Plan for a Ruin @ Islington Mill, Salford, until 9 Nov

Islington Mill’s fifth floor is vast and doesn’t conform to traditional notions of gallery space. Windows are boarded up in preparation for the exhibition, paint is peeling from the bricks and the room appears semi-derelict. Such a space could easily put off a curator, but it is this rawness that Simon Morrissey has fed off and embraced.

On the first floor of the exhibition the works are placed sparsely in pockets around the cavernous room, creating a highly choreographed setting. The works appear independent from one another, yet the narrative that is whispered throughout Plan for a Ruin interconnects them.

Heather and Ivan Morison’s work creates a dissonance within the space, transporting you outside of the walls of the industrial mill and out into the natural world. A bench made of cast iron sits in front of a pile of ashen bones constructed to look like a fire that will never keep you warm. Hung on the wall only feet away is another work from the duo, a photograph of a decomposing cat with geometric shapes embellishing the body, fossilising the creature in a crystalline form.

Sitting on Heather and Ivan Morison’s bench you face out towards David Wojtowycz’s video projection, The Lake. An eerie soundtrack beams out filling the whole of the floor. The droning sound mirrors the looping video; a plane of water behaves in a seemingly unnatural way, creating an atmosphere of beautiful uneasiness.

The stillness of the exhibition is reflected in James Parkinson's series of paintings. Parkinson’s subtle application of different materials and hues of paint create architectural shapes, forming a space that will never exist.

243,000mm, by Melanie Counsell, encased in a glass frame, is 16mm film that measures itself and can never be shown. A relic of something that never existed, 243,000mm would catch fire and destroy itself if it were ever played. Upstairs, Counsell’s model, a concept for a space that cannot be inhabited, is pivotal for the whole exhibition and links the two floors.

Using transponders to turn a wall into a speaker, Marie Toseland’s sound piece loops a description of an ice block melting; the factual tone creates a sense of ease, making you question what it was you heard in the second passage. [Ali Gunn]