Abstract
On Smoke: Remembrance & Reclamation is an interdisciplinary, practice research project comprising photographic portraits and a film installation. Commissioned by PROFORMA Arts on behalf of Manchester City Council for European Capital of Culture: Chemnitz 2025, it marks 40 years of the twin-city partnership between Manchester, UK, and Chemnitz, Germany.
Manchester and Chemnitz have been twin cities since 1983 and are both recognized for their textile-based industrial heritage. Today, with populations of 618,800 and 243,000 respectively, they maintain a cultural exchange program featuring artist exchanges, civic collaborations, exhibitions, conferences and public events.
Research Questions:
1. In what ways do residents of Manchester and Chemnitz perceive and reflect on their shared histories as twin cities and former industrial hubs undergoing post-industrial transformation?
2. In what ways do literary and cinematic tropes of the past, such as smoke, symbolize and convey the shared histories of Manchester and Chemnitz as twin cities navigating post-industrial transformation?
3. In what ways can performative art methods innovate photographic practices in order to bring to life and visualize the shared histories of Manchester and Chemnitz as twin cities?
This research project aims to explore the shared and intertwined histories of Manchester and Chemnitz by examining the collective memories of the cities’ residents. Research methods integrate interviews, roundtable discussions, and workshops with performance and lens-based practices that employ smoke as a symbolic device to visualize the past.
In the photographic portraits and a film installation smoke serves as a metaphor for the shared industrial legacies of both cities, shaped by their manufacturing heritage, where it was a defining byproduct of production. Simultaneously, smoke functions as a visual metaphor for the impermanence and transient nature of memory. By intertwining the shared industrial histories of the cities with the ephemeral materiality of smoke, this research project demonstrates how the identities of these cities are shaped not only by tangible, documented events but also by the subjective and fleeting experiences of their communities.
Situated within the expanded field of chronopolitical art, this research project adopts an interdisciplinary theoretical framework. It combines critical theory, temporal aesthetics, and memory politics with performance and lens-based practices as employed in cinema, and the visual arts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
| Publisher | Leeds University Press |
| Publication status | Unpublished - 12 Sept 2024 |
Bibliographical note
On Smoke: Remembrance & Reclamation is a practice research project exploring the intertwined histories of Manchester and Chemnitz through the collective memories of the city’s civic past by their residents.Practice research demonstrates how live performance can be applied to the photographic process to create a series of participatory art portraits. The methodology extends the concept of the portrait, by creating an milieu in which the camera captures the moment the sitter exhales and releases smoke. The resultant portraits present a disrupted and obscured representations of the sitter as they reflect of their cities past.
On Smoke: Remembrance & Reclamation establishes a new form of performative/ photographic image making providing insights into how collective memory is shaped - in the mind’s eye – by visual tropes of the past as defined in cinema. Additionally, it underscores the significance of creative practices—especially performance and lens-based media—in exploring the influence of cinema on the formation of collective memory. These mediums serve as powerful tools to evoke emotions, bridge historical and contemporary contexts, and foster shared experiences that contribute to a communal understanding of the past.
Additional Information
This research project comprises several components, including a series of photographic portraits and a film installation, which have been exhibited on multiple occasions including:
· 2023: On Smoke: Remembrance & Reclamation at Manchester/Chemnitz X40 - artist residency, performance/photographic workshop, and exhibition at Art Festival BEGEHUNGEN Gallery for the European Capital of Culture, Chemnitz, Germany.
· 2023: On Smoke: Remembrance & Reclamation at SALAD Collaborative Art Group (contributors from MMU, UCLAN, Coventry University, Manchester University) at Manchester Contemporary Art Fair, UK.
· 2024: Frantiskc – Chemnitz (2023) at Ventriloquism: The Lost Voice Spoken by Others exhibition at Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery, Rossendale, UK.
· 2024: Frantiskc – Chemnitz (2023) at SALAD Artists Exhibition at Manchester Contemporary Art Fair, UK.
In 2025, the series of photographic portraits will return to Chemnitz for the exhibition ‘C the Unseen’, at Garagen Campus gallery, Chemnitz, Germany as part of the European Capital of Culture 2025 programme. Furthermore, in the same year, a limited-edition artist book will be published by The Wild Pansy Press in the School of Fine Art, Art History and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds.
Funding
Direct funding came from PROFORMA Arts, Art Festival BEGEHUNGEN, Garagen Campus, and the School of Arts and Media, UCLAN. Indirect funding (via PROFORMA) came from Arts Council of England, European Capital of Culture: Chemnitz 2025, Manchester City Council, Cultural Strategy 2024–2034, SITEC Industrietechnologie GmbH, Volsbank Chemnitz eG, and University of Technology, Chemnitz.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Arts Council England | |
| SITEC and Volsbank Chemnitz eG | SITEC and Volsbank Chemnitz eG |
| PROFORMA Arts | |
| Art Festival BEGEHUNGEN | |
| Not added | |
| European Capital of Culture: Chemnitz 2025 | |
| Not added | |
| Manchester City Council | |
| Not added | |
| Garagen Campus | |
| University of Central Lancashire | |
| Chemnitz University of Technology |
Keywords
- Photography
- Film
- Participatory Art Practice
- Cultural Exchange
Themes
- Equality and Inclusion
- Migration (In)Equality and Belonging
