Urban architecture takes over Gallery Oldham for Traces: Ceramics and the City

Exhibition: Traces: Ceramics and the City, Gallery Oldham, Oldham, July 16 – November 6 2011

Brigitte Soltau lived through the dramatic transformation of the Hulme estate in Manchester, seeing what she describes as “grime and grandeur” being positioned next to each other.

Inspired by this new urban architecture and the themes of place and memory, she’s gathered 18 ceramic artists for an exhibition looking at changing cities and industrial archaeology, maps and texts, communal histories and the meaning of home.

There are homages to terraced housing by Halima Cassell and Stephen Dixon, large felt wall hangings aiming to transport the texture of city streets courtesy of Carolyn Ward, a series of fragments of plinths exploring the loss of the ceramic industry in Stoke-on-Trent from Neil Brownsword and bits of metal and discarded machinery, reframed by Gordon Baldwin and Rebecca Appleby.

The diverse line-up also finds space for pottery, painting and constructions based on the industrially-designed world.

• Open 10am-5pm (4pm Sunday).