A Tall Order! Rochdale Art Gallery in the 1980s!

In the 1980s, Touchstones was known as Rochdale Art Gallery. Its daring and innovative approach to exhibition and education programming positioned it on the national map.

Led by Exhibition Officer, Jill Morgan, the focus on exhibiting artists engaged in critical and socio-political practice gave a platform to those who were not being offered the opportunity to show their work in other high profile institutions.

A Tall Order! is an invigorating look at the artwork made and exhibited here during the 1980s by a generation of artists, many of whom were women, young, working class and Black.

Featuring key works from this time and demonstrating how this period influenced many artists, the show will include loans from both public and private collections brought together from around the UK. Alongside selected works from Rochdale’s own collection, the exhibition will also present a series of three new and exciting commissions by contemporary artists, Lubna Chowdhary, Sarah Joy Ford and Jade Montserrat.

The show will be accompanied by a creative learning programme that will support local artists and see a wide range of free events, workshops and self-guided activities available to our audiences.

Generously supported by a grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and Arts Council England and Friends of Rochdale Art Gallery funding, A Tall Order! is curated by independent research curators Dr Derek Horton and Dr Alice Correia.

Tulsi, the Goddess of King’s Cross, 2022
Raksha Patel (b.1972)
Oil on canvas
Collection of Central St Martins Museum & Study Collection
In 2021, painter Raksha Patel was commissioned to create a new work of art in response to the historic botanical prints held in the collection of Central Saint Martins art college, London. Tulsi, the Goddess of Kinds Cross was painted in early 2022, and presents a tulsi – or Holy Basil plant. In Hinduism, the tulsi plant is a manifestation of Lakshmi, Goddess of fortune, power, fertility and prosperity. In her plant form Lakshmi symbolises virtue and purity. Patel’s painting presents the tulsi plant overlooking the landscape around King’s Cross train station in London. This is an area of intense urban gentrification, but which has a long-standing Bengali community. The painting poses questions about the past and future, place and belonging.

• https://www.yourtrustrochdale.co.uk/exhi...
• https://www.yourtrustrochdale.co.uk/a-ta...
• https://www.artforum.com/events/a-tall-o...