MANCHESTER ARTISTS' BONFIRE. This is the project space for the 2012 research project, all pledges to the bonfire will be housed here.

EVENT: 26 January 2012. Bonfire 6-9pm, After Event 9pm-1am. Islington Mill, James Street, Salford.

From main page click bottom section (date) of image for full pledge.
Pledge #19 Fiona Ledgard. Website: http://www.mixcloud.com/anythinggoes Title of art work: Continued. Descripton of art work:  The current image is that of a work in progress. The final piece (before it is burned) will be multi-coloured, multi-faceted using a variety of media and possibly framed. Pledge: My love of making art ended 7 years ago. I haven’t done any art since leaving the oppressive private sixth form college I went to. The burning of my piece is to signify the fact that I have now finished a piece I wanted to make, that the art teachers wouldn’t allow. I have got back into making art as an expression, not as a means to an end, especially in the context of a frighteningly bleak future under the conservative cutbacks. I will continue to make art, empowering myself and others. I will not copy art that has been done before. I will have the confidence to take new things on and trust my own creativity. Having always had a love of making art (I used to draw nearly every morning as a child before my family woke up) I chose Art A Level on starting the new college. I came from a state school where the art teachers knew what they were talking about and continually tried to challenge us. I was instantly disgusted at the attitude of the college (exam technique and results, results, results) because parents were paying for the education and wanted to see the grades. This awfully limiting approach to teaching had infiltrated the art department. Ironic as it sounds, we were taught that art was not about expressing yourself; it was about knowing how to win the examiner over. Students were encouraged to do ‘artist appreciations’ looking to an artist of choice so that we could link our work to them. However the only way we could ‘relate’ was by choosing one piece by our chosen artist and using the same colours to make something new. Colours. I asked to speak with both of the art teachers privately to express my concerns because I had an idea about my art project about Women, I was enthusiastic and told them I wanted to smash a piece of glass into pieces and relate my work to Barbara Kruger’s ‘You Are Not Yourself’ (1984) Straight away one of them stopped me and said, ‘No no no Fiona, the work we do here is much more simple than that, you can’t go smashing things up.’ This is in the context of a supply art teacher working for a term at the school then having to leave, having had too many arguments with the 2 other teachers who literally would sit in students’ seats and do their work for them, even when we didn’t want them to take over. My friends and I regularly talked with this supply teacher about our shared disbelief at the system in place. Since leaving college in 2005 I haven’t done any art, not even painting and the lack of real education I got at the college made me feel less inclined to learn about up and coming artists because I didn’t know where to start. However at the start of 2011 things started to change. I’ve spent a lot of time around Islington Mill with my band Womb since we first rehearsed together that January. We did our first gig at the Artists’ Bonfire at the end of the month. The bonfire inspired me massively. I saw all different kinds of artists talking about their art unapologetically and I learned loads. Being around a diverse group of women in Womb has done me so much good over the past year. As well as making music with Womb, I have really got more in touch with my body, with meditation and my self-confidence has increased. Some of the band are artists and I have learned an invaluable amount from them and their confrontational art! I now have friends all around me who are pushing the boundaries in art, from using found objects to make sound art, to swinging bones around their head with a rope made of human hair, to making a plaque for someone’s garden bench with a sentimental message. I have witnessed many of my friends expressing things I would have never imagined seeing or feeling. And over the past few months I have been making things out of wax, wire; painting, sketching and taking photographs. I want to do so much more now and I want to celebrate the power we have in sharing experiences and sharing our art to inspire others. I hope to never underestimate my creative ability again or let another person stop me from enjoying making art. ‘You Are Not Yourself’ – can imply many meanings, but for me it relates to: *the governmental bullshit and lies *the consumerist society where money, material goods and results are more important than feelings and genuine expression *the art teachers that lied and failed to really educate young people, as A grades were more important than encouraging people to think for themselves I am burning this art as a protest against the unequal distribution of wealth in this society which perpetuates state, private, public and boarding schools; against hierarchies of power; against the institutionalisation of art; against the cuts and FOR the continuation of the arts in general. From now on, my art is about genuine expression, not a means to an end. To be continued.
169 ♥ / 21 January, 2012
Pledge #18 Jennifer McDonald. Practice: Artist/Musician Blog: http://jennifermcdonald1.wordpress.com/ Name of art work: Description of art work: Pledge:   I don’t want to burn anything. I want to create. I want to create even when there is nearly no respect for the artist. To create even when I have to break the law in order to be an artist. To create even when there is nothing much to be inspired by. create even when human inquisition seems to be at an all time low. To create when there is mostly shit art around me. To create even when I might alienate people I want to connect with. To create even when the work I’m making is sociopathic and destructive.
