CONTEXT PRACTICAL: Z - ARTS GALLERY VISIT

Today I visited the Zion Arts Centre, to look at a gallery space they had available to hire. The Zion Centre is situated in Hulme in Manchester. 

Z-arts was formed in 2000 as a ‘creative space for young people’ with a priority on providing participatory activity. Their mission is to inspire and enable generations of young people from Manchester and beyond to use creativity to maximise their potential. They do this by supporting an individual’s creative journey from their first steps in creative practice to being a practicing artist.

The Z-arts centre is a community based centre focusing on younger generations and their creative practice, in my research felt this space might be beneficial for my project due to it having music studios and performance stages which tie in with my dissertation theme of music.

I contacted Claire who is charge of booking for the venue and she showed me around the space. During my visit there was an current exhibition on. The space was very big and had a lot open windows and extended areas for artwork to be displayed which is something that I would like to have for my project. 

The current exhibition had projectors, lights, stages and wall installations which would look great aesthetically for my project and would allow me to experiment with a range of display features.

Space Information

A large, bright, airy space which is just as popular with our corporate clients as it is with exhibitors. The break out room and balcony along with a variety of exhibitions make it a stimulating room for conferences and workshops.

Please note, we can usually only take conference bookings for hire of the Gallery space during the day as exhibitions are open to the public between 5pm and 9pm.

Suitable for: exhibitions, conferences, a reception area forregistration of delegates, a breakout area for lunch, or wedding reception
Capacity: 120 people theatre layout or standing
Price: £35 per hour, £110 for 4 hours or £215 for 8 hour day.

Overview

After visiting this space I felt that it had a lot of potential, however I feel that the location of the venue isn't suitable for my project at this moment in time. I feel that a venue that is closer to the town centre would make it easier for guests to travel to. Due to Claire being very busy I wasn't able to ask all of the questions I needed to, so I plan to continue talks with her via email on any other queries I have. Overall I think the space has a lot of possibilities and things I could experiment with due to the projectors pop up stages and so on. The pricing for the space I quite expensive so if I wanted to expand my exhibition for longer that a day I would have to consider this further. In conclusion I think this space is good aesthetically more so than contextually and this will also be something I will have to consider.