PAPER gallery - This Land is Our Land

Layla Curtis & John Angus - Oliver East - David Kefford - Sarah Evans - Sabine Kussmaul - Calum F Kerr - Joe Hancock - Dale Holmes - Reece Jones - Jane Lawson - Graham Lister - Katy Suggitt - Jill Townsley - Stephen Walter - Lisa Wilkens - Simon Woolham

As a starting point artists’ Stephen Walter and Simon Woolham have organised a walk, re-tracing a famous mass trespass to the summit of Kinder Scout in the Peak District. The walk, on 24 April 1932, was a notable act of wilful trespass by ramblers. It was undertaken to highlight the fact that walkers in England and Wales were denied access to areas of open country.

The artists have invited a number of contemporary artists, with a diversity of practices, to re-explore the meaning of place and myth in the act of pilgrimage whilst mirroring the socio-politic absurdity of today. A number of the artists will re-trace the history of the Kinder Scout walk but this time in the context of an anti-Brexit walk. The walk will be on 29 March 2019, the date the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, and will also act as an open invitation for those wanting to join in on the walk/demonstration.

In the aftermath of the event, the artists will make work in response and reference to this particular walk, or another project – inviting an overtly political stance, questioning both the effects of leaving the EU and what the term THIS LAND IS OUR LAND signifies today. The exhibition will happen at PAPER in Manchester alongside the alternative exhibition INTER-SECTION at Market Gallery in Huddersfield, a conversation between two sites. At Market Gallery there will be a presentation of artworks curated around artist-led initiatives and at PAPER the exhibition will present notes, drawings, and paper ephemera.

The works and ephemera in the exhibition combine photography and performance, drawing and sculpture, digital and analogue processes. The works are united, creating a meeting point, a conversation around the themes and premise of THIS LAND IS OUR LAND.