17 ♥ / 21 January, 2012
Pledge #17 Alexander Leistiko. Practice: Performance Artist | New Aktionist Blog: http://alexanderleistiko.wordpress.com/ Title of art work: Reaching- Description of art work: “I will always forgive her. I could never forgive you. I wish her a lifetime of happiness. I wish you an eternity of hate.” I will record my voice on to a dictaphone, and throw it into the bonfire as it plays back. The fire will consume|melt|warp my words until they are gone. It will offer me a chance to reflect on this act before I embark on the bigger aktion I am currently developing: Surfacing! Pledge: Reaching- is a prelude to Surfacing! Surfacing! is a performance/aktion I am developing, focussing on the Angry Young Man. It’s based heavily in autobiography, with specific reference to the last four months of my life: impossible love, suicide, depression, anxiety, terrible sex/lack thereof, stunted existence, betrayal, turning 20… It’s an attempt to exorcise from myself the perpetual violence, confusion and lust which is the core of the Angry Young Man. And it’s an attempt to somehow process the fact that I feel like a fucking cliché of my own age and gender – both concepts which I believe are little more than conditions we are forced into by the system and are hence undeserving of my respect or recognition. Surfacing! will culminate in me burning a soundscape and visual entity I will have created during the performance, consisting of a pile of speakers, things that will burn and a television. Into this entity, I will have poured all my hate, confusion, lust and frustration. (More details of Surfacing! available on alexanderleistiko.wordpress.com soon) Reaching- is a prelude to this aktion. It offers me a chance to create a smaller entity than the one I intend to create during Surfacing! and reflect on the act of burning it. I will be unable to address the same scope of ideas, and so will focus on just a couple of autobiographical events through the text I put in the “description of artwork”. Into the dictaphone, I will pour a small measure of the hate inside me. 
1 ♥ / 21 January, 2012
Pledge #16 Jared Szpakowski. Practice: Sculpture/Collage Blog: www.post-365.blogspot.com Title of art work: Box prototype 3 Description of art work: OSB & Pine box intended to house matchbox. About the size of a fist quenched in anger and frustration. Pledge: 2mm is not a lot, In most cases it would be irrelevant but in this case it was 2mm in the wrong direction, 2mm from glory. Measure twice cut once. Measure twice cut once.
16 ♥ / 21 January, 2012
Pledge #15 Rosanne Robertson. Practice: Visual/Live Artist. Website: www.rosannerobertson.art.officelive.com Title of art work: Work Apparatus Description of art work: White protective all in one suit and packaging from a pair of protective goggles used to carry out ‘Werk’ 2011- a live work that took place outside of FriedrichstadtPalast on Friedrichstr, Berlin. Available to view here http://youtu.be/GBaBoNl-OZo Pledge: My last pledge spoke of the constraints of painting for me. I burned the last painting I ever made (made in 2008) to symbolise no longer courting comfort. I didn’t expect to be talking about painting again come my next pledge. At the end of last year I went to Berlin as an artist and ended up painting a rich gallerist’s house and gallery for money. I was given the opportunity to go back to this gallery to do a project in the future. One of the ideas I had for this was to paint the gallery white again and investigate the difference between labour for pay and labour for art with no pay. The difference between painting doors and walls for money and painting doors and walls as a piece- is a frame of mind. In this context is it what I tell myself that makes this work or makes me an artist? Or what I portray and tell others that counts? I didn’t really tell people what I had been doing in Berlin- I suppose I was embarrassed. I shouldn’t have been painting and decorating- I should have been making work. At the end of the job I lost all energy for it and left it unfinished jeopardising how responsible the gallerist thought I was and therefore jeopardising my potential project in Berlin. I dumped my overalls and bought a new outfit. In this all in one white suit and goggles I went to the streets and made some work. It engaged people, got my heart racing, scared me and made me feel alive. It created something that wasn’t there before and it was on my own terms. This work involved me cleaning the dirty street outside of a very garish and shiny theatre whilst theatre goers who had come out during the interval watched me. Painting a gallery or cleaning the street can be valuable in different ways- including being of benefit to society- but when neither acts are done to please society, for practicality or money what does it mean anymore? The value of the act outside of the theatre was in the moment- in the brief interaction- the questioning. Under a new conservative government value is changing- an act has to benefit capital to be worthwhile. Services and benefits that are crucial to the more vulnerable in order to have acceptable quality of life are cut whilst those in power agree to privatise everything but Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. Private funding can buy a lot of things- it can buy a £10m flotilla on the Thames for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee but it doesn’t seem to be able to