This Sky is Your Sky is a newly commissioned public art installation by Bill Balaskas, officially launched in August 2024 by 422 Arts, with the support of Arts Council England. Located on Manchester’s busy Stockport Road, where it is viewed by thousands of commuters and local residents every day, the work sits in one of the city’s most diverse yet often overlooked neighbourhoods, where histories of migration, economic hardship, and grassroots’ resilience shape everyday life.

Commissioned through an open call and selected by an open public vote, the project was developed through a participatory curatorial model, and was actively shaped by local residents, volunteers, and students. In this interview, artist Bill Balaskas and curator Or Tshuva discuss with Stephen Walker from University of Manchester the project’s development, its relationship to Longsight’s changing urban and social landscape, and how public art may engage with themes of democratisation, social justice, and cultural agency.

Stephen Walker: Can you introduce us to 422 Arts, its location, and aims? 

Or Tshuva: 422 Arts was established in January 2022 as a curatorial and cultural initiative in collaboration with the newly founded 422 Community Hub in Longsight, Manchester. I relocated to Manchester shortly before the pandemic and first got involved with the building and the community hub’s work while volunteering at their food bank during lockdowns. That experience introduced me to both the immediate needs of the neighbourhood and the potential for creative collaboration within the space.

The impressive Victorian building on 422 Stockport Road has a fascinating history as one of the country’s first free public libraries. When a new library was built in the late 1970s, it was converted into a youth centre. However, like many publicly funded spaces, it became a casualty of gradual funding cuts, eventually closing for over a decade before undergoing a community asset transfer. This pattern is not unique, but in some areas, where communities rely more heavily on social provision, such closures can leave lasting gaps in education, social support, and cultural life.

In the post-pandemic era, when both social services and arts organisations were extremely overstretched and precarious, 422 Arts emerged as a way to support both sectors by using creative practices to address social issues and respond to the needs and interests of the neighbourhood. We aim to serve the local communities of Longsight and Ardwick while also providing opportunities to the broader arts sector through ongoing projects, artist commissions, events, and workshops.

 

Bill Balaskas, This Sky is Your Sky, 2024, installation view. Image courtesy 422 Arts.

 

Process and Community Involvement

Stephen: Could you explain why you felt the participatory approach to curating was appropriate in this situation, and what was specific or different about the route that it took here? 

Or: Because the building has gone through different phases since the 19th century and had been shut for a decade before its community asset transfer and reopening as a community hub in late 2021, the idea of commissioning a building-front installation came up quite early in my conversations with its new operators. This was not only seen as a marker of its reopening, celebrating its refurbishment, but also as a way to invite people in – to signal that something new was happening in this building, which many may have come to see as an abandoned or obsolete space.

Although I have always been an advocate for open calls as a democratic format supporting an accessible and broader distribution of cultural resources beyond pre-existing networks, it was also quite essential in my understanding that such public commission is not introduced as a top-down fact in which curators or cultural organisers like me decide what people would see when they open their window. Given the history of neglect and the diverse communities living in the area, it was important that this commission did not impose a singular institutional narrative but instead emerged through a participatory process, ensuring that those who would pass by or interact with the space daily had a say in what it would become. 

The decision to launch an open call culminating in a public vote was not just about artistic transparency; it was about breaking with top-down models of public art commissioning, where curators or cultural organisers dictate what communities will see in their environment. This type of operation has been quite common, although I believe that in the local socio-political context of Longsight, where migration, economic hardship, and language barriers often mean residents are excluded from decision-making, there is an even greater urgency to ensure that cultural practice is not further denying residents from having a voice.

For this reason, it was not only important to have a public call for artists and work with a professional panel to shortlist expressions of interest, but to also make sure that the final decision on which proposal gets selected is made by a public vote factoring in preferences of as many residents, staff, volunteers, and members of the public as possible. 

Stephen: Can you elaborate on the participatory model? What was the process that followed the public calls? And how did this process shape the final artwork? 

Or: We received around a hundred expressions of interest in response to the open call and shortlisted two
artists with the support of a professional panel, which included Dr. Marianna Tsionki (Curator, Leeds Arts University), Nicola Hood (Contemporary Art Curator, Harris Museum), and myself. The shortlisted artists were given five weeks and a small fee, allowing them to visit the building, engage with local residents, and develop a detailed site-specific proposal informed by these interactions. Each proposal included mock-ups and artist statements, which were then publicly presented at an open vote event, followed by discussions and anonymous voting.

One of the things I particularly liked about Bill’s proposal is that it not only articulated a thoughtful response to his research and local engagement with the building’s heritage and current role among local communities, but also offered an opportunity for residents to get involved in its creation and gain new skills along the way – so the final outcome is not only the work of one artist but that of a group coming together showcasing different perspectives.

