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may
We invite you to see 'Where are you from originally?', an exhibition exploring race, identity, belonging and heritage.
Opening: Friday 3rd April 2026
Last date to view : Sunday 31st May 2026
‘Where are you from originally?’ takes its title from a question that is often framed as casual curiosity, yet carries the weight of assumption, belonging, and exclusion.
For many, it is a question that refuses a simple answer. The artists in this exhibition respond not by offering fixed origins, but by revealing identity as layered, shifting, and deeply personal. Here, identity is explored through race, religion, language, memory, and lived experience. Some artists draw on ancestral histories and inherited traditions; others examine migration and the spaces between cultures. Heritage appears not as a single point of origin, but as something negotiated, shaped by family stories, faith practices, and colonial histories.
‘Where are you from originally?’ invites viewers to reflect on how questions of origin are asked, and who is expected to answer them. Who gets to belong without explanation, and who is repeatedly asked to justify their presence? Through textiles, sculpture, photography, moving image, and painting, the artists explore their relationship to this question and its significance to their own identities.
Curator Domino Panton-Oakley assembles Yorkshire-based artists of mixed global identities, all of which use identity as a theme in their work. Featuring Penny Moe, Saira Baig, and including newly commissioned and never-before-seen work by Shaun Connell, Saba Siddiqui and Hijab Zainab, rather than resolving the question “where are you from originally?”, the artists ask us to listen more closely, to sit with complexity, and to recognise that identity is not a destination but an ongoing process.
Please also take with you a ‘Where are you from originally?’ zine, developed by artist and facilitator Mussarat Rahman, and designed by Kelvin Chan. The zine includes responses from those who have experienced this question, had their identity questioned, or questioned their own identity. It includes honest responses to the questions and offers new insights into the exploration of identity.
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Plenty at the Square
Running: Friday 3rd April 2026 February - 24th May 2026
Caroline is an artist based in Bingley known for her captivating detailed drawings of local townscapes.
Inspired by her surroundings, she is drawn to, and loves to draw, the unique architecture and landmarks that shape the places around her. She likes to capture the contrast between old and new buildings that tell a story about a town’s history and its current day life.
Before beginning a drawing Caroline visits each place and takes her own photographs, this way she can identify key features and get close ups or different angles of anything that interests her. Then using these images as reference she drafts each composition in pencil before filling in the details freehand in black pen to form her unique townscapes.
Exploring this style she has built up a collection of drawings featuring towns across Bradford and Yorkshire.
See more of her work at:
Solo exhibition of paintings by John Allcock
Compelled by bad weather to take a break from a climbing trip in northern Spain, John
Allcock came across a group of ancient hermitages in the hills above Potes. Fascinated by
the idea of the hermit’s withdrawal from the secular world, he gathered reference material
which became a series of paintings on his return to the UK. The result is this series of
fourteen images in mixed media.
09may(may 9)10:00 am30(may 30)3:00 pmSet ApartSolo exhibition of paintings by John Allcock
june
Come down for the highly awaited Year 10 Art show at Beckfoot Thornton school!
Students from year 10 art classes at Beckfoot Thornton have been working on a variety of different projects this year.
For this show, students have expressed themselves through three different themes; Recyclable, Abstract, and Monument.
With the chance to do anything desired to respond to chosen themes, students have created work in a variety of ways. Please explore our sculptures, paintings and many more.
Please feel free to sign the visitors book to let us know what you think!
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Join us for the launch of the South Square Centre Collage Club Exhibition!
South Square Collage Club emerged from an online collage workshop during a socially restricted Covid period in May 2021 for World Collage Day. People all over the world joined in supported by remote hosts in South Square Centre and Exeter.. The local participants decided to continue in person once that was possible. Four years later there's a lively evolving group who gather monthly in South Square Centre on a Saturday morning. The participants include people who are new to making art and people who have spent their lives creating. There's usually a theme linked to our interests but following it is entirely optional. There's a big selection of resources and a huge welcome to all.
This exhibition at Plenty of the Square includes a wonderful mix of the work the club have been creating over the past few weeks.
Last dater to view is Sunday 12th July.
Friday 5th June, 6pm – 9pm Join us for the launch of the South Square Centre Collage
Join us for the launch of the South Square Centre Collage Club Exhibition!
