Islington Mill Art Academy & Becky Shaw at 'Trade City'

Islington Mill Art Academy are working with artist Becky Shaw on a project to be exhibited as part of 'Trade City', the inaugural project for Contemporary Art Manchester (CAM). Featuring a number of Manchester and UK premieres and new commissions, Trade City has generated innovative forms of exchange across the citys art scene.

Contemporary Art Manchester is a new, not-for-profit consortium of visual arts organisations, representing the breadth of the current contemporary arts infrastructure in Manchester, UK. In bringing together the art production of thirteen diverse organisations, Trade City reflects the trading and exchange that has taken place between the artists and curators partnering in CAM.

Becky Shaw makes work that explores the relationship between objects and people. This includes 'reverse engineering' a vodka bottle mould, and an investigation of the interweaving of human and material life in an aggregate floor tile (for Firstsite Newsite 09). In 1998 she received a doctorate, and since then has continued to work across academic and art production. Between 2000 and 2006 Shaw was Co-Director of Static Gallery, Liverpool; an organisation focused upon energising critical thinking in the city. She currently leads the MA Contemporary Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University.