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Articles by Laura Biddle
The Manchester Contemporary: A Diary — Corridor8
Will Marshall of texture, one of Manchester’s youngest independent galleries, diarises his weekend at Manchester Art Fair 2025. 7pm After a day of getting everything ready, documents printed and the van loaded, I arrive at the venue to unload the work, and the mad rush and deep regret at not bringing a trolley. 6am Arise full of energy, ready to roll. I have visited the fair for years but never participated.
FAFSWAG: FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE — Corridor8
Fale Sā / Sacred House, which showed at HOME as part of Manchester International Festival (MIF) this year, was developed by New Zealand-based collective FAFSWAG over a two-year residency that began at MIF23. Rooted in ritual, spirituality and stories from the Pacific Diaspora of Aotearoa and the wider Moana, the show aims to offer a layered meditation on ideas of home.
BLOOM: A Story of Metamorphosis — Corridor8
The auditorium of the Hallé St Peter’s was draped in long, loose fabrics under soft lighting before the performance began. The stage was set for a captivating journey from Japan to Manchester, ready to unfold through the movement of dancers and the resonating sounds of the orchestra, pulling my attention away from the evening’s thunderstorm and in to the world of BLOOM.
Nell Osborne: Ghost Driver — Corridor8
Artist Kate Paul reviews Ghost Driver, the first novel by Nell Osborne, published by MOIST. Malory, the character whose life carries Ghost Driver, lacks a normal life force. She is somehow unwell – she knows her membranes don’t contain her from the world – so the novel is unwell, and the plot is sickening. In reading it I find what it is to be dysregulated by the laws of living. Novels are often too lawful, but Ghost Driver is unlawful, like some kind of freak occurrence.
Pippa Eason: Four-fold Reverie — Corridor8
With a quarter of an hour to go before her exhibition opens, Manchester-based artist Pippa Eason is moving slowly around PINK’s second floor gallery, wafting a smouldering wodge of tightly bound sage. She is ‘smudging’ the space, cleansing it of negative energy and evil spirits. A line of smoke curls gently away from her hand, dispersing into the hazy light that filters through the semi-opaque white spray paint that dapples the windowpanes. The smell is familiar and comforting. It promises safety.
The Way In Is Not The Whole Way Through — Corridor8
If you want to find disused, cavernous industrial buildings in a city, follow the artists. It is standard fare to find arts spaces in industrial areas – factories, warehouses, mills – but in Ardwick, Manchester, there is currently only one.
The Pearls Painting Symposium — Corridor8
At the Pearls Painting Symposium which took place at the Birley Studios in Preston on 17 may 2025, the self-taught artist Lela Harris gave a giddy, dizzying talk about how her career and profile had recently sky rocketed. Harris talked about the Folio Society commissions that have seen her illustrate books by Alice Walker and James Baldwin, a permanent exhibition at the Judges Lodgings Museum bringing to light Black histories in Lancaster, and a residency at Harewood House in Yorkshire.
Dis/Connect: Kelan Andrews, Nicky Nadine, Renee Nie — Corridor8
I was listening, very carefully, to the voice at the end of a phone line. ‘We’re currently experiencing high customer demand’, it told me, ‘And there may be a delay in answering your call…’ Oh well, I thought.
Dis/Connect: Kelen Andrews, Nicky Nadine, Renee Nie — Corridor8
I was listening, very carefully, to the voice at the end of a phone line. ‘We’re currently experiencing high customer demand’, it told me, ‘And there may be a delay in answering your call…’ Oh well, I thought.
Echo Mapping: Elaine Grainger and Moa Gustafsson Söndergaard — Corridor8
There is no mistaking the fact that you’re walking into an old administrative building when you visit PINK, ‘a gallery, artist studios and event space dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary research, innovative practice and collaborative exchange’. From the corporate glass entrance and welcome desk to the thin wiry carpet and ceiling tiles, the building is every soulless stereotype of an office block that you could conjure. Then you reach the second floor and it all changes.
Reciprocal relationships: PROFORMA’s artist residency toolkit — Corridor8
In 2024, Greater Manchester-based organisation PROFORMA set out to research artist residencies and develop an artist residency toolkit. Corridor8 writer Natalie Bradbury was invited to observe the process. Artist residencies can have a transformative impact on creative practice.
Pippa El-Kadhi Brown: Stranger Skies — Corridor8
The Holden Gallery at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, is a light and lofty space with enough period features to easily distract from work on display. Yet Pippa El-Kadhi Brown’s paintings staunchly and delicately hold their own space, offering a welcome otherworldliness as you step inside from the rugged Manchester winter.
