Vertical Gallery
9 June – 1 October 2023
Benzie Building, Boundary Street West, Manchester M15 6BR
Gallery space open to the public
The Vertical Gallery sits within the School of Art’s Benzie building and represents the Design courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Each year we invite our students to propose, pitch and create work in a competitive commission process. If successful, the students receive financial support to create ambitious site-specific commissions working closely with the academic staff and the gallery team to realise their ambitions.
This year we have commissioned 20 students showcasing the breadth of disciplines that make up the Design community and the exciting practices and collaborations forming within them.
Emerging themes from the curated show are around current ideas on Displacement and Identity, Economic crisis, Playfulness, and Wellbeing,
Commissioned Work
Ground Floor
Louie Morris
BA (Hons) Graphic Design
Work on Banger Racing: 1x Rolls Royce Banger Car & 2 banners.
Polly Holman
BA (Hons) Textiles in Practice
Using the endangered craft of smocking in her textile cloud artwork for the 2 entrance booths.
Yasmin Stewart
BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation
Set design forest with ghosts, developed around ideas of displacement, identity and heritage.
Laufey Gudnadottir
BA (Hons) Graphic Design
Lenticular print and graphical images of unravelling ribbons play.
Eva Fernandez
BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation
Collage banner of displaced family and new place of home in Hulme. Father sought political asylum after Chile’s Pinochet regime.
First Floor
Lisa Silva
BA (Hons) Graphic Design
Hierarchies are all around us, even when we don’t see them. Moving upwards or downwards, being above, below or at the same level.
Martha Wiles
BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft
The visual narrative of the piece represents the 5 principles of regenerative agriculture to raise conversations about soil health – marthaewiles.myportfolio.com/unit-x
Nuala Torp Smith
BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft
Totem of play.
Teleri Lea
MA Product Design
Deconstructed lamps.
Hannah Baxendale
BA (Hons) Product Design and Craft
Joy Lamp.
Second Floor
Thomas Harley
MA Graphic Design & Art Direction
'Drowning' a large cardboard sculpture of a face under water. Work has personal relevance… Thomas returned to MA studies after leaving job in education 'feeling of drowning'…
Elsie Hughes
BA (Hons) Textiles in Practice
3D woven structure on themes of wellbeing.
Lilly Beards & Lucienne Canavan
BA (Hons) Textiles in Practice
Textiles collaboration installation - Neurodivergent women.
Mia Thompson & Eve Schroeder
BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation
Being Big – beingbig.cargo.site
Katie Bamford
MA Textiles
Recycled materials textiles weave.
Third Floor
Kate King & Devon Rea
BA (Hons) Illustration with Animation & BA (Hons) Graphic Design
Acid House project and history - collaboration between Graphic Design and Illustration with Animation, the two were paired up during the commissioning process.
Projection mapping, sculpture & print.