May 2018
We are hosting a pop-up community arts exhibition “A Precarious Landscape” – which is looking at housing development in Preston and its surrounding villages, at our Waterside development in Cottam, Preston.
As part of In Certain Places’ The Expanded City project, artists Ian Nesbitt and Ruth Levene have invited residents of Preston and its surrounding villages to take part in an exhibition about how the outskirts of Preston and the land around the city is changing or has changed in the past.
The exhibition explores the relationships between people and place, city and surrounding landscape, through the lens of the people who live and work in Preston and includes prints, poems, maps, sound recordings, photographs and water colour paintings from the John Weld collection at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery.
Ian and Ruth collected submissions at greeting sessions at Preston Market and the Harris Museum and Art Gallery after a call out to the general public. The specially mounted exhibition opens on Thursday 17 May at 12.30pm.
A special exhibition viewing will also take place on Wednesday 16 May as part of Lie of the Land – a day of artworks, presentations and conversations about our relationship to the land hosted by In Certain Places. Drawing on research undertaken by artists in The Expanded City programme, the symposium will explore how our everyday lives are shaped by the ownership, management and development of land.
The Expanded City is a three-year programme of artistic research, interventions and events, designed to inform a series of planned infrastructure projects on the outskirts of Preston. Part of Preston’s ‘City Deal’ – a central government initiative which aims to encourage economic growth by addressing strategic infrastructure challenges – the scheme includes the creation of over 17,000 houses as well as new roads and amenities.
Sales Manager Clare Wilson said: “We are pleased to be working with In Certain Places and UCLAN at our Waterside development in Cottam, which is one of 11 strategic sites identified in the City Deal.
“It’s important to explore the relationship between people and the places in which we live in, and to see the changing landscape of Preston City and its surrounding area.
“We are delighted to host the exhibition in one of our executive four-bedroom homes at Waterside and hope that people will view our development at the same time as the exhibition.”
The exhibition will take place in plot 188 at Waterside in Cottam from Thursday 17 to Saturday 20 May from 12.30pm to 5.30pm.