 

Cyanotype and digital photography public workshops  at 422, led by students and tutors from Manchester Metropolitan University as part of the project’s participatory development process

 

Bill: Although some elements in terms of what participation might have looked like were described in my original proposal, the intermediate stages of the creative process emerged gradually and organically. The only activity that we had planned after the original community vote was the photographic workshop, but even that did not have a predetermined format. Its content was decided in collaboration with the tutors of the Photography Department of Manchester Metropolitan University, who issued an open call to their students to get involved by co-running two workshops, one analogue and one digital, under the supervision of their tutors and technicians. This element of involving MMU students was particularly important to me as an educator, because I wanted to give as much initiative and agency as possible to the students who represent a new generation of practitioners interested in socially engaged art. Also, most of the students who collaboratively ran the workshops were local, which meant that by participating in the project, they were also building relationships with new communities and a new organisation based in Manchester. Seeing how adaptable and responsive both the students and the members of the community were during the workshops encouraged us to trust even more directly their judgement when it came to the selection of the photographs, their location, and their ultimate format. 

Or: Exactly. It was a mixture of structured planning and responsive, decentralized approach that evolved throughout the process. Another key aspect – because 422 Arts is committed not just to local communities but also to the broader arts sector – was ensuring that we properly valued creative labour at every stage. There has been an ongoing discourse about the amount of unpaid work artists undertake, from application writing to unpaid participatory engagements. For this reason, we kept the initial application process as minimal as possible to reduce unpaid labour, while ensuring that shortlisted artists, panel members, and later, students and tutors, were fairly compensated for their time and contributions.

The more people got involved, the more flexibility it required – not only in budget and scheduling but also allowing ideas and plans to remain porous and negotiable. It is really important to embrace a certain level of uncertainty, both when working with artists on newly commissioned projects and when working with communities in participatory models.

Stephen: There is an ethical and democratic motivation behind this approach to participatory commissioning, but did you anticipate that it would develop such positive community interaction and involvement? What were the most surprising outcomes from the community’s feedback?

Bill: As Or has suggested, there was community feedback and responses to it from our side at practically all stages of the project; so, I think that the participatory model was quite unique on its own right. In that sense, the ethical dimension of the democratisation was something that we very consciously embraced, even if that meant that there was often a sense of being in “limbo” until things fell into place, as I suggested earlier. We chose to trust a process that prioritised openness until the very last moment – until the point when all the funding had to be used, orders had to be made, and events had to be scheduled and delivered. Yet, this also meant that we had some truly insightful, generous and, at times, emotional conversations with Longsight and Ardwick residents and 422 staff before coming up with my final proposal, and before completing the final installation. It was nothing short of inspirational for me to hear the members of the community describe 422 as a second home – a place that they felt was open to everyone. 

After choosing the artwork through the open vote, the first feedback that the community gave us related to the specifications of the illuminated sign, which was a very significant contribution. To be more specific, the font that we ultimately used was informed by the fact that for most community members and visitors of 422, English is a second language. This meant that the font had to be as simple as possible. The same approach was adopted in relation to the display of the sign’s phrase at a single part of the building’s façade, rather than having a more spread-out format that would make it more difficult for non-native speakers and passers-by to read the text. 

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the feedback was that it reflected the continuous striving of the community to co-create an artwork that would be as inclusive as possible and would always take into consideration both the people seeing the work from the outside and the users of the space. For instance, this was particularly important for the community café area, on the windows of which we tested for a few weeks some of the photographs that were taken during the community workshops. In the end, we chose not to display any photographs there, as our priority was to maintain a sense of openness and direct connection between the building’s main community area and the street, which the window films might have compromised.

Earlier layout and font options that have been ruled out through consultations with local residents and community members.

The Artwork and Its Site

Stephen: How did the physical and cultural context of the 422 building and Stockport Road shape the artwork’s design, placement, and execution? Because of the site’s location, the local community pass by and encounter 422 with different routes and rhythms to the commuter traffic – can you tell us a bit more about how the artwork responds to these different dynamics?

Bill: For me, the initial point of reference was the history of the building as one of the first free public libraries in the country. This was very much reflected in the decision to propose a text-based installation for the façade. The history of 422 Stockport Road as a free library is an element that I felt had to be celebrated – especially in today’s context, where education is systematically underfunded and access to knowledge is limited through oligarchy-owned online media, the proliferation of post-truth politics, and privileged access to information that comes at a price. Longsight is not only one of Manchester’s most ethnically diverse inner-city areas, but also a neighbourhood experiencing some of the highest rates of child poverty in the UK. Therefore, highlighting the role of education and access to knowledge became crucial from the very beginning. 

