A new audio artwork created by artist Neville Gabie with musician and DJ Nabihah Iqbal in collaboration with construction workers and manufacturers involved in the creation of Aviva Studios, Manchester’s new landmark cultural venue.
The album is available to stream for free on the Factory International website and can be purchased as a limited-edition vinyl record.
Known for creating work that responds to people and places in moments of change, Neville Gabie was commissioned by Factory International in 2019 to develop a project that would celebrate the construction workers, concrete pourers, steel workers and others involved in the creation of Aviva Studios. The artwork was made over a two-year period (spring 2020 – winter 2021) and focuses on the core materials that form the infrastructure of the building, such as steel, concrete, cloth, rubber, wood and glass. The audio includes industrial sounds and snippets of conversations with workers at five factories involved in the manufacture of these materials as well as those working on the construction site, all underpinned with original electronic music from Nabihah Iqbal.
1,500 copies of the limited-edition record have been created, each one with a unique sleeve artwork by design agency North. Every worker involved in the construction of Aviva Studios, from those working in factories to the on-site team, will receive a copy of the record.
Factory Works is accompanied by a short film created by Neville Gabie in collaboration with Mark Thomas of film studio Soup Collective. The film is a celebration of the people, sound and skill involved in the creation of Aviva Studios and offers a glimpse behind the scenes of the build. The film features the whole workforce involved in the creation of the record.
Neville Gabie said: “When I was invited to make a new work celebrating the people who were fabricating and constructing this huge new building, I couldn’t have been more excited – and to be honest, I was also a little overwhelmed. This was a wonderful opportunity to meet engineers, builders, steel fabricators, project managers, concrete experts, timber workers, finishers, sewing machinists, glass fitters, acoustic engineers, crane drivers, security guards and office staff, and to make something as a tribute to their contributions to the city. The challenge was coming up with the right idea. It needed to be simple and unique – and, once complete, it needed to be something we could give to everyone as a tribute to their achievements.”
Nabihah Iqbal said: “With all this inspiration around us, Neville and I wanted to create something all-encompassing: a soundscape of the different workplaces, interwoven with voices and music. It’s been an impossible task to try and fit in all the sounds and stories that we collected over these two years or so, but I hope that what we’ve created offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of the people and the core materials that construct our buildings.”
John McGrath, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Factory International, said: “It’s humbling to witness a great building emerge from the ground and realise how many skills and specialisms, how much care and precision, and how much hard, determined work has gone into its birth and growth. As a cultural organisation embedded in the city of Manchester, we wouldn’t be doing our own work properly if we didn’t find a way to express and respond to this extraordinary effort.
“Neville and Nabihah’s collaboration with the workers who have built our new home honours their effort with an individualism reflecting the character of those workers – a joyous insight into their labour and thoughts. Factory Works is both a tribute to and an expression of these workers, and is also a tribute to the work of those on whose shoulders we stand – the Manchester radicals of the past. It is fittingly strange, unexpected and celebratory.”
Neville Gabie’s practice encompasses performance, film photography as well as drawing and sculpture. His practice evolves through building sustained and close relationships to specific landscapes and groups and communities. Much of his work includes collaborations with members of the public as well as other artists, writers and musicians. From 2010-2012, he was artist-in-residence during the construction of the Olympic Park in London.
Nabihah Iqbal is signed to Ninja Tune and has toured the world extensively as both a live act and DJ. Her second album DREAMER was released to critical acclaim in April 2023. Comfortably navigating between music and art, she has been commissioned to compose music for the Turner Prize, collaborated with Wolfgang Tillmans as part of his Tate Modern exhibition and was recently involved in a group performance at the Barbican as part of its major Basquiat retrospective. Earlier this year Iqbal was guest director of the Brighton Festival 2023.
The FACTORY WORKS album and short film is available to stream for free at factoryinternational.org/
The limited-edition record is available to purchase online via factoryinternational.org/
