15 FEBRUARY / 6 PM – 8 PM / FREE, REGISTER 

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A conversation between Professor Richard Fitton and artists Mishka Henner and Emily Speed.

University of Salford Art Collection is hosting 2 artist residencies with Energy House 2.0 research lab, in collaboration with Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester.  Energy House 2.0 was completed in February 2022 and is the largest research facility of its type. Inside, there are two environmental chambers each able to accommodate two detached houses and under controlled conditions, recreate a wide variety of weather conditions with temperatures ranging between -20˚C to +40˚C and simulated wind, rain, snow and solar radiation. This unique facility plays a key role in accelerating the progress towards low carbon and net zero housing design and builds upon the success of the original Energy House 1, which was opened in 2012.    

Building on a pilot artist in residence programme with Energy House 1 in 2021 (McCoy Wynne), in 2023 we invited artist to apply for one of two residencies with Energy House 2.0. As we reach the mid point of the programme, project curator Lindsay Taylor invites the artists and the scientists to reflect on their different approaches to research, collaboration and engaging audiences with the subject of climate change.

Both residencies have been made possible through funding from the Friends of Energy House 2.0 Community.

Professor Richard Fitton (PhD, MRICS)

Richard is the technical lead of the University of Salford Energy House 2.0 project, holds a PhD in Building Physics and is also a chartered building surveyor. He leads a task group for the development of international standards around energy performance. Richard is the Chairman of the British Standard for Retrofit Assessment. He is also active in the International Energy Agency studying the use of smart meter data to provide energy efficiency data for dwellings. He holds a place on the SAP Scientific Integrity Group at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) which oversees the domestic energy model used in the UK. 

Mishka Henner 

Mishka Henner is a visual artist born in Brussels in 1976 and living in Manchester, UK. His varied practice navigates through the digital terrain to focus on key subjects of cultural and geo-political interest. He produces books, installations, films, photographic, and sculptural works that reflect on cultural and industrial infrastructures in a process involving extensive documentary research combined with the meticulous reconstruction of imagery from materials often sourced online. This material has included satellite imagery, intellectual property patents, text databases, generative adversarial networks, webcams, and sound archives amongst others. His works have featured at MoMA, New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Photographers’ Gallery, London, and are in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Arts Council England Collection, and The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), amongst others.  

Emily Speed

Known for her work examining the relationship between the body and architecture, Emily Speed’s practice considers how a person is shaped by the buildings they have occupied and how a person occupies their own psychological space. Working in sculpture, performance, drawing and film, Speed’s work looks at the relationship between people and buildings and in particular the power dynamics at play in built space. Her work plays with scale and creates layers around the body, often hybrid forms of clothing and architecture. 

Over the last few years, Speed has had solo presentations at Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives, TRUCK, Calgary, and Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Texas. She has been commissioned to make performances for Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Laumeier Sculpture Park (St Louis) and Edinburgh Art Festival among others and recent exhibitions include: A Woman’s Place at Knole House; Body Builders at Exeter Phoenix Gallery; and The Happenstance, Scotland + Venice at the Architecture Biennale in 2018. Emily Speed lives and works in Cheshire, UK.

Image: photo by Rob Battersby, artwork by Mishka Henner

We encourage you to use public transport or carpooling when getting to the events.

Open Eye Gallery is a short walk from the Liverpool ONE shopping centre and the Albert Dock.

By train. We are 20 minutes walk from Lime Street station. James Street station, served by Wirral Line trains, is a two minute walk. Moorfields station, served by the Northern and Wirral Lines, is a five minute walk. Visit Merseytravel for details of local train services.

By bus. The nearest bus and coach station is at Liverpool ONE, served by National Express coaches. Merseytravel has details of  local bus services.

By ferry. The gallery is two minutes walk from the Pier Head Ferry Terminal, from which Mersey Ferries run regular services to the Wirral.

By bicycle. There are bicycle bays close  to the gallery, opposite the entrance to the Museum of  Liverpool, beside the Great  Western Railway building.

If you wish to offset the carbon footprint of your travel, you can do it with Carbon Neutral Britain, Carbon Footprint, Forest Carbon, My Carbon Plan or any other project that you trust.