Inspired by employee handbooks at The Senator Group, and their ethos ‘We Can Do More,’ artist Dan Edward subverted the direct language of traffic signs that inform our everyday journeys into a vibrant call to action.

Using The Senator Group’s aspiration to disrupt the accepted narrative of how a manufacturer would normally behave as a springboard, Edward created slogans that encourage small acts of individual activism. Bold, mono-coloured signs are placed around the town centre, encouraging the public to do more in their daily lives – through individual acts of positive change, communities grow and move forward with the collective ethos of creating positive spaces to live and work in.

Festival goers could collect a free limited edition Dan Edwards print at the Festival’s Art in Manufacturing Church Street gallery as part of the work.

Edward’s work, made in collaboration with The Senator Group, was a provocation – We can make more, speak more, share more, sing more, dance more, smile more and play more. We can always do more.

A graduate of the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London-based Dan Edwards has worked at the heart of the British art world as a renowned picture framer, a career which has fed into his own practice with a naturally developing interest in the preservation, presentation and perception of contemporary artworks. Edwards works across different mediums as a way of interrogating personal and cultural anxieties.

The Senator Group is a design-led furniture manufacturer established in 1976 by present day chairman Colin Mustoe MBE to create places to meet, dine and work with a difference. Outside the marquee showroom in Clerkenwell, London and sites in Chicago, New York and Madrid – the group’s principle manufacturing site is in Accrington, where £10 million has been invested in its state-of-the-art desk factory alone, from which over 300,000 desks, tables, storage systems and screens are exported every year.

“I’m excited by what we can achieve together as makers, thinkers and disruptors. I think that together, we have the opportunity to make something exceptional.” Dan Edwards, Artist

“Artists can often give a new perspective, or approach to a problem that is useful for industry. This is when collaboration is at its best” – The Senator Group

Read more about the Art in Manufacturing Programme here.