THE STARTS AWARD: WINNERS SHOWCASE
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Thursday 17th October 2024
2:30-4pm, Free Entry

Seating is available on a first-come first-served basis.

The Armed Forces get creative in Manchester.

The winners of The STARTS Award, a new initiative promoting creative talent from within the Armed Forces Community, are coming to Manchester on Thursday 17th October to showcase their work.

The winners of The STARTS Award Spoken Word category will perform live at Matt and Phred’s Jazz Club in central Manchester, and the winners of the Visual Art category will be exhibiting their artwork at the Comme Ca Art gallery in The Lowry Hotel. The events provide a professional platform for the winners to share their work with wider audiences, and to gain valuable experience for developing their creative practice.

The STARTS Award live show at Matt and Phred’s today will celebrate the diversity of talent within the military community, including comedy, storytelling, and poetry. The award winners, Ru Bryant, Matt Wightman, Kim Lake-Benson-Bond, Claire Hughes, and Jamie Weller, will be joined by singer/songwriter Helen Bytheway, a hugely talented professional musician and a regular performer at Matt and Phred’s.

The STARTS Award exhibition at The Lowry Hotel will launch on 17th October and run until 12th November. The award winners, Sue Arnold, Trevor Skingle, Darren Horsnell, Richard Toole, and Andrea MacFarlane, embrace a wide range of media, materials and techniques to create powerful, revealing and personal pieces.

Since the announcement of the winners in July, the group has spent the last few weeks creating new pieces for the showcase events on 17th October. They were guided and encouraged by their professional creative coaches, who led both individual and group sessions, including a workshop on professional practice and a ‘sharing’, enabling all of the winners to come together to celebrate each other's work.