Radical Pairings

Radical Pairings is a new publication celebrating the work of five exceptional women artists: who exhibited new work created during residencies with manufacturers in the North in 2022.

Ranging from three months to two years, the residences of Hannah Leighton-Boyce + Darwen Terracotta, Liz Wilson + CNC Robotics, Nicola Ellis + Ritherdon, Jacqueline Donachie + Lancashire Saw Mill, and Raisa Kabir with John Spencer Textiles and Queen Street Mill were developed through the National Festival of Making’s commissioning programme, Art in Manufacturing.

Art critic and writer Elizabeth Fullerton was invited to document these particular artists’ residencies, commissioned within the wider scope of the Art in Manufacturing programme and resulting in the essay central to this publication, Artists and Factories Make Radical Pairings.

Providing introduction, context and conversational insights are pieces by Director and Programme Curator, Elena Jackson, Director and Curator of theCOLAB Claire Mander and Artist Jamie Holman.

Radical Pairings was launched at the 2025 National Festival of Making, where a retrospective exhibition curated by Liz Wilson celebrated the work of the artists, inviting new visitors to experience their work in a gallery environment.

A digital version of the Radical Pairings publication can be downloaded for free from this page.

From short-term residencies to long-term collaborations each artist embedded themselves within a manufacturing environment, working closely with skilled labour forces, specialist materials and industrial processes. These residencies offered an unusual but generative context with the factory floor becoming an extension of a studio, the rhythms of production informing new ways of making and thinking.

Radical Pairings gestures not only to the innovative collaborations forged between artists and manufacturers, but also to the deeper reimagining made possible when these encounters are shaped by openness, experimentation and care. In doing so, it invites us to rethink the boundaries between industry and art as co-creative forces with the potential to shape new cultural, material, and social futures.

The Radical Pairings publication was created and edited as a partnership between the National Festival of Making and theCOLAB. It was designed by Robert Walmsley at Teacake Design.  

Artists

Radical Pairings showcases the work of five exceptional women artists:

Jacqueline Donachie
Nicola Ellis
Raisa Kabir
Hannah Leighton-Boyce
Liz Wilson

Discover the unique stories behind each Art in Manufacturing residency below.

Learn more

Digital Edition

A digital version of Radical Pairings is available to download for free now.

Centred around Elizabeth Fullerton’s essay, Artists and Factories Make Radical Pairings, the publication features interviews with each artist, and providing introduction, context and conversational insights to the publication are pieces by Director and Programme Curator, Elena Jackson, Director and Curator of theCOLAB Claire Mander and Artist Jamie Holman.

Exhibition and Publication Credits

Claire Mander – Co-Editor
Daisy Williamson – Co-Editor, Publication Producer
Elena Jackson – Co-Editor, Programme Curator
Elizabeth Fullerton – Writer
Jamie Holman – Writer
Lauren Zawadzki – Festival Director
Liz Wilson – Exhibition Curator
Simon Webben – Co-Editor, Marketing
Source Creative – Exhibition Graphics
Teacake Design – Publication Design

Photography by Danny Allison, Fiona Finchett, Jules Lister, Richard Tymon and Robin Zahler.