Image: Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
Castlefield Gallery in Manchester presented 'Out Here' from 3 May to 19 July 2026, bringing together artists whose work examines relationships with nature through drawing, film, painting, performance, photography, print, sculpture and site-specific installation. The exhibition gathered Ashleigh Beattie, Shezad Dawood, Emelia Hewitt, Steve Sutton, Adam Rawlinson and Keziah Thomas-Mellor, and framed their practices around the interaction between the human and non-human.
The gallery described the show as a way of placing artists at different career stages side by side, opening dialogue between the works while connecting them to Manchester’s environment. According to the exhibition text, several of the participating artists spend time working outdoors or use natural materials directly, a shared approach that ties the exhibition to ecological research as much as to formal experimentation. Castlefield Gallery also noted that Shezad Dawood returned to the venue for the exhibition, continuing a longstanding relationship with the gallery.
One of the key works was Shezad Dawood’s 'Episode 7: Africana, Ken Bugul & Nemo' (2022), part of his film series 'Leviathan Cycle' and his long-term multimedia project 'Leviathan' (2017–ongoing). Castlefield Gallery said the work addresses the intersection of human and non-human ecologies in relation to climate change, migration and mental health. The film follows Senegalese landscapes while blending fact and speculative fiction, narrative and documentary, and incorporates accounts by the writer Ken Bugul and the lawyer and community organiser Africana, both described by the gallery as concerned with de-colonial practices.
Ashleigh Beattie’s contribution, 'Cracked Earth' (2026), covered several gallery surfaces with clay dug from her Manchester garden. The gallery linked the work to Beattie’s experiences of displacement and belonging and to the land where she now lives, while also drawing a connection to the land used to produce tobacco, cotton and maize under Britain’s colonial rule in Zimbabwe. Emelia Hewitt’s work combined photography techniques with textiles and illustration, and the gallery highlighted her use of cameraless photograms such as cyanotypes, anthotypes and chlorophyll printing, along with more sustainable development fluids made with natural ingredients.
Castlefield Gallery also placed emphasis on the material and conceptual range of the other contributors. Keziah Thomas-Mellor translated walking and climbing through the UK landscape into drawings and sculptures, as well as live performances in gallery spaces. Adam Rawlinson’s abstract painting was grounded in research into lichens, with sketches from walks in forests and wild landscapes feeding larger studio works. Steve Sutton worked with naturally occurring found materials such as fallen trees, beach pebbles and animal remains, alongside discarded materials, in a practice shaped by a long physical relationship with the land.
The exhibition’s closing text described 'Out Here' as inviting viewers to look closely at details that can be overlooked: the ground beneath our feet, spiral forms that recur in shells, cyclones and galaxies, and lichen growing along tree branches. The gallery positioned these encounters as a way of thinking about history, politics and possibility through ecological attention. A press release and exhibition handout were made available by Castlefield Gallery, which is based at 2 Hewitt Street in Manchester.