stop our young families in under privileged areas from living in poverty. Private money is being used to restate values, for example, Michael Gove has got a lock up of £400,000 worth of Bibles he is waiting to ship out with the right sponsorship/gift. This each man for himself ‘DIY’ structure to get your projects, values and traditions out there works fine if we lived in a more equal society but people can’t just pull in a £1m favour to legitimise their cause in the public eye. People are told to sustain their own services- DIY-volunteer only to find that if they do volunteer they can have their benefits taken off them unless they ‘volunteer’ for Aldi or Tesco. You can’t volunteer for the good of your less fortunate neighbour but you can volunteer for consumerism and if you don’t you won’t get any money. In short- whether we are willing or not- we are all getting a little bit more conservative as time wears on.    I started this event because I didn’t understand what it was going to mean to art to be re evaluated under a new government who’s values came down to materiality over people. I thought, and still think, that discussion, the sharing of information, independent thought and action and talking from the heart about what is important to us is the antidote. I think what has happened within art is exactly the same as what has happened outside of art. We have all become a little bit more conservative. The art ‘industry’ is already a microcosm of capitalism but within it there was/is the activity that rallies against- that questions- that looks to itself and takes risks. Risks teach us what we don’t know- instead of cherishing what we do- we need to always move on to seek the new. Risks aren’t valued in times when people feel protective over ‘their lot’ or their part of the art world. Artists get less support in taking risks, the institution that is trying to preserve its existence doesn’t move fast enough for an artist to identify with its values. As Susan Jones (activist and a-n magazine director) said at The Engage/Enquire International Conference “How can traditional compliance-led, risk-averse institutional models be the best vehicles for the level and depth of participation we are seeking for the arts to do their job effectively within society?”. I still don’t know what the answer is- and I didn’t start this thinking that I would. What I do know is that just as digging out old conservative values and traditions that alienate massive sections of our communities to try and sustain a new future isn’t going to work- that, in art, looking to the traditional and romanticising over the past isn’t going to work.  We all need to move on. Burn it, re think it- celebrate flux on our own terms. We need to jump off. We need to keep questioning. We need to say Fuck the Tories and not be scared of it. Don’t stop being angry. I am proud to have dedicated my life to art. Art has always been the antidote for everything that is wrong for me- it is my voice. We should all value our voices a lot more- some people aren’t lucky enough to have one.  We all need to stand up for what we value before somebody else tells us what it should be. So, I am not going to white wash your gallery for a leg up, it isn’t what I am here for. I am not going to think less of others to protect myself during hard times. I am going to remember what is important- I am not going compromise. With this in mind I pledge the actual only physical thing that I have to remind me of scrubbing that street in Berlin and with it I bring into focus and share the feeling of liberation it brought to act on my own terms and be true to myself. I also burn it as to not dwell, to not nominate a ‘piece’ or an action that defines me or my practice but as a promise to keep on keeping on and to remember that if you are scared of doing something- it probably just means it is worth while doing. 
33 ♥ / 19 January, 2012
Pledge #14 Leanne Bridgewater. Practice: Creative: Experimental Writing Title of art work: Sentience Details of art work: This is a banner displaying a 3000 word sentence on my unconscious thoughts and beliefs, especially on the subject of my respect for sentient beings. It may come across as political and targeted as an animal rights piece but it is really my emotional monologue to how the world is. The one-sentence idea was inspired by Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ last chapter.  Pledge: Inspired by Joyce’s Ulysses, Mary Bloom’s Soliloquy, I created my own soliloquy: based upon my beliefs against speciesism, ethical thoughts, heartful memories regarding mistreatment of animals. The piece exists of a 3000 word sentence, with no punctuation, apart from the ending full-stop. Therefore, it’s title: Sentience (“sentient” + “sentence”). Written in one-sitting, pouring my conscience. I wrote this for part of my university project. When finished, which is now 15 pages, I was about to display my words but experienced a halt. Consumption: Why would I want observers to consume the animals feelings (my words) when most already consume their flesh. Why do I have the rights to put animal’s feelings for consumption? My thought: they already eat the body, why give them the spirit? So this, is the point I must protest against consumption, stopping any signs of consumption by burning my tracks (my words), as a sacrifice to sentient beings. Only for my eyes to have seen, and for the fire to have its spirit.