The text-based format also responded to the fact that Stockport Road is a very busy transportation artery for Manchester; a place not seen as a destination, but rather a point between the city centre and the suburbs. The large-scale illuminated sign on the building’s façade breaks – even momentarily – this transient status. It becomes a “punctuation mark” within the saturated visual landscape of the city and a memorable moment during thousands of journeys taking place every day.

Of course, the most regular passers-by are local residents themselves, who can stop in front of the building and pause by choice rather than by chance. However, in their case, we are not talking simply about “a memorable moment” like in the case of commuters; more than anything else, their different route and rhythm relates to the potentiality to build new memories, which are much more attached their neighbourhood and its future. Yet, this is inextricably connected to their perception of the present – the potentialities that are “locked” in the present – and that is why it was so important that all choices in relation to the placement and the execution of the work were defined by community engagement. Without it, it would have been very difficult for the community to develop a sense of ownership of the work, which in many ways also mirrors the sense of ownership that they have (or do not yet have) about their neighbourhood in general. People in Longsight and Ardwick often feel either deprived of a personal voice; or – at least – that their personal voice is not strong enough to become visible or make a visible difference.

Stephen: What could you do in this location/setting that would not work in a city-centre gallery?

Or: It is really interesting to think about how working in this context – within Longsight and a community setting – has enabled things that wouldn’t have been possible in a city-centre gallery or a larger museum. Coming from that institutional background myself, setting up a project like 422 Arts in the heart of a residential neighbourhood, alongside social and wellbeing initiatives like food provision, kids’ clubs, migrant networks, and mental health services, has been a truly humbling and meaningful experience.

We know that even when museums and galleries are free, they often come across as intimidating or irrelevant, especially to people from disadvantaged backgrounds. In larger institutions, there would be an entire sector of mediators and engagement professionals, as well as financial resources invested in bridging the gap between decisions made at the managerial and curatorial level to those perceived as their target-audience. But here, that gap is significantly smaller – not because there’s more outreach, but because the connection between the artwork and its context is far more immediate and embedded in daily life.

Operating alongside other community-led initiatives and essential services in a familiar community setting, really allows to break down these barriers making art a more immediate operational tool for addressing concerns and interests of our local environment and its people, which forms a different sense of ownership and engagement that doesn’t necessarily ‘awaits permission’.

Detail of the original Reading Room headstone from the building’s time as a public library.

Broader Context

Stephen: How does the building’s shift to a Community Asset Transfer reflect broader changes in community support systems and funding? What role does the artwork play in countering these dynamics?

Or: Community Asset Transfers (CATs) – a UK term for the process in which a local authority or public body ceases operating social or community service venues, such as libraries or youth centres, and transfers their ownership and management to charities and community groups – are often a double-edged sword. On one hand, they support grassroots and localised agendas, empowering communities by giving them control over assets and their operations. But on the other, they have long been criticised as a byproduct of austerity policies, shifting the burden of public services onto underfunded and overstretched voluntary organisations. The responsibility of maintaining, funding, and programming these spaces falls onto the community itself, often without adequate state support, raising serious concerns about long-term sustainability, equity, and access.

Stockport Road is one of Manchester’s busiest roads, with thousands of people passing the building every day. Yet, it’s not a place where funders or municipalities would typically choose to commission a public artwork. One of the conversations that really stuck with me happened during Bill’s preparatory research stage, on his first visit to the building. We asked a local resident, who was sitting in the café, if there was a place she would recommend to someone unfamiliar with the neighbourhood – somewhere significant, a local landmark, or simply a spot she found personally meaningful. Her answer was just: “Nothing.” She didn’t say it with great lament, and maybe it wasn’t surprising given the institutional neglect this area has faced for years. But I found it incredibly sad and, at the same time, a pivotal moment. It reinforced how deep the disconnect is between places like Longsight and the cultural value systems that shape decisions around investment, visibility, and belonging.

I’m not naïve or utopian about what art can do. But in that particular moment, I really wished this project could be such thing – a place she could refer to when asked about areas of interest or local landmarks again, something for our community to celebrate and be proud of. In a way, I think of this as a “counter-gesture” – a deliberate act of shifting focus and generating cultural value in a place that policies and investment strategies effectively treat as insignificant. For local residents, this can be a truly empowering experience. But the significance of this gesture also extends outwards: sending a message about the cultural and social histories that exist here, despite being institutionally dismissed.

This is why we were so eager to celebrate the building’s history as one of the country’s free public libraries, for example, as a way to rethread a local history of social justice into the greater local narrative. Positioning the site not just as a functional space but as historic symbol of knowledge, access, and repair. 

This Sky is Your Sky, installation detail.

