Art + Grief: Burning out and figuring out what matters

Chris Alton will speak about his recent experience of creative and professional burnout. Burning out forced him to reconsider where he was putting his energy and ultimately shifted his creative focus towards significantly more personal project. As part of the talk, Chris will be screening Ways to Speak Absence (2023), a short poetry film made in collaboration with Matt Alton, a poet and his brother.

About Chris

Chris Alton is an artist, based in Manchester, UK. His practice spans a range of media and approaches, including; socially engaged projects, video essays, textile banners, and publications. In 2012 he founded 'English Disco Lovers (EDL)', an anti-fascist, pro-disco group. Other projects include; 'Adam Speaks (With New Mouths)' (2017), a neoclassical treehouse commissioned by the National Trust; and 'What Mortals Henceforth Shall Our Power Adore' (2020), a video essay that frames the trident as a symbol of colonial intent. Since 2021, he has been working in collaboration with Emily Simpson on a project regarding grief and the absence of language to adequately express it. The project encompasses; dinners, workshops, posters, publications, a billboard, and a forthcoming exhibition with Bloc Projects, Sheffield (March 2024).

Exhibitions & commissions include; Tied to Everything Else, Paradise Works, Salford (2023) The slabs whistle; a song under my wheels, KARST & Take A Part (2022); Throughout the Fragment of Infinity That We Have Come to Know, The NewBridge Project, Gateshead (2020); Link & Shift, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2019); Survey, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art; Bluecoat, Liverpool; g39, Cardiff; & Jerwood Space, London (2018-19); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery; & Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool Biennial (2018-19); Adam Speaks, The National Trust, Croome, Worcestershire (2017); and Outdancing Formations, Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg (2015).