15 ♥ / 18 January, 2012
Pledge #13 Rachel Stokes. Practice: Artist/ Collage/ Sculpture Title of art work: Outsider Porn Details of art work: Found art. The doll was found in Afflecks Palace. The butterly wings were bought in San Fransisco. The doll with the wings is representational of the wings of magick taking a girl from a dull hum-drum life and giving her the colours (wings) that have sprouted from her back. The burning is to throw the effigy into the fire as an offering during Purgatory as we are all in Purgatory, decisions we make and idols we worship have an impact on our decisions. Throwing into the fire, literally means throwing into the fire. The first art event I’ve been involved in. To show I’m not afraid. An offering to the elements. Creation and destruction. Pledge: I am highly frustrated with the state of the UK right now. I think if anything there needs to be a creative revolution. They can’t control our world. The Artist as Magician—- a talk by Anais Nin. Anais speaks a friend who calls her and says, “I’ve just read the papers and I can’t paint any more today; there are such horrible things happening in the world.” Her reply, “Paint first and read the papers afterward.” “Only if dreams are made public through art can they affect the nightmares we enact in every day life.”
11 ♥ / 18 January, 2012
Pledge #12 Becca Hunter. Description of art work: Small postcard sized painting done with acrylic and ink pen. Which led to: Painting on board done with pen, acrylic paint and melted wax. (seen in photo) Pledge: When my Father was my age he decided to burn all of his art work as a way of saying farewell to a world and life that he felt he could never be a part of because he wasn’t good enough. This idea of not being good enough has haunted me as an artist and creative thinker throughout my teens and now that I am 21 I feel it is time to tell it to fuck right off. I am burning a representation of the voice in my head that has been with me for so long and has held me back in not just creative aspects, but in all aspects of my life. My Father is my biggest inspiration and so for him, I am exploring those realms that I know he could have pursued but he chose not to. While the fire for him was to put that life behind him, I am taking this chance and embracing the world neither he nor I have felt good enough for. I see it not as a means of destruction but a means of rebirth and of hope.  A few weeks ago I began sketching and it was the image of this face that stuck with me, a clown-like face that was laughing at me and my ideas. As a woman I realised that I am surrounded by a world that tells me how to dress, how to look and how to behave to be liked or to be successful. This painting personifies the voice created by all those girls who told me I was fat, or that I couldn’t draw or that it was “weird” if I liked girls as much as boys. I am just starting to learn to call myself an artist and this is in fact the first painting I have ever stuck at long enough to complete. For that reason I am going to burn the sketch that shows the thought process that led me to this final outcome and not the actual end product as, believe it or not, I am very proud of it and feel I would regret destroying it. Burning the “voice” however will, for me, represent my passion for overcoming my insecurities and the fire that is now burning within my belly that will propel me forward. From now on I am determined to stop standing in my own way. This is only the beginning.
6 ♥ / 17 January, 2012
Pledge #11 Louise Woodcock. Practice: Jack of all trades. Website: www.womb.me.uk  https://www.facebook.com/groups/333169766702503/ Title of artwork: Teddy with Cock Description of art work: A large teddybear (approx 80cm length) with a feather boa and other accesseries including a dildo. Pledge: Why do I want to burn the toy? Because EVERYTHING’S GREAT!!!
17 ♥ / 17 January, 2012
Pledge #10 Matt Dalby. Practice: Installation, sculpture, sound, performance. Website: http://santiagosdeadwasp.blogspot.com/ Title of art work: Flag Bearer Description of art work: Made specifically for the bonfire the work is approximately 80cm high, made from found twigs cable-tied together, wrapped in newspaper. When complete the work will also be painted and will have a flag made from Chinese banknotes. Pledge: For me Flag Bearer addresses two concerns regarding art about which I have ambiguous feelings: government versus private funding for the arts, and politics as a subject for art. Both concerns were brought into focus by my recent residency in China. The work references totalitarian sculpture and paintings, but also echoes the sculpture Goddess of Democracy created by students during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in Beijing as a symbol of their demands. I have no definitive statement to make on these questions. My intention is that the sculpture is critical of propaganda, of bombastic public art, and of art as a vehicle for private investment and speculation. Whether it achieves these aims is of course out of my hands.
