Henry Cottam West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Henry Cottam graduated with a first from BA Fine Art (International) at the University of Leeds in 2018. He is based between Scunthorpe & Leeds, working across sculpture, moving image, exhibition making & collaboration.
For the past three years my artistic practice has explored Scunthorpe’s steel industry & history, inspired by my experience working as a Fire Watcher since 2018. Through methods of documentation, excavation, archiving & material investigation, I explore new ways of experiencing Scunthorpe’s steel industry, engaging a wide range of audiences through traditional & alternative methods of cultural production. I am committed to preserving this industry’s unique history & rebuilding its receding steel community.
In 2019, I co-founded Freehold Projects: an artist-led collective committed to supporting emerging artists in Leeds. As a volunteer group we have hosted exhibitions, workshops & events. During the pandemic, the group developed a resource sharing library, hosted critical discussions & workshops to support its members.
I have collaborated with artists from across the UK & Internationally, establishing support networks & gaining invaluable experience. I studied BA Fine Art (International) at the University of Leeds (2018) where I co-produced the degree show SQUEEZE. My work 'Removal’ went on to receive the Passey Prize for best artwork. I have gone on to co-curate & exhibit in a number of exhibitions & projects such as: Yoo-Toh-Pee-A & Remembering Mabgate Townhall in 2019, which led to a public engagement project commissioned by Mabgate Annual Festival: Rebuilding Magbate Townhall. In 2019, I was commissioned to produce & exhibit in a site-specific exhibition: In-Habit, showcased as part of Index Festival & Yorkshire Sculpture International. In 2020, I exhibited Showing Up with Freehold Projects at serf, Leeds. I also co-founded FIIK an artist studio space in Leeds. During the pandemic, I have focused extensively on research & preparing for future development opportunities to take my practice to the next stage.
Artwork
Appleby Frodingham News, 2021
Silk Screen , 2018
Skimming Plaster , 2018
Showing Up, 2020
In-Habit, 2019
Rebuilding Mabgate Town Hall, 2019
Paint Strip, 2019
Material Investigation, 2018-Present
Documenting the Post Industrial, 2021
Projects and exhibitions
| Details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Showing Up15/06/2020 — 29/06/2020 Freehold Projects used our first group show as an opportunity to consider how & why we work together as an organising group. By channeling our energy into a new activity, namely a football match, we explore the potentials of a ‘group show’ as well as how we create our sense of identity as Freehold Projects. As both an exercise in... [Read more] |
serf, Leeds | Details |
|
Rebuilding Mabgate Town Hall21/09/2019 ‘Rebuilding Mabgate Town Hall’ was a public engagement project which returned to ideas of community space, previously explored in the exhibition Remembering Mabgate Town Hall. In this exercise the artists & participants reflected on what they wanted a community space to be & how it might operate, resulting in the rebuilding of the Town... [Read more] |
Mabgate Annual Festival, Leeds | Details |
|
In-Habit11/07/2019 — 25/07/2019 In-Habit was a collaborative exhibition project that took place in the home of David & Alex responding to a series of visits, conversations & reflections that developed over a 10 month period. The artists collectively made new objects, structures & spatial interventions throughout the house resulting in a blurring of ownership & public &... [Read more] |
Leeds | Details |
|
yoo-TOH-pee-a28/03/2019 — 31/03/2019 What does our current definition of utopia look like? As regeneration turns the landscape of our cities into a new skyline, and space becomes more restrictive, what is the place of community, social space and displacement within this process? All forms of work will be considered for this exhibition, and works in progress can be submitted,... [Read more] |
FIIK Studios, Leeds | Details |
|
Remembering Mabgate Town Hall25/03/2019 — 29/03/2019 ‘Paint Strip’ featured in Remembering Mabgate Town Hall, a group show which attempted to remember and memorialise the legacy of a former artist studios & project space. The show occupied the building in its last week before its closure in preparation for the subsequent construction of apartments. After noticing a small chip of white paint... [Read more] |
Lady Beck Studios, Leeds | Details |
|
Freehold Projects20/03/2019 — 30/09/2021 Freehold Projects: an artist-led collective committed to supporting emerging artists in Leeds. As a volunteer group we have hosted exhibitions, workshops & events. During the pandemic, the group developed a resource sharing library, hosted critical discussions & workshops to support its members. https://freeholdprojects.wixsite.com/mysite |
New Market Street, Leeds | Details |
|
SQUEEZE06/06/2018 — 28/06/2018 The world is on fire but water is no longer enough. We are being moulded, pulled apart and pushed out of shape. There is no fixed approach, no linear movement up or down. What we are facing instead is a feeling, a whisper in our ears. This is the context, an invisible force of perpetual fears which we have been called to answer. Yet naming... [Read more] |
Leeds University, Leeds | Details |