CoLab Manchester

How do we use language to create shared spaces for healing? Can an exploration of the past lead us to a better future? What collective work can help us find a place of care with(in) the institution?

CoLab Manchester is a project in Greater Manchester responding to iniva’s Future Collect programme in collaboration with Short Supply featuring artists Fauziya Johnson and Kiara Mohamed. 

Supported by iniva, Short Supply will be working with the artists to deliver a series of school workshops and create an artwork in 2023. Fauziya and Kiara will work with young people at Salford City Academy in Greater Manchester to explore the themes of care and resistance. 

Continuing CoLab’s commitment to the well-being of participants and collaborators, the project is receiving support from with-you – an organisation providing advice on how to promote project participants’ skills and expertise to offer each other peer support and encouraging conversations about well-being for ourselves and the people around us.

About Short Supply

Short Supply is an arts organisation based in the North West. Short Supply is a bridge between emerging artists and arts organisations, producing exhibitions, workshops and talks to create enriching environments that allow us to platform, connect and exchange knowledge alongside emerging artists in the north west and nationally. Being the change we want to see and all that. Notable projects include our graduate art prize MADE IT (exhibitions at HOME, Rogue Artists’ Studios, Paradise Works), our Arts Council England funded tour around the north west Goin Places Doin Bits, collaborations with Islington Mill, SOUP, Manchester Pride, UKNA and our programming for organisations like Manchester Art Gallery, Institute of International Visual Arts, The Whitworth and Culture Warrington.

Fauziya Johnson is a Somali-Dominican, queer artist, curator and producer based in Manchester, who currently works with the contrast and comparing of bodies and architecture, in an aim to decolonise and re-claim spaces and ideologies. Her work in all sectors focuses on encouraging racial equity, debt abolishment, de-constructing colonial places, mental health awareness, and is passionate about representation in all forms of the institution. She’s also a co-founder and edits ROOT-ed Zine, a self-published zine and social platform that aims to promote, support, represent, and inspire creative people of colour within the North West of England. She has been a Trustee of Metal Culture since March 2021. In 2018, Fauziya gained a Fine Art degree from Liverpool Hope University in which she received a Scholarship of Excellence, and is currently studying Business Administration.

Kiara Mohamed Amin is a Somali, queer, trans multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Liverpool. His practice encompasses film-making, poetry, painting and artisanal handicraft. His works are primarily concerned with addressing topics such as race, gender, sexuality, intergenerational trauma, astrology, ancestor magic and self-care.

CoLab: Embodied Healing

Read the zine created by CoLab Manchester artists Fauziya and Kiara exploring the themes of care and resistance working with young people at Salford City Academy.