Cottonopolis: Cathy Greenhalgh

As part of her Solo Artist Residency at Kolaj Institute, Amble, Northumberland, United Kingdom collage artist, film-maker and writer Cathy Greenhalgh will spend her time in New Orleans researching and collecting materials connecting New Orleans and Liverpool and Manchester during the industrial revolution cotton trade era. "My ancestors worked in Lancashire cotton mills during the Civil War and the Lancashire Cotton Famine caused by the blockading of Southern ports," said the artist." The research will contribute to a feature-length, documentary film project Greenhalgh has been working on for nearly a decade. "The film considers power, time and agency in the manufacture of powerloom and handloom cotton in contemporary India, through the reflections and consciousness of people from 'Manchesters.' Expressing this complex film fabric required texturing a cinesonic chronotope and an aesthetic mirroring affective relations with cotton processes." In addition to Manchester, Liverpool, and New Orleans, Greenhalgh reflects on the role cotton has played in the histories of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India and Lodz, Poland. On Saturday, 5 April 2025, Greenhalgh will give a talk about the project and her approach to filmmaking and artwork. "In this sensory ethnographic historiography, time exists within the stories of individuals: cyclical, progressive, sacred, ancestral, historical, traumatic, meditative, memory, machinic, digital, crafted, spontaneous, creative, political, economic…time."

The talk will also focus on what can be achieved with film as a medium and how making collage can approach aspects and address the subject with a different aesthetic and highlight other information and juxtapositions hard to achieve in a film. The artist will present clips from the film Cottonopolis.

ABOUT KOLAJ INSTITUTE'S SOLO RESIDENCIES

The mission of Kolaj Institute is to support artists, curators, and writers who seek to study, document, and disseminate ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement. We operate a number of initiatives meant to bring together community, investigate critical issues, and raise collage’s standing in the art world. Kolaj Institute’s Solo Residencies are designed to provide artists, curators, and writers with dedicated time and space to work on a project, develop their practice, and make artwork.

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