OCA-North Study Group

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30 days ago · joined the group.

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Gillian Holmes

May 13

Hi Celine, it was good to meet you yesterday. Hopefully you will be able to come to more events.

Gill

Linda Braham

April 30, 2026

OCA North: Tutor led visit to Delaine le Bas: Un-Fair-Ground

12 May 2026, 11:00 – 15:00

The Whitworth, Oxford Rd, Manchester M15 6ER, UK

OCA Textiles tutor Faye Hall will be leading a visit to The Whitworth, Manchester to view ‘Un-Fair-Ground’ Delaine Le Bas’s first solo show in Manchester following her nomination for the Turner Prize in 2024.

This is an expansive overview of the artist’s ground breaking feminist practice from across the artists; career. The exhibition includes painting on calico, drawing, embroidery, video, and performance. Informed by Le Bas’s studies in fashion design, her deep engagement with folklore and witchcraft, and her Romany heritage, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive mixed-media environment of found and invented images that move beyond racial, political and sexual borders.

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Margaret Patrick

May 13

On a grey morning beset with drizzle eleven of us met up at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester to see the exhibition Un-Fair-Ground by Delaine Le Bas. In the Living Room, a community space at the gallery, we introduced ourselves and met OCA Textiles tutor, Faye Hall, who provided an informative pre-talk on the artist.

The exhibition was challenging in unexpected ways, not least the lack of labels on any of the exhibits. An exhibition catalogue did provide the details if you could orientate yourself correctly within each gallery alongside the corresponding map. Did it really matter? To some yes, to others no. The inclusion of work by other artists added to the intrigue. For example, were the paintings (ink on calico) by Madge Gill a re-imagined presentation of the adjacent paint on calico exhibits by Delaine Le Bas? Afterwards we convened again in the Living Room to talk through what we’d experienced and what questions we might ask ourselves when visiting other exhibitions.

Finally, we had lunch in the Café, a space enveloped by trees in the surrounding park. We caught up with each other’s studies and life in general before heading home in the glorious sunshine.

Many thanks to Gill and Linda for organising the event and to Faye for providing guidance and insight to the exhibition.

April 19, 2026

Creating Sharing Session

A small group of OCA North members met in Knaresborough yesterday for a social meet-up and to share our current work. Many thanks to Robert - who has just graduated (congratulations!) with a degree in Photography - for hosting us.

It was wonderful to see and hear all the excellent work each of our group has been working on. I found sharing my own work and listening to others as they gave context to their own work to be a very productive experience - I came away with new insights which I'm sure can help me in my own practice. The group were very generous with their comments which is especially helpful for someone like myself at the very beginning of the degree journey. It all made for a light-hearted, sociable and highly enjoyable day out, as well as an opportunity to see and hear some very impressive and fascinating…