Chisom Emecheta/James Moss
Projects
12 Last Songs, 2024-2025
“Perth Festival’s most powerful show.” The Guardian
Part live exhibition, part performance, 12 Last Songs is about work and how we spend our time. Making a living. Finding your passion. Watching the clock. Over 12 hours from midday to midnight, all sorts of people from Perth turn up to perform a shift, talking about what they do and how they see the world. A decorator might paper a wall, a nail technician apply a fresh set, a barista serve up a coffee. Project Animateur/Stage Manager: Chisom Emecheta.
Art House Middleton, 2024-2025
A free community art space in Middleton, Greater Manchester. Public creative workshops and activities for residents of all ages. Programmed by Chisom Emecheta.
The Portico Library, 2015-2023
Art exhibitions, performances and activities interpreting and contextualising the library’s 200-year-old book collection with Manchester’s communities. Intergenerational audience and organisation development work culminating in NLHF support for a £7-million capital project to reconnect all areas of the original Georgian-era building for the city’s arts and heritage ecologies. Curated by James Moss.
The World Reimagined, 2022-2023
Learning Consultant: James Moss
Displays of sculptural artworks by young people and community groups in 70+ venues across seven UK cities. New learning resources on the history of the Transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and its legacies for 150 schools around England and Wales. Founding artist Yinka Shonibare.
Dining In, 2023
A programme of events, dining activities, exhibition displays and discussions on the rich and diverse history and future of food culture in the North West of England—reflecting on current ideas and practices around the production of food, its preparation and consumption. Contemporary artists, cooks and writers engaging with ideas about what we eat, where we eat, and who we eat with.
Curated by Chisom Emecheta
Longsight Art Space/PROFORMA, 2021-2023
Co-Director: Chisom Emecheta
A free community-led gallery and arts space in Longsight, Manchester, and a dynamic support programme for emerging and mid-career visual artists exhibiting in non-traditional gallery spaces.
Fun & Games, 2020-2021
Exhibition, events, and online interactive activities asking what makes a game a game? After a year in which many have experienced the challenging effects of lockdowns and social isolation, the Portico Library invited the public to a programme celebrating games and recreation through the ages. Does it always include an element of fun, play, skill or luck? From Jane Austen’s depictions of the card-playing Georgian middle classes to Dickens’ festivals and dances, 19th-century literature describes the roles that pastimes play in our cultural lives, and the social, moral and intellectual aspects of game-playing. Curated by James Moss with Rowland Hill.
The Pear Project, 2022
Devised and delivered by Chisom Emecheta
A day of performance art, spoken word and happenings focusing on stories of human migration within the context of the environment and sustainability, with artists taking you through feudal China, the ancient gardens of Afghanistan, over French Orchards, into the British Landscape and Lancashire.
Second Nature, 2019
James Moss and Navid Asghari
Studies have shown that not only do nature sounds (birdsong, trickling water) induce positive brain activity and reduce stress, but artificial, simulated nature sounds also have beneficial effects. For Second Nature: What is “nature” anyway?, we built a grotto of synthetic plants where speakers played real-life and synthesized nature sounds created by composer Navid Asghari. Re-introducing sounds previously absent from the city-centre venue, this installation invited visitors to consider authenticity and artificiality and what we mean by “natural/unnatural”. The real-life audio included recordings from Rae Story’s Breathing Spaces project with TLC Saint Luke’s, which maps Manchester’s tranquil spaces for people experiencing mental health problems and emotional distress.
Botanical Magic, 2019
James Moss, Deiniol Williams and Lindsey Loughtman
Grid of backlit antique glass magic lantern slides from Manchester Museum, revealing the colonial and extractive histories embedded in its botanical collections. The images show seeds, cells, zoophytes, landscapes, diatoms, cotton production, teaching models, and real and artificial plants including cocoa beans, breadfruit, water lilies, palms and ferns.
Biography
Chisom Emecheta and James Moss are Manchester-based curator-producers who have staged over 30 exhibitions and 150+ events for a wide variety of audiences and participants across arts, heritage and cultural venues. Venues and broadcasts include ARTE, TF1, BBC, Cité de la Mode et du Design, Perth Festival, Manchester Art Gallery, Fuse Art Space, St John on Bethnal Green, Bluedot, Festival Number 6, Bristol Folk House and Greenroom.
Passing Cloud, Chisom Emecheta (as Xhi Ndubisi) & Jo Manby for The Fourdrinier, 2023–2025
The Lowry, James Moss, Curator, Contemporary Art (Nikta Mohammadi, Jo Lathwood, Hew Locke) 2023–2024
Dining In at The Portico Library, Chisom Emecheta, 2023
With Darryl Gadzekpo, Ella Phillips, Peggy Brunache, Renny O'Shea, Zuleika Lebow, Uli Westfal, Quarantine, Sheila Gheleni and Sue Palmer, Stephanie Black-Daniels, Ecaterina Stefanescu, Horace Lindezey, Terry Williams
Refloresta!
Maria Nepomuceno at The Portico Library, James Moss, 2021
Fun & Games: Playtime, past & present at The Portico Library, James Moss 2021
With Birungi Kawooya, Apapat Jai-in Glynn, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Le Ha Thu, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Gray Wielebinski, Hope Strickland, Polly Tayarachakul
Lancaster Arts
Chisom Emecheta, Associate Creative Producer, 2019-2023
Fancy Pants, 2019
Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou, Ruby Kirby, Lindsey Mendick, Camille Smithwick, House of Ghetto.