Stephen: Considering these counter-gestures more, could you say whether you were consciously guarding against the forces of gentrification through your curatorial and artistic approaches, or were your intentions more directly responsive to the interests and skills of the participants?  

Bill: The fact that the 422 Community Hub is the result of a Community Asset Transfer informed in a crucial way the curatorial approach to the original call for proposals, the public vote for the selection of the artwork, as well as our decision to involve the community in as many decisions as possible. Of course, this lies in contradistinction to the dominant trends of gentrification and financialization of space that we see at play across Manchester and elsewhere. The multi-level involvement of the community aimed at countering the alienation that is often caused by this financialization, as this is – above anything else – a mechanism of exclusion. Emphasizing values such as shared ownership and democratization in decision-making was a way for us to underline the existence of spaces where those values do not only exist, but also, they are celebrated and promoted collectively. I think that being responsive to the interests and skills of the participants is part and parcel of this approach. Dominant modes of gentrification do the exact opposite: they ignore the knowledge, aims, and dreams of local residents, promising to replace them with a vague notion of “better”.

Stephen: What is the long-term vision for the installation? How will it continue to involve and serve the community over time?

Or: One of the things that became really vivid during my time at 422 is that artworks operate differently in community settings – people see, interact with, and incorporate them into their daily lives in ways that might not happen in other contexts.

For example, with some of our other displayed projects, I’ve seen people spontaneously add objects nearby or place things alongside them, not as an act of protest or defiance, but as a kind of intuitive response, an extension of the work into their environment. I’m not suggesting that this installation will physically change over time, but it is fascinating to see how people continue to develop relationships with artworks once they become part of a place in ways that are quite different from the type of relationships they could have with artworks in museums or larger galleries. It is almost as if they take on new lives of their own. I suppose they do, in a way, and that’s part of the charm.

Bill: Inevitably, one cannot predetermine the way in which a work in a public space might function in the future. This is an uncertainty or, even, “risk” that any artist working in a public location has to accept. The installation is still a rather new feature for the building, the road, and the neighbourhood; however, what I think we have achieved for now is to make the 422 Hub more visible not only in literal terms through its new illuminated façade, but also in terms of how its communities and staff articulate what the space means to them, and what its people mean to them. Togetherness and confidence are very important elements in any area that is facing the challenges that Longsight and Ardwick are facing. And what we also wish for the community is to see me and Or as allies in their future goals – particularly in terms of supporting young people who might wish to study creative disciplines or pursue a career in them. This can be even more important than the artwork itself in the long-term.


The photography workshops for the local communities were collaboratively run by Manchester Metropolitan University students Eva Chalk Asekun-Taylor, Thomas Holloway, Cain Newell, Himani Bajaj, Ela Skorska, and Dominika Elgert, with the support of tutors Dr Helen McGhie and Ciara Leeming, and technician Emma Kirk.

Bill Balaskas is an artist, theorist, and educator based in London. He is Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the School of Arts of Kingston University, where in 2022 he founded the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts (CePRA). His exhibitions and lecture-performances include presentations at MACBA, Barcelona; BOZAR, Brussels; EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; CA2M, Madrid; Transmediale, Berlin; Le CENTQUATRE, Paris; TENT, Rotterdam; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; the British Film Institute, London; Tate Liverpool; University of Oxford; Sharjah Biennial; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. His books include Fabricating Publics: The Dissemination of Culture in the Post-truth Era (Open Humanities Press, 2021); and Institution as Praxis: New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research (Sternberg Press, 2020). Originally trained as an economist in Greece, Bill holds an MA and a PhD from the Royal College of Art.

Or Tshuva is a curator, researcher, and cultural organiser based in Manchester, UK. She is the founding curator of 422 Arts, a cultural initiative embedded within 422 Community Hub in Longsight, Manchester, where she develops artist commissions, public programs, and socially engaged projects that respond to local and global issues. With over a decade of curatorial experience in international museums and non-profit arts organisations, her work explores the intersection of curatorial practice, community engagement, and critical spatial politics. She has contributed to various publications and platforms, focusing on participatory and site-responsive approaches to contemporary art. Or holds an MA in Global Arts from Goldsmiths, University of London, and her writing has been featured in various academic and museal publications.

Stephen Walker is professor of architectural humanities at the University of Manchester. He was trained as an architect and worked for architectural and design practices in the UK and Spain. He subsequently worked in the Faculty of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University; the University of Sheffield; and moved to the University of Manchester (MARG) where he was Head of Architecture 2017-2022. He is currently Director of Research. His research has examined questions that theoretical projects can raise about particular moments of architectural and artistic practice. More recently, his work has focused on the architecture of travelling street fairs and fairgrounds.