Northern Greats: Future Artists

Sure, you’ve called in for a spot of bowling before catching a film at the AMC, maybe grabbed a burrito after wandering, wonderingly, past the casino (“Should we… go… in?”), but these days, there's more to the Great Northern Warehouse than meets the eye.

Since May 2014, the ex-transport interchange – once populated by horses, wagons and criss-crossing rail lines – has also been home to Future Artists, an arts/media collective who have taken creative control of this historic space and brought in everything from a temporary theatre to pop up food and drink experiences.

Each month in The Skinny we’ll be meeting some of the entrepreneurial creatives – and creative entrepreneurs – behind these new projects popping up at the Warehouse. But to kick us off, Mark Ashmore and Jenny Trethewey of Future Artists get us up to speed with the story so far.

The Skinny: Who are Future Artists, and what is your vision for the Great Northern?
Future Artists: We are an arts and media collective who over the past five years have created over 100 cultural happenings across Manchester and Salford from arts events, film and theatre, to running the Black Lion pub as an arts space on Salford's Chapel Street. In December 2013 we did a pop up street art exhibition for STEWY at the Great Northern; this went really well – the Great Northern had a new owner who had a vision for a destination centre, and we were asked to take on the whole site.

We love using spaces in new ways. Some people see empty space, we see a cultural opportunity; and with arts and culture as one of the main reasons people come to Manchester, our aim is to turn the Great Northern Warehouse into a sandbox of creative culture.

What have been your highlights of your residency so far?
We commissioned New Playhouse to run the first instalment of 'The Great Northern Playhouse' from October to December 2014 – who in turn brought 15 exciting fringe theatre shows to a purpose-built theatre in a once empty space. Over 1200 people came to that run, with the run of A Christmas Carol selling out!

What can we expect to see over the coming months?
We are working closely with Manchester Day Parade, Pride and MIF; B.Eat Street, who popped up with Friday Foodfight before Christmas, are back with their #foodrave (the B.Eat Street space is gonna be very exciting – the space can hold about 2000 people and has amazing acoustics); there'll be a new gig venue and live theatre from the National Theatre at the AMC cinema, and there's plenty of room to support young entrepreneurs like Grindsmiths to help them kickstart their business.

What is unique about the opportunities that Future Artists at the Great Northern can offer to other artists or entrepreneurs?
I guess we know how hard it is to have a vision and a dream and want to make this happen. Future Artists has always had a collective co-op ethos – work together, and you can make stuff happen. We are now in the position that, working with the owners and the tenants at the Great Northern Warehouse, we are able to affect the corporate world with our indie spirit... who knows what will happen!

After your residency, what's next for Future Artists?
Hopefully 2015 is so successful that Future Artists will stay at the Great Northern Warehouse and 2016 will be bigger and better. For us this is a long-term project. We have only just begun.

And finally: how would you describe what you do in three words?
Three words are not enough: “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible” – Frank Zappa. 

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