The names of the artists and projects who have received Homemakers commissions via HOME’s open call for North West artists have been announced.
The four selected commissions include three from Manchester – sound artist and nature beatboxer Jason Singh working with composer Katie Chatburn, who will be creating a film and music collaboration; multidisciplinary artist Christian Asare in partnership with Black Gold Arts, creating a series of portraits of the eight members of the Manchester based House of Noir; and contemporary theatre and live art-maker James Monaghan, whose live-streamed durational experience will invite the audience into the homes of four different artists over the course of 12 hours. The fourth commission goes to Liverpool theatre company Ugly Bucket, who use physical comedy, clowning and music to confront difficult topics.
Jennie McCusker, Head of Talent Development at HOME, said: “We had an incredible response to our Open Call, with over 100 artists submitting some fantastic ideas. It was so difficult to take this down to just the four successful ideas, but we are so excited to share these new works with our audiences and provide a platform for North West artists at this very difficult time.”
North West artists
Jason Singh and Katie Chatburn’s unique collaboration is a film and accompanying soundtrack generated entirely by plants highlighting their beauty and energy and providing a beautifully artistic insight into their behaviour. Jason Singh has worked with a huge range of organisations, including Kew Gardens, the BBC and Tate Britain. Katie Chatman founded Ignition Orchestra, who are part of the Garage Classical project, and performed to sell out audiences at venues including The Barbican, Eventim Apollo and The Royal Albert Hall.
Christian Asare is a black British multidisciplinary artist of Ghanaian heritage, who paints fine art in oils, with a focus on uplifting afrocentric imagery, afrofuturism, portraiture and abstraction. Christian is also a contemporary dancer, poet, writer, fashion and interior designer.
Christian’s series will highlight eight members of QTIPOC community group House of Noir’s creative contributions to the enrichment of the LGBTQ+ community in Manchester. As well as the portraits, Christian will document his process via live art sharings, and lead online vogue dance tutorials.
The work is created in partnership with Black Gold Arts, the Manchester-based organisation who work predominantly with working-class people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community and their allies.
In the last five years James Monaghan has gained a reputation as a critical collaborative voice, devising & performing with high-profile companies including Quarantine, Common Wealth & Blast Theory.
His Homemakers commission, Let’s Spend the Night Together sees four performers invite the audience into their homes and dreams as they try to build, imagine and perform the rest of their lives in the confines of their home in just one evening.
Ugly Bucket will be making a verbatim based absurdist short film titled ABC, Anything But Covid, and will be asking people to share their stories of how they’ve been keeping themselves amused during isolation to form part of the film The company were last seen at HOME at this year’s PUSH Festival, and their short film Good Grief was featured on BBC Stories.
Project expands nationwide
The Open Call announcement is the latest development in the project, which has already seen brand-new works by Bryony Kimmings, Ad Infinitum, Chris Thorpe and Yusra Wasarma and Plaster Cast Theatre made available online.
Last week it was announced that the Homemakers project would expand nationwide, with additional commissioning partners including Oldham Coliseum Theatre, Z-arts and STUN, ARC Stockton, Cambridge Junction, Candoco Dance Company, Chinese Arts Now, Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, Lime Pictures, Music Theatre Wales and London Sinfonietta.
Artists working on the new partner commissions include Chad Taylor, Hafsah Aneela Bashir, Vici Wreford-Sinnott, Zoe Svendsen, Hannah Jane Walker, Jo Bannon, Naomi Sumner Chan, Anna Brownsted, Seiriol Davies and Matthew Blake, and Elayce Ismail and Alex Ho.
All projects will be made available on HOME’s website on a pay-what-you-can basis. They will be made accessible to the widest possible audience through captioning, audio description, and providing relaxed versions where appropriate.
To find out more, or buy tickets for the Homemakers commissions now publicly available, click here.