South Square Collage Club emerged from an online collage workshop during a socially restricted Covid period in May 2021 for World Collage Day. People all over the world joined in supported by remote hosts in South Square Centre and Exeter.. The local participants decided to continue in person once that was possible. Four years later there’s a lively evolving group who gather monthly in South Square Centre on a Saturday morning. The participants include people who are new to making art and people who have spent their lives creating. There’s usually a theme linked to our interests but following it is entirely optional. There’s a big selection of resources and a huge welcome to all.
This exhibition at Plenty of the Square includes a wonderful mix of the work the club have been creating over the past few weeks.
Last dater to view is Sunday 12th July.
more
Costing the Earth aims to highlight the negative and damaging environmental effects of fast fashion on our planet and the small actions we can do to make a positive difference.
Costing the Earth is a group show presenting artwork of artists Mandy Barker, Alice Fox, Hannah Lamb and Atiyya Mirza, amplifying different ways artists are tackling the climate crisis. The four artists work with recycled or sustainably sourced materials to create photographic images, sculpture and textile artworks.
The cornerstone to Costing the Earth is Mandy Barker’s Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections, a homage to the work of pioneering botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871) using a Victorian photographic process. Through this body of work Barker hopes to raise awareness of fast fashion, synthetic clothes, and the harmful effect of microfibres in the oceans.
Mandy collected fragments of disregarded synthetic clothing from 121 beaches, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End, highlighting that no coastline is exempt from plastic pollution. The items found range from jackets to dressing-up outfits, football shirts to underwear, salvaged from beaches, rockpools and directly from the sea. The items are representative of millions of tonnes of clothes manufactured and discarded each year.
Mandy Barker says, “It is my intention that conversation around Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections will lead to action and a shift within the fashion industry, with the aim of achieving an impact that will go on to change the world.”
Alice Fox looks at technical innovation while also revisiting ancient and Indigenous technologies that could shape a more sustainable future. Alice’s artwork explores the idea of creating a safety net for the world, using different materials for net making, from repurposed polyester fabric to hand twisted string from allotment grown plant fibres.
Great Women Chilling, a playful textile piece by Atiyya Mirza, explores womanhood, empowerment, independence and identity, inspired by the women in Mirza’s family. Atiyya uses scrap fabrics she has collected over many years and found materials, exploring ways of working sustainabily when creating artwork.
Fragments of a Dress draws from the precious scraps of clothing associated with the Brontë family, especially Charlotte Brontë, in the collection at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Hannah Lamb invited visitors to the museum to share stories about a significant item of clothing that they treasure, leaving a hand written note about the item and what it means to them. These touching and highly personal responses have been carefully embroidered onto silk organza, overlapping and layering a mesh of memories.
Hannah Lamb says, “Textiles and clothing can hold powerful memories, reminding us of people, places and special moments in our lives. Today, despite living in world of ‘fast-fashion’ and disposable attitudes to clothing, many of us still keep hold of things that help us to remember.”
The four artists have been invited to present existing work that reflects the exhibition’s broader vision of encouraging reuse, repurposing, and recycling.
Costing the Earth is an Impressions Gallery offsite exhibition in partnership with South Square Centre, part of Impression’s Summer of Sustainability.
Curated by Jane Hiley.
Image credit top: Gigartina Sunday, Photographs of British Algae, Cyanotype Imperfections © Mandy Barker
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Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th June 2026
The third Thornton Art Trail takes place over the weekend of 6 - 7th June 2026. Visitors will find a huge variety of art and activities in a range of venues. There’s art in private houses, workshops in galleries, open studios, open-air art demonstrations and much more. The trail can be started at any point. The total distance of a circuit is around a mile.
Find out more about the whole event here: THORNTON ART TRAIL
What are South Square doing at Thornton Art Trail?
Open Studios //
Many of the artists and creators onsite at South Square will have an open doors to their studios. Come in, take a look at their work, chat directly to the artists, and see their creative spaces.
Costing The Earth - Curators Talk with Jane Hiley // Main Gallery
Join curator Jane Hiley in discussing the exhibition in the Main Gallery, Costing The Earth.
12pm - 2pm
Art Doctors // South Square and around Thornton
The Art Doctors think creativity can be good for you. They playfully break down barriers to participation in the arts and explore the positive role of creativity in all our lives.
Through playful conversation and consultation, they prescribe art works and creative activities that might make you feel better, help you to navigate the challenges of creative endeavour, and feel more confident talking about contemporary art.
They'll be in and around South Square, helping all you patients in need of some art medicine!