0 ♥ / 17 January, 2012
Pledge #9 Future Foundation Collective. Practice: Multi-media, performance, drawing. Title of art work: The Head Description of art work: It is about 1m high and 1m across (large enough for a human to wear). It is cardboard head that can be worn. We made it as a group for a multimedia performance last year. If the head is too big to burn in one go, we could split it into 5 pieces (the number of people in our collective) and add one piece each. Pledge: We want to burn ‘the head’ together. First: to signify a new phase in our art practice. (And second because it is too large to store). We are a group of artists who previously did an art foundation at MMU as mature students, during that time we made this head together. Only one of the group went on to do an art degree - the rest of us have returned to work and family commitments. The burning of our work is both to celebrate our creativity last year, and also to signify the work we endeavour to create this year. We pledge to continue our art practice primarily without the educational support that has more or less priced us out! The inferno of the fire will bond us - as The Future Foundation Collective - and our pledge to continue support and inspire each other.
1 ♥ / 13 January, 2012
Pledge #8 Angela Tait. Practice: Sculptor Title of art work: Fahrenheit 451 Description of art work: Altered children’s reading book with two fired and glazed ceramic doves. Pledge: ‘Monday burn Millay,  Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner,  burn ‘em to ashes, then burn the ashes’ Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury 1953) There is a long history of ceremonial burning books for moral, religious or political reasons. Recently however, I have been having other, more personal concerns. One of the smaller Taits wants a kindle for his birthday. He’ll be eleven and he reads all the time. At the moment I am constantly retrieving books from the stairs, the side of the bath and the dining table and returning them to the appropriate bedroom, bookcase or shelf.  What happens when the book as an object becomes obsolete? Is the value of those words somehow transformed when the format is altered? And can you dry the e-reader out on the radiator when you drop it in the bath? I propose the burning of my artwork ‘Fahrenheit 451’ as a speculation on the death of paper literature.
7 ♥ / 13 January, 2012
Pledge #7 Debbie Sharp. Practice: Visual Artist Website: http://debbiesharpphotography.tumblr.com/ Title of artwork: NO POLL TAX Description of artwork: Colour photograph Taken at a demonstration against the poll tax Leeds 1989/90? Taken on film One of my first hand printed colour photographs This is the only copy of the print and no negative exists any more. Pledge: Last year I burned an old hard drive, which contained hundreds of digital images I had taken, some project work but mostly just photography’s of my everyday life. I also talked a bit about the social networking sites and being tided to them and documenting life rather that living life. With a pledge to myself to photograph/document my life less and live more. Since the last bonfire I’ve reflected on that. And so to my pledge this year.  I grew up in the 80s under a conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. And i see no reason to be celebrating her now with the likes of the film the iron lady.  Times now seem to be starting to reflect the times then. People would constantly be taking to the street protesting. The economy was a mess Britain was in recession, there was high unemployment and a government that where happy to feed the rich while the poor got poorer. People marching for public sector workers. And then there were the marches and riots on the streets against the poll tax. Times were hard Britain was a dark place and that’s not just because of power cuts. There was also the bill section 28 which came into force and made it a crime to “promote” homosexuality. Being a young lesbian just coming out and Margaret Thatcher not for turning Britain the future felt bleak I remember like thousands marching against injustice. I started to take photographs I felt like it was a good way for me to express myself and for me to capture moments. To show what was happening. To show the world around me. Like the great magnum photographers. I wanted to show what was going on in the world and I wanted my photography to mean something. I felt like my camera was a tool for change, a tool to show the world the hidden moments, capturing the struggle of every day life. I believed in the power of the image to make people think - feel. Now with photography being so throw away, with the ease of it via iPhone digital cameras more of a tool for just documenting your life and then showing the world via Facebook. I found myself in that trap and that’s want I wanted to start to question at the last bonfire now with this pledge I want to get back to looking at photography as something that can be powerful. An understanding about how art/photography can make change-can be used to make people stop and think.  Times are getting hard again people are fighting protesting people aren’t happy with injustice they see around them. The government now Like in the past Thatcher years are no friend to the arts. They don’t value it. We have to rise above them. Like the flames.  We as artists, we have the power in us to break down the system. To make change. To show injustice and to fight it. So with this pledge I pledge to use my art/photography for a reason. To push myself. To not just sit back.  To try and say something to make people think. We as artist can make a change.
3 ♥ / 11 January, 2012
Pledge #6 Michael Lucas. Practice: Artist Title of art work: THE BLAZE Description of art work: WEEPING OF A NATION… Pledge:  Look beyond the brush…
110 ♥ / 8 January, 2012
Pledge #5 HOMOCULT Practice: ARTIST Website: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Homocult/187213304685356 Title of art work: WE ARE NOTHING Description of art work: We intend to burn the complete works of HOMOCULT Pledge:  WE ARE THE PRODUCTS OF LIVING AS NOTHING
53 ♥ / 7 January, 2012