Blackpool Social Club

“I was sick of being sick of it,” explains Jonathan Sisson, the filmmaker-turned-photographer behind a collection of shots of Lancashire displayed at Urban Arts Studio in St Annes. Born and raised in Lytham, he aims with these photos to challenge the familiarity – perhaps tedium – of the county’s landscapes. The lovely, diffident Jonathan, fortuitously braving the Beast from the East to have a fag outside, introduced himself to us as we entered the exhibition’s opening night. He explained that he tries to show the otherworldly in the everyday. The collection has an eerie, extraterrestrial thread, which is especially evident…

As a schoolteacher, the word “slime” strikes anguish into my very core. It conjures up fidgety students equipped with foul-smelling plastic tubs, kneading the viscous contents under the pretence that it helps them focus - that is if it doesn’t end up smeared in a vile mess all over the carpet. For Blackpool artist Adrian Pritchard, however, it is just one medium through which he explores the creative potential and physical limitations of gravity, and, through his participatory exhibits, challenges the parameters of what an artist actually is. Pritchard’s current solo exhibition at Blackpool’s Grundy gallery, a collection called Terraforma,…