A metal sculpture circular cut-outs sits on a concrete floor in a sunlit room with large glass windows. A person with blonde hair is visible through the window in the background.

Eight seasons of Art in Manufacturing have seen artists paired with leading manufacturers and spaces of making across the North.

The collaborations explore materials, processes and innovation, producing world‑class artworks while opening up new conversations between industry, artists and the public.

A selection of these works are featured here for you to explore, including all residencies from the two most recent seasons.

A complete archive of residences can be found on the Art in Manufacturing website.

Art in Manufacturing Website

Latest Residencies

A spacious, modern room with large windows, yellow beams, and scattered tables displaying various breads. There are artworks on the walls and stacked trays near the back.

Abigail Hampsey + Artisan Food Producers

Film, sculpture and painting trace rituals of production and preservation, from bread making to bee keeping, position these acts as cultural and sociological preservation.
Two people in an alley: one sits playing a violin, the other stands beside scaffolding stacked with speakers and tools. Car parts and machinery are scattered on the ground nearby. Brick and concrete walls surround them.

Alina Akbar + Awesome GTI & Performance M

Collaborating with car modification industries, Alina Akbar presents VICKED, an immersive installation featuring a film score composed from recordings of modified car engines, exploring garages as sites of craftsmanship, luxury, and aspiration.
A row of architectural models sits on a wooden table in a gallery with white walls and wooden floors. A large blue and white mural with building sketches is displayed on the wall behind the models.

Matter at hand + Darwen Terracotta

Evolving from research and prototyping, Matter at hand's second year residency explores how industrial manufacturing and earth-based construction could pave the way for the UK's first Poured Earth building.
A snooker table with a green surface is centred in a dimly lit, plain room with cream walls and a dark carpet. Overhead spotlights cast shadows on the walls and ceiling.

Penelope Payne + Haworth Art Gallery

In response to time spent at Haworth Art Gallery, a Grade II listed Arts & Crafts house in Accrington, Penelope Payne's sculpture and sound work, Canon, examines how personal stories, social structures, and inherited values shape one another over time.
A white art gallery space is seen through a large stone archway with exposed brickwork. Colourful, mixed-media artwork is displayed on the back wall, surrounded by bright lighting.

Liaqat Rasul + Herbert Parkinson

In Umeed (Oh-meed) امید – Gobaith – Hope, Rasul expanded on his exploration of the mobile face as a motif to express culture, community and societal connection.
A large, ornate church interior with arched ceilings and stained glass windows, featuring a contemporary art installation of wooden crates and pallets arranged symmetrically down the nave.

Matter at hand + Darwen Terracotta

At a time of climate emergency, Matter at hand, the design studio of Lewis Jones, explored the creative possibilities of building with liquid clay in Poured Earth, year one of a multi-year residency.
A vibrant mural with large colourful flowers, geometric shapes, and bold patterns covers the entire side of a building at a street corner under a partly cloudy sky. An art installation stands in front.

Morag Myerscough + Crown Paints

A natural meeting point between the artist and manufacturer, Floral Timekeepers celebrated colour as well as the importance of nature in a project that remains as a legacy in Blackburn town centre.
A long, rectangular dining table set for a meal stands in an industrial-style room with exposed brick and stone arches. Colourful fabric covers the chairs, and decorative plates hang on the far wall as part of an exhibition.

Horace Lindezey + The Making Rooms

We are Gathered Here Together, which presented brand new work alongside some of the artist’s most popular pieces, took visitors on a journey through “special occasional days”.
A large, colourful textile installation made of hundreds of fabric tubes arranged in a winding path stretches from the floor up to a tall window inside a grand church with high vaulted ceilings and stone arches.

Margo Selby + Standfast & Barracks

A co-commission with British Textile Biennial, Breathing Colour saw a site-responsive textile sculpture that evoked the movement of cloth throughout the factory, travelling in waves and folds through machinery.
Visitors observe colourful, tile artworks displayed on a white gallery wall in a well-lit exhibition space with wooden parquet floors and classical decorative mouldings on the ceiling.

