 2016 Rogue Open Studios, the last the building would ever host. The work attempts to blur the boundaries between a past and present narrative, and plays with the frictions between shifting technologies and industries that once existed within the building. As a photographer interested in the tensions between digital and analog, there is an analogy here, between labor and production – past and new. 

#Knitterfeed was a collaborative project between myself, artist Jennifer Steele, games programmer Tom Kinniburgh and the Cross Acres Craft Group, based at Age Concern Cross Acres, Wythenshawe, South Manchester and was part of the Hand Made programme commissioned by Future Everything 2012.

The project involved a two way skills exchange between the Craft group and the artists, where by new knitting and sowing skills were passed on from the group to myself and Jenny, whilst we supported the group to learn new online skills and digital communication. The project resulted in a series of public requested knitted items, ordered via twitter, which were then physically created and delivered back to those who made the original order.

A live #knitterfeed event took place at the Victoria Baths, where passing members of the public could learn new knitting skills, request via a live feed additional knitting items and view the works produced so far through this collaborative exchange.

The Things Between formed my 2008 Degree show, in BA Hons Photography at Glasgow School of Art. The work reflected 4 years of photography, focusing on how the medium often acts as the hidden space between subject/ object and viewer. A combination of staged images and the capturing of uncanny encounters, highlights how moments of beauty can often appear on the edge of reason and circumstance. I still continue to add to the series today…

All Images © Elizabeth Wewiora 2008-12

Familiar, “Insatiable demands for nostalgia”.

Familiar was an long term project (2008 onwards), which explored abandoned domestic spaces, or community centres recently undergoing their final closure. I am interested in what gets left behind, and where those communities if at all are invited to move on to. As the world moves faster, this body of work looked to capture moments of nostalgia before they were lost forever.

The work has expanded further to include re-appropriated and manipulated found materials and surface pattern designs from these domestic settings, an ever growing series of works, which exist as as wallpapers and textile fabrics. You can see the newly developed work here

All Images © Elizabeth Wewiora 2008-15

This body of work is created from salvaged slides of 1960s failed testing products and documentation of abandoned items from the basement of one of Manchester’s old Co-op buildings, Federation House.

As part of the Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces initiative the building was able to host a vast number of artist studios and project/ gallery spaces, bringing the once vacant space back to life. Unfortunately last year the space was sold on, and now it remains empty waiting, one again, to be re-animated by the next potential sector. The work acts as homage to production past and present. A representation of chains of activity now forgotten for this building, from the photographer who was responsible for collating and documented a series of failed products who would never make it to market, to myself as an photographer re-appropriating this imagery as a celebration of another photographer’s past.

The slides were taken from the basement upon hearing of our vacation, and again it was this sense of urgency which drove me to save something of its past.

The work tries to capture our relationship to space, and our labour within it, and is often created at the point of risk or potential loss. A selection of the work was showcased at Rogue artist open studios, October 2016.