Second Nature: What is ‘nature’ anyway? 2019
James Moss with Navid Asghari, Jackie Chettur, Oliver East, Jessica El Mal, Louise Hewitt, Ruth Murray, Joanna Whittle, Amy Lawrence, Journeys Festival International, Venture Arts and Let’s Keep Growing,
Samarbeta, Ex-Easter Island Head / Crime Scene, Islington Mill / Supersonic, 2017
Mother, Bluedot, 2016
Feint, Fuse Art Space, 2015
Video Jam, Manchester Art Gallery, 2014
Mind the Gap: Less is More Projects, Cite de la Mode et du Design, 2010
Going to the Match on Tour
Touring LS Lowry’s 1953 masterpiece to five under-served North West towns and running associated free creative activities for children and community groups, 2024
What it is to be here: Colonisation & resistance, 2020
Helen Idle, Rene Kulitja, Steve Dixon, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Lowitja Institute and Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council
Talking Sense: The changing vocabulary of mind and brain 2020. Fifty artists. Fifty minds. Fifty artworks in paint, film, drawing, sculpture and print
BiblioTech: from bookshelf to big data, 2018
Dan Hays, Jane Lawson, Claire Tindale.
In So Many Words: Roget’s Thesaurus & the power of language, 2018
Jez Dolan, Sarah Rowland Hill, Jonathan Hitchen.
The Things That Look Back, 2018. Nicola Dale,
Bittersweet: Legacies of Slavery & Abolition in Manchester, 2017
Lubaina Himid, Keith Piper, Mary Evans plus items from Manchester Art Gallery & Quarry Bank Mill, co-curated with Dr Natalie Zacek.
Recollection: Memory & time, 2017. Saima Rasheed, Alnoor Mitha, Maggie Hargreaves, Leo Robinson, Stacey Coughlin.
Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism, 2017
Sarah-Joy Ford and artists Tilleke Schwartz, Wendy Huhn, Orly Cogan… + items from People’s History Museum & The Pankhurst Centre.
Made In Translation, 2017
Alice Kettle: Stephen Dixon, Louise Adkins... with Manchester Metropolitan University School of Arts & Humanities.
Be Strong, Live Happy & Love: 350 Years of Paradise Lost, 2017
Chloë Manasseh, Ilona Kiss, Kate Shaw, Helen Mather + items from Chethams Library.
Many Splendoured Thing, 2016
Raphael Fonseca and Gê Orthof. Manchester School of Art, HOME and Prêmio Marcantonio Vilaça/Plano Cultural.
Non-Places of Intelligence, 2016
Shreepad Joglekar.
The Four Guardians of the Sky, 2016. Ousama Lazkani,
James Moss publications, talks, awards, commissions
Old Tools > New Masters ≠ New Futures, panel discussion with Contact Young Company and Young Identity, Manchester Art Gallery, 2019
Bankley Open, selection panel judging prizewinner and runners up, 2018
The Sea is History & Lettres du Voyant artist Q&A, HOME, 2018
Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism, PO Publishing, 2017
Made In Translation published by MMU/The Portico Library, 2017
Future Legacies symposium, University of Leeds, 2017
Many-Splendoured Thing, Raphael Fonseca/Manchester Met, 2016
Process artist/curator talk, Bankley Studios & Gallery, 2016
Feint monograph, pub. Fuse, 2015
ArtWork Atelier project space, residency, 2013
Press & media
Refloresta!, Embroidery magazine, 2021
Fun & Games, Mancunian Matters, 2021
Colonisation and Resistance, Journal of Museum Ethnography, 2020
Bittersweet, Northern Soul, 2017
Coming In From The Cold, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust, 2017
Be Strong, Live Happy & Love, Northern Soul, 2017
Most promising act, Sounds from the Other City, The Independent, 2016
Mother, TF1, 2016
Best of 2015, BBC 6 Music, 2015
Métropolis artist spotlight, ARTE, 2015
Cue: Art in Manchester, Corridor8, 2013
James Moss at Brahm Gallery, The Independent, 2011
Events, producer/programmer
ማን እያወራ እንዳለ ይመልከቱ - Look who’s Talking, interpretive performance by Binyam Zenebe Andargie, Tsige Haile and Masresha Getahun-Wondmu, co-produced with Nuria Lopez de la Oliva Mena, 2019
Fancy Pants Fancy Party, performance by House of Ghetto, choreography by Darren Pritchard, wearable artworks by Ruby Kirby, 2019
Gut Healing, interactive performance composed and directed by Amy Lawrence, with Henrietta Phoebe Dunn, Selena Laverne Daye, Alison Erika Forde, Diana Tap, Harold Offeh, Elmi Ali, 2017
Education & training
ArtUK & Manchester Art Gallery: Caring for Your Sculpture Collection, 2020
British Museum: Resilient Heritage mentorship, 2019
Common Cause Foundation & Manchester Museum: Embedding Shared Values, 2019-2020
Touring Exhibitions Group & Wellcome Collection: Preparing to Borrow, 2018
