Bringing together artists with and without a learning-disability, the pARTnership is a creative and professional development project being delivered by Grundy Art Gallery, The New Langdale learning disability day service in Blackpool, contemporary artist Tina Dempsey with additional support from Venture Arts in Manchester. After two years of pilot activity, in 2021-2022, Grundy Art Gallery received an Uplift in their Arts Council England, National Portfolio Funding to support the continuation and development of the pARTnership from 2023-2026.

The pARTnership takes the form of artist-led weekly workshops focusing on the sharing of skills, ideas and the development of new work providing space and time for the artists to find and develop their own individual practices. The project also includes research and development visits to contemporary art exhibitions, organisations and events, and public facing outputs such as exhibitions, art fair participation and talks and workshop delivery.

To date, artists from the pARTnership have exhibited their work at Grundy Art Gallery, The Horsfall in Manchester, Outside In National Exhibition at Sotheby’s and The Manchester Contemporary art fair (2021,2022). Artists from the pARTnership have led workshops, delivered exhibition tours, had their work written about by local and national press and discussed their work on BBC Radio Lancashire, as well as selling their work to a number of private collections. Artists from the pARTnership have also been selected for representation by Outside In.

Upcoming activity includes, The Manchester Contemporary 2023, where a curated booth of work by artists from the pARTnership will be shown alongside guest artist Tony Heaton OBE and the exhibition Instinctive Energies at Mura Ma gallery in Marple, where an exhibition, curated by Jennifer Lauren Gallery will exhibit the work of pARTnership artist Candice Swallow alongside work by Cara Macwilliam.

The project is coordinated by artist, Tina Dempsey and Grundy Art Gallery. To find out more about the project, the artists and artwork please follow the projects own Instagram page at @thepartnership.