Times TBC confirmed
Charlotte Brontë - Senseless Trash tour // Sapgate Gardens to Brontë Birthplace
Join Charlotte Brontë on a phonic field trip over the Yorkshire Moors and listen in to the sounds that shaped the Brontë sisters’ lives. The howling winds at Top Withens, tranquil trickling of nearby waterfalls and the angelic tones of…Beyoncé will accompany you on your journey. Senseless Trash from beginning to end - don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Oh, and keep your wits about you, for there are beasts on those moors…
This event is held in partnership with The Brontë Birthplace.
Age guidance 12+. Audiences use silent disco headphones. Some walking/moving required (around 0.1 mile)
Times: 11am (Book for 11am) and 1:30pm (Book for 1:30pm)
Location: Meet at Sapgate Gardens
Performance by Philip Codd - In The Stone Tree Shadows // Garden
Philip Codd is a filmmaker and composer. As a composer he works with any combination of instruments and electronics, often creating audio works using musique concrète techniques in which short audio samples are edited and manipulated.
In The Stone Tree Shadows uses audio clips created by scanning Patrick Whitehead’s prints of Bradford mills. These clips are then mangled and modified to create a sonic landscape of differing textures, rhythms and sonorities, with elements of the piece suggesting Bradford’s industrial past. The work will be performed using live electronics and fed through a surround sound diffusion speaker system.
Performances are in the garden at the back of South Square at 11:30, 13:00 and 14:30 on Saturday 6th and 12:30 and 14:00 on Sunday 7th June. The piece is 20 minutes in duration.
To visit Philip's website click here
More details to be shared soon!
july
Come down for the highly awaited Year 10 Art show at Beckfoot Thornton school!
Students from year 10 art classes at Beckfoot Thornton have been working on a variety of different projects this year.
For this show, students have expressed themselves through three different themes; Recyclable, Abstract, and Monument.
With the chance to do anything desired to respond to chosen themes, students have created work in a variety of ways. Please explore our sculptures, paintings and many more.
Please feel free to sign the visitors book to let us know what you think!
","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled"}Join us for the launch of the South Square Centre Collage Club Exhibition!
South Square Collage Club emerged from an online collage workshop during a socially restricted Covid period in May 2021 for World Collage Day. People all over the world joined in supported by remote hosts in South Square Centre and Exeter.. The local participants decided to continue in person once that was possible. Four years later there's a lively evolving group who gather monthly in South Square Centre on a Saturday morning. The participants include people who are new to making art and people who have spent their lives creating. There's usually a theme linked to our interests but following it is entirely optional. There's a big selection of resources and a huge welcome to all.
This exhibition at Plenty of the Square includes a wonderful mix of the work the club have been creating over the past few weeks.
Last dater to view is Sunday 12th July.
Friday 5th June, 6pm – 9pm Join us for the launch of the South Square Centre Collage
Join us for the launch of the South Square Centre Collage Club Exhibition!
South Square Collage Club emerged from an online collage workshop during a socially restricted Covid period in May 2021 for World Collage Day. People all over the world joined in supported by remote hosts in South Square Centre and Exeter.. The local participants decided to continue in person once that was possible. Four years later there’s a lively evolving group who gather monthly in South Square Centre on a Saturday morning. The participants include people who are new to making art and people who have spent their lives creating. There’s usually a theme linked to our interests but following it is entirely optional. There’s a big selection of resources and a huge welcome to all.
This exhibition at Plenty of the Square includes a wonderful mix of the work the club have been creating over the past few weeks.
Last dater to view is Sunday 12th July.
more
Costing the Earth aims to highlight the negative and damaging environmental effects of fast fashion on our planet and the small actions we can do to make a positive difference.
Costing the Earth is a group show presenting artwork of artists Mandy Barker, Alice Fox, Hannah Lamb and Atiyya Mirza, amplifying different ways artists are tackling the climate crisis. The four artists work with recycled or sustainably sourced materials to create photographic images, sculpture and textile artworks.
The cornerstone to Costing the Earth is Mandy Barker’s Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections, a homage to the work of pioneering botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871) using a Victorian photographic process. Through this body of work Barker hopes to raise awareness of fast fashion, synthetic clothes, and the harmful effect of microfibres in the oceans.
Mandy collected fragments of disregarded synthetic clothing from 121 beaches, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End, highlighting that no coastline is exempt from plastic pollution. The items found range from jackets to dressing-up outfits, football shirts to underwear, salvaged from beaches, rockpools and directly from the sea. The items are representative of millions of tonnes of clothes manufactured and discarded each year.
