Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 25

Arts: Artist Patrick Altes explores tolerance and collective identity in new exhibition

Empathy in artform A new exhibition by international artist Patrick Altes explores migration and our sense of collective identity to urge tolerance and respect By Mark Cantrell WE live in a time of angst, division and separatism, of which Brexit is just one sullen syndrome of a wider ailment, but artist Patrick Altes is urging […]

Arts: Pop surrealist Tiago Azevedo paints a fresh look at history’s legends

The eyes have it A ‘low brow’ artist who normally explores fantasy and fable in his works has turned his eye to depicting some of history’s more colourful real life characters By Mark Cantrell AN artist who specialises in the so-called Low Brow style, influenced by underground comic culture, has created his first collection based […]

Culture: Celebrated poet and playwright Tony Harrison honoured in city of his birth

Leeds favours one of its own The Leeds-born poet and playwright Tony Harrison has received one of the city’s highest civic honours By Mark Cantrell NATIONAL and even international renown has brought the poet and playwright Tony Harrison acclaim that’s a little closer to home with the award of the city of Leeds’ highest civic […]

Culture: Zahid Hussain leads Manchester’s City of Literature celebrations

Manchester finds its head for voices Now that it’s become a designated UNESCO City of Literature, Manchester needs the right person to lead the whole show – that’s where novelist, poet and playwright Zahid Hussain comes in By Mark Cantrell MANCHESTER has rightly chosen one of its own literary lights to lead the city’s celebration […]

History: Museums celebrate tenth anniversary of Staffordshire Hoard

There’s Anglo-Saxon gold in them there museums It’s 10 years since the Staffordshire Hoard wowed historians and the public alike for its insight into the vanished world of 7th century England’s Anglo-Saxon warrior elite. Now a new exhibition is looking to recapture some of that ancient magic By Mark Cantrell WHEN it was first dug […]

News: Partnership aims to inspire a love of the written word

Leeds launches Year of Reading Leeds City Council teams up with the BookTrust charity to encourage young people to discover a love of books By Mark Cantrell THE city of Leeds has launched its very own Year of Reading after forming a partnership with the Book Trust, but the hope is that the effects of […]

Arts: Death will blossom in bone at artist Emma Witter’s first solo exhibition

Welcome to the gallery of bones An artist’s exhibition aims to remind us of our mortality by giving bones a new lease of life, but for all that, it’s apparently not as macabre as it sounds By Mark Cantrell BONE has long had a practical use as a raw material, shorn of its connotations of […]

History: Midwife’s migration story helps celebrate birth of flourishing modern city

Call the midwife A midwife who made her home in Leeds offers one of the stories in an exhibition celebrating how immigrants helped shape the modern city. You might say she helped birth it… By Mark Cantrell WHEN a young Gloria Hanley left the Caribbean for England, it was the beginning of a story that […]

Arts: Manchester literature season opens conversation on hope and resistance

Resistance will be hopeful The University of Manchester has teamed up with the city’s HOME arts venue to launch a new series of literature events featuring writers at the forefront of making sense of these turbulent times By Mark Cantrell IN this age of political uncertainty and climate breakdown, the theme of the first in […]

Interview: Craig Hallam confesses his love affair with the darker wiles of story

“Embrace the weird” It’s not necessarily par the course for an author; to be accosted in a stairwell by a strange bloke with a voice recorder, but Doncaster’s very own steampunk scribe Craig Hallam takes it in his stride to reveal why his latest work is perhaps his darkest yet… By Mark Cantrell THIS is […]