Nehal Aamir + Darwen Terracotta

Infinite Hands told a story that interweaves the history of terracotta and spirit of collaboration, whilst also responding to the collection at Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery.
A brightly lit cardboard art installation of ropes and bars sits in a large industrial hall with arched windows and exposed brick, as visitors observe.

Sam Williams Studio + Cardboard Box Company

A playful installation that emulated industrial architecture, Fabula un Facto invited audiences to experience the wonder of the factory floor as seen through the eyes of the artist.

Featured Residencies

A colourful, fabric figure with a blue and white striped arm, a smiling face, and a multicoloured patchwork body holds a curtain against a textured, dark, layered background.

Ibukun Baldwin + Cookson & Clegg

A co-commission between National Festival of Making and British Textile Biennial, Funufactury was an immersive work that engaged the skills of community members through weekly sewing workshops.
A group of people sit on the floor in a dark room, watching a large screen that shows a video of a man working with a large tool or machine in a workshop.

Jacqueline Donachie + Lancashire Saw Company

Combining fast beats, slow canals and the repetition of industry, IMPERIAL led audiences along a towpath, soundtracked by house music playing from a canal barge.
A group sits in a large circle of chairs in a spacious room with arched windows and wooden floors, watching a performance as a child dances in the centre.

Martyn Ware + The Manufacturers of Lancashire

In Church of Rare Souls, voices from the factory floor reminded us of the ‘work hard, play hard’ cultures of Northern towns, where work ruled the week and dancing ruled the weekend.

Art in Manufacturing Artists

Season 8, 2026

  • Abigail Hampsey + Artisan Food Producers⁠
  • Alina Akbar + Awesome GTI & Performance M⁠
  • Matter at hand + Darwen Terracotta
  • Penelope Payne + Haworth Art Gallery⁠

Season 7, 2025

  • Morag Myerscough + Crown Paints
  • Matter at Hand + Darwen Terracotta
  • Liaqat Rasul + Herbert Parkinson
  • Radical Pairings

Season 6, 2024

  • Nehal Aamir + Darwen Terracotta
  • Margo Selby + Standfast & Barracks
  • Horace Lindezey + The Making Rooms
  • Sam Williams + Cardboard Box Company

Season 5, 2023

  • Ibukun Baldwin + Cookson & Clegg
  • Sam Belinfante + Panaz
  • Sarah Marsh & Stephanie Jefferies + Herbert Parkinson
  • Illuminos + Cardboard Box Company
  • Sapien + SWS UK

Season 4, 2022

  • Raisa Kabir + John Spencer Textiles
  • Liz Wilson + CNC Robotics
  • Jacqueline Donachie + Lancashire Saw Company
  • Tim Denton + OEP UK
  • Hannah Leighton-Boyce + Darwen Terracotta

Season 3, 2019

  • Ames Pennington + Heritage Envelopes
  • Anna Ray + Forbo Flooring
  • Daksha Patel + Blackburn Yarn Dyers
  • Dan Edwards + The Senator Group
  • Liz Wilson + Spiroflow

Season 2, 2018

  • Liz West + Graham & Brown
  • David Murphy + WEC Group
  • Sarah Hardacre + Surface Print
  • Martyn Ware + Lancashire Manufacturers
  • Hannah Fox + Cardboard Box Company
  • Nicola Ellis + Ritherdon
  • Dawinder Bansal + Domestic Makers

Season 1, 2017

  • Bella May Leonard + Silentnight
  • James Bloomfield + Darwen Terracotta
  • Jamie Holman + Roach Bridge Tissues
  • Grennan & Sperandio + Panaz
  • Jeni McConnell + Cookson & Clegg
  • Lazerian + Cardboard Box Company
  • Michelle Wren + Graham & Brown
  • Robyn Woolston + MGS Plastics
  • Ruth Jones + Cherry Tree Bakery

Read about each residency and explore the artwork on the dedicated Art in Manufacturing website.

Art in Manufacturing Website

By the very nature of what manufacturing is and does, is art. The output is often a beautiful object of desire; the journey can just often be forgotten.

Gemma Vaughn, The Senator Group

What happens when globally renowned artists trade studios for the clatter of machines, industrial dyes, and production lines? At the National Festival of Making in Blackburn, the result is a bold, joyful, and often surprising collision of creativity and craft.

Creative Boom