Last night, The Lowry began their Week 53 art festival with a celebration of art designed for those with an unorthodox taste.

Spanning over 12 days and featuring over 100 artists and 70 performances, the festival at The Lowry will include the work of many artists including Belgian artist Tom Dekyvere’s full physical model of the human nervous system. Fat Roland is also presenting presenting his one man show entitled ‘Seven Inch’ which tells the story of a man marooned in a record shop all his life and Madhouse re:exit, who’s focus is making art inclusive for all.

A briefing of ‘Nervous’ by Tom Dekyvere.

A common theme explored by all these pieces is ‘the coming of age’. Madhouse: Re;exit executive producer Patrick Collier said, “We attract people who want something different than sitting in a traditional black box theater.” Mr Collier also said. “I think it’s important that different voices are heard when it comes to art because that sadly is still a problem.”

 

Megan Marie Griffith, executive producer of Girl Gang Manchester explained to me that Girl Gang first began in Sheffield after one of her friends wanted to break the stigma of a ‘boys club’ mentality.

 

 

Progressive art is also a large theme on the festival, with Teentalitarianism focusing on bringing together the younger and older generation. Described as “social-specific” performances, TeenTal offer the chance for older and younger generations to converse meaningfuelly about taboo subjects such as drug use. “We think it’s important to break down the barrier between these generations like why should it be taboo to have inter-generational conversations about topics such as drug use?”

 

The festival is set to feature different shows at different parts of the day, as a way to allow a variety of different artists to show off their talents. Click here to view all showings.

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