Jenny Baines and Anna Macdonald: New Arrangements — Corridor8
The now much quoted ‘Stockport is the new Berlin’ may only be uttered by people who have never visited either place, but changes are happening in the Greater Manchester town – namely an influx of infrastructure development money and creatives. One such cultural addition comes in the form of PINK, a non-profit curatorial project focused on interdisciplinary research, practice and collaborative exchange who opened their site in Stockport in September last year after relocating from the city centre.
People Powered: Stories from the River Tees — Corridor8
People Powered: Stories from the River Tees is unlike most exhibitions for the way it directly incorporates its audience, so that not just artefacts, photographs and paintings are included here but the local community itself. In Chris Davies’ ‘49 Bridges’ (2023), the photographer celebrates the interconnectivity of the architectural form and the River Tees through the ages.
Deep Horizons - Corridor8
John Stezaker, 'Pair III' , 2007. Photo credit: Jason Hynes. As I enter Deep Horizons, I’m struck by the irritating sound of eight ticking metronomes. Their noise floods the first gallery, forming a soundtrack to my encounter, and spills into the other three spaces.
x3 presents Abundance — Corridor8
22.03.2023 — Review by Laura Biddle Launch of Abundance at Longsight Art Space 2023. Photograph by Rachel Bywater. On Thursday 2 March at 6pm on a quiet residential street in Longsight, three miles south of Manchester city centre, one shop front is illuminated; highlighting the throng of people inside, surrounded by little explosions of colour. This is the opening night of Abundance presented by Venture Arts for x3 at Longsight Art Space.
Are You Messin'? - Corridor8
07.09.2022 — Review by Laura Biddle Installation view of ‘The Seeing Hands’ (2022) by Katie Schwab. Photograph by Brian Roberts. ‘I’m going to make a tiger! Then a sofa for it to sit on!’ is the first thing I hear upon entering the Bluecoat. From the outset, the content, volume and announcer of this assured statement sets this gallery experience apart from most, before the miniature orator speeds past, skidding across the floor of Gallery Two towards a pile of stackable geometric shapes.
David Nash: Return to the Forest — Corridor8
Installation view of David Nash: Return to the Forest. Image courtesy Jeanette Edgar. ‘Usually the forest is our gallery’ says Hazel Stone. Ironically, however, Return to the Forest brings elements of the forest inside the gallery space at Grizedale Forest’s visitors centre. Stone is Forestry England’s North District Arts Development Manager who approached Nash with the proposal of a retrospective which focuses on his seminal residency in the forest in 1978.
Who Is Investing in Cryptocurrencies?
Women, that’s who. Why? Because women “get it,” according to the media. Over the past year, there have been a plethora of articles encouraging women to invest in virtual currencies, and, according to the Wall Street Journal, this effort is beginning to yield results. The WSJ quotes Christine Brown, COO of Robinhood Crypto, as stating that one in four (25%) customers who traded crypto in 2021 was a woman.
OFF GRID - Corridor8
22.11.2020 — Review by Laura Biddle Installation view of 'Hopper' (2020), 'Kingpin' (2020), 'Roller I' (2020) and 'Portal' (2020). Image courtesy Cross Lane Projects and the artist. Photography by Rebecca Larkin. As you turn into the car park for Cross Lane Projects, tucked-away behind the main street through Kendal, the large glass gallery doors provide an early vista into the exhibition, giving a glimpse of colour and scale.
Crypto Custody: OCC Confirms That National Banks Can Provide Custody Services for Cryptocurrency
On July 23, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released Interpretive Letter #1170 (Letter) confirming that safekeeping and custody of cryptocurrency and crypto-assets (collectively, cryptocurrency) are traditional banking services and, therefore, are permissible activities for national banks and federal savings associations.
Collier Street Baths — Corridor8
Collier Street Baths installation image. Image courtesy Salford Museum and Art Gallery. Situated in a Grade II listed building at the heart of Salford University campus, Salford Museum and Art Gallery now finds itself a short walk from a culinary and cultural development blossoming along Salford Crescent.
Six Reasons to Have a Fintech Strategy
Financial technology, or fintech, is rapidly and dramatically changing the financial services landscape, forcing banks to respond. Banks are taking different approaches to capitalize on the opportunities presented by fintech, mitigating the risks and remaining competitive. Some of these approaches include partnering with fintech companies, investing in them, investing in internal innovation and development or creating or participating in fintech incubators and labs.
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