Mandy Barker says, “It is my intention that conversation around Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections will lead to action and a shift within the fashion industry, with the aim of achieving an impact that will go on to change the world.”
Alice Fox looks at technical innovation while also revisiting ancient and Indigenous technologies that could shape a more sustainable future. Alice’s artwork explores the idea of creating a safety net for the world, using different materials for net making, from repurposed polyester fabric to hand twisted string from allotment grown plant fibres.
Great Women Chilling, a playful textile piece by Atiyya Mirza, explores womanhood, empowerment, independence and identity, inspired by the women in Mirza’s family. Atiyya uses scrap fabrics she has collected over many years and found materials, exploring ways of working sustainabily when creating artwork.
Fragments of a Dress draws from the precious scraps of clothing associated with the Brontë family, especially Charlotte Brontë, in the collection at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Hannah Lamb invited visitors to the museum to share stories about a significant item of clothing that they treasure, leaving a hand written note about the item and what it means to them. These touching and highly personal responses have been carefully embroidered onto silk organza, overlapping and layering a mesh of memories.
Hannah Lamb says, “Textiles and clothing can hold powerful memories, reminding us of people, places and special moments in our lives. Today, despite living in world of ‘fast-fashion’ and disposable attitudes to clothing, many of us still keep hold of things that help us to remember.”
The four artists have been invited to present existing work that reflects the exhibition’s broader vision of encouraging reuse, repurposing, and recycling.
Costing the Earth is an Impressions Gallery offsite exhibition in partnership with South Square Centre, part of Impression’s Summer of Sustainability.
Curated by Jane Hiley.
Image credit top: Gigartina Sunday, Photographs of British Algae, Cyanotype Imperfections © Mandy Barker
","eventStatus":"https://schema.org/EventScheduled"}august
Costing the Earth aims to highlight the negative and damaging environmental effects of fast fashion on our planet and the small actions we can do to make a positive difference.
Costing the Earth is a group show presenting artwork of artists Mandy Barker, Alice Fox, Hannah Lamb and Atiyya Mirza, amplifying different ways artists are tackling the climate crisis. The four artists work with recycled or sustainably sourced materials to create photographic images, sculpture and textile artworks.
The cornerstone to Costing the Earth is Mandy Barker’s Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections, a homage to the work of pioneering botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871) using a Victorian photographic process. Through this body of work Barker hopes to raise awareness of fast fashion, synthetic clothes, and the harmful effect of microfibres in the oceans.
Mandy collected fragments of disregarded synthetic clothing from 121 beaches, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End, highlighting that no coastline is exempt from plastic pollution. The items found range from jackets to dressing-up outfits, football shirts to underwear, salvaged from beaches, rockpools and directly from the sea. The items are representative of millions of tonnes of clothes manufactured and discarded each year.
Mandy Barker says, “It is my intention that conversation around Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections will lead to action and a shift within the fashion industry, with the aim of achieving an impact that will go on to change the world.”
Alice Fox looks at technical innovation while also revisiting ancient and Indigenous technologies that could shape a more sustainable future. Alice’s artwork explores the idea of creating a safety net for the world, using different materials for net making, from repurposed polyester fabric to hand twisted string from allotment grown plant fibres.
Great Women Chilling, a playful textile piece by Atiyya Mirza, explores womanhood, empowerment, independence and identity, inspired by the women in Mirza’s family. Atiyya uses scrap fabrics she has collected over many years and found materials, exploring ways of working sustainabily when creating artwork.
Fragments of a Dress draws from the precious scraps of clothing associated with the Brontë family, especially Charlotte Brontë, in the collection at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Hannah Lamb invited visitors to the museum to share stories about a significant item of clothing that they treasure, leaving a hand written note about the item and what it means to them. These touching and highly personal responses have been carefully embroidered onto silk organza, overlapping and layering a mesh of memories.
Hannah Lamb says, “Textiles and clothing can hold powerful memories, reminding us of people, places and special moments in our lives. Today, despite living in world of ‘fast-fashion’ and disposable attitudes to clothing, many of us still keep hold of things that help us to remember.”
The four artists have been invited to present existing work that reflects the exhibition’s broader vision of encouraging reuse, repurposing, and recycling.
Costing the Earth is an Impressions Gallery offsite exhibition in partnership with South Square Centre, part of Impression’s Summer of Sustainability.
Curated by Jane Hiley.
Image credit top: Gigartina Sunday, Photographs of British Algae, Cyanotype Imperfections © Mandy Barker
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