June 19, 2025

Introducing our 2025 Would Like to Meet artists

Introducing our Would Like to Meet artists! Following a call out in both Chemnitz, Germany and Manchester, UK, Quarantine and ASA-FF have selected 5 pairs of artists for a cross-border, intergenerational exchange.

Working in textiles, ceramics, ikebana, visual art, performance, photography and illustration, the group of artists will come together for two residencies, one in each city, later this year.

The residency time is for sharing practice, making space for the questions they have for one another across generations and cities.

The invitation is for the pairs to spend time together in a determinedly open-ended way, engaging in conversation, experimentation and shared experiences.

Read more about the pairs below.

Coreen Cottam and Vanessa Azeroth

Coreen Cottam is an artist and teacher from Scotland who’s lived in Greater Manchester for over 30 years. Coreen’s heart lies with textiles, and her work spans hand sewing and embroidery, quilt-making, and making and mending garments. Sharing her skills and experiences is a central part of her practice.

Coreen will collaborate with Chemnitz visual artist Vanessa Azeroth, who works with contemporary embroidery art and textile design. Along with traditional forms she also embroiders on postcards and in public space. Beyond her experimentation with forms she’s keen to shift perceptions of embroidery as a ‘women’s hobby’ to something that’s taken more seriously as an artform.

Coreen’s Instagram
Coreen’s website

Vanessa’s Instagram

Jez Dolan and Joachim B.-Malthet

Jez Dolan, a visual artist and theatre maker living and working in Manchester, will work with Joachim B.-Malthet. Jez’s practice explores the relationship between queerness, sexuality, identity, and memory. He works across artforms including drawing, film, printmaking, painting, performance and theatre.

Joachim, who’s based between Dresden and Chemnitz, is a transdisciplinary artist with a focus on live performance, installation and theatre. They’re also a queer feminist grassroots activist, and their work is strongly influenced by their personal experiences.

Jez’s website
Jez’s Instagram

Joachim’s Linktree

Sam Bonser and Stephanie Brittnacher

Greater Manchester based Sam Bonser is an illustrator and animator with a passion for atmospheric visual storytelling who works in both traditional and digital media. Their practice is heavily influenced by observation, site-specific drawing and documenting everyday life.

Sam will be pairing up with illustrator Stephanie Brittnacher, who grew up in rural western Germany and has lived in Chemnitz for over 11 years. Stephanie’s practice is shifting from children’s books and live illustration to a focus on comics and sequential storytelling.

Sam’s website
Sam’s Instagram

Stephanie’s website
Stephanie’s Instagram

Alan Ward and Linus Grösel

Manchester-based artist Alan Ward’s practice is driven by research and engagement, whether through historical investigation or community collaboration. He is drawn to the unexpected, and proposes alternative readings of place, history and experience.

Alan will be working with Linus Grösel from Chemnitz. Linus is a self-taught artist working across music and visual art. Interested in in-between spaces and creating spaces of connection, he is a DJ, a painter, part of a dark wave band, produces music, and plays with print graphics, film and photography.

Alan’s website
Alan’s Instagram

Linus’s Zwischenwelten project website
Linus’ Instagram

Junko Popham and Viet Phuong Nguyen

Junko Popham is an ikebana artist born in Tokyo, Japan. She moved to London in 1989, and is now based in Manchester. ‘Let flowers dance and sing freely’ is her way of introducing her home country’s ancient floral art to the West – not just delivering classical methods, but the spirit of ikebana. Working with seasonal and locally sourced materials, she creates arrangements that are bold yet gentle, and has a history of collaborating with ceramic artists.

Junko will be collaborating with Viet Phuong Nguyen, a potter and ceramicist from Chemnitz. He’s interested in expanding the possibilities of ceramics beyond the creation of functional objects and in contemporary engagement with this ancient craft.

Junko’s Instagram
Junko’s website

Viet’s Instagram

About

Would Like to Meet is one strand of The Questions, part of the programme for Chemnitz 2025: European Capital of Culture.

As well as Would Like to Meet, The Questions also includes Building of spines: hosted in libraries, a book is handmade over seven days in response to conversations with library users, published and added to the library collection; and Telescope, a new performance work, co-created with teenagers on the cusp of adulthood and older adults entering the final chapter of their lives.

The Questions will culminate with Florian Malzacher’s The Art of Assembly, which brings together artists, activists and thinkers as part of a longitudinal research study into how and why it matters that we physically assemble. Here, the focus will be on what might be enabled – socially and politically – by intergenerational assembly.

In collaboration with ASA-FF

Supported by the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Free State of Saxony and the City of Chemnitz

In cooperation with Allianz Foundation

Supported by Cultural Bridge and Manchester City Council

Image credits

  1. Coreen Cottam, Be Kind (quilt), 2021. Photo courtesy the artist
  2. Courtesy Vanessa Azeroth
  3. Jez Dolan, The Canonisation of David Hoyle (performance), 2022. Photo: Lee Baxter
  4. Ioana Chitu and Joachim B.-Malthet, QR61 Spaceship, at Chemnitz Open Space, 2024. Photo: Michele Scognamillo
  5. Sam Bonser, St Peters. Courtesy the artist
  6. Stephanie Brittnacher, Finland. Courtesy the artist
  7. Alan Ward, Freemasons Road, London E16, from Photographs from Another Place photographic series, 2020
  8. Linus Grösel, Glas, 2023
  9. Ikebana by Junko Popham. Photo: Ella Ward
  10. Viet Phuong Nguyen, Bikini Kommando pop up exhibition, 2024. Photo: Mark Frost

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