A Restorative - next in Stoke on Trent

Sheila is very pleased to be getting A Restorative out in its entirety again in a couple of weeks in Stoke on Trent as part of Appetite’s The Big Feast 2025. Also to be sharing it at Bethesda Chapel where she showed Covet Me Care For Me a decade ago in 2015 (yes really)! It feels really special to be returning to the space again and re-inhabiting it with another piece of care themed work.

Of course, Sheila was also at the same festival last summer with Infinity Knot - always a pleasure to be sharing work in Stoke with Appetite…

The piece will be part of The Big Feast on 22nd & 23rd August.

Further details and how to book tickets can be found HERE.

Cultures of Care Gathering 19-20 July

Sheila is sharing new work at Ruth Singer’s Cultures of Care Gathering in July in Woodhouse Eaves, Leicestershire.

She will sharing the results of her collaboration with Ruth - Objects of Comfort & Care - and also running A Restorative workshop where participants are invited to make a dream/eye pillow with Sheila - using fabrics from Ruth’s vast collection of material.

Further details can be found HERE.

Images of Sheila and Ruth’s collaboration can so far be found on instagram and soon will have their very own page on Sheila’s website…

Objects of Comfort and Care - title page of Sheila’s work, a collaboration with Ruth Singer (2025)

CMYK - MPND Members Exhibition 2025

Sheila is showing work as part of CMYK over the next few weeks - the yearly Modern Painters, New Decorators Members Exhibition - where Sheila has a studio. Details as follows:

CMYK, Friday 23rd May to Saturday 7th June 2025 at Tangent Gallery

“Modern Painters, New Decorators is pleased to announce CMYK, the 2025 Annual Members Exhibition, hosted at Tangent Gallery. This year’s show turns its focus to printmaking — not only as a technique, but as a method of exchange and experimentation, rooted in repetition. Open 12-4pm Thursday-Saturday”

Close up of Sheila’s work for CMYK - Photo by Joshua Jones

Make a dream / eye pillow with Sheila

Sheila is leading A Restorative workshop this week for LU Arts at Loughborough University:

Wednesday 21 May 1-2pm

Collaboration Station First Floor, Student’s Union

FREE

Create your own eye pillow and discover how artists can bring ecology and ecological issues into their work.

All materials will be provided, however you are welcome to bring along an old piece of soft or cotton clothing to cut out and make your pillow from.

No prior experience needed!

Atmospheric Forces tickets on sale!

Atmospheric Forces is a new art-work by Sheila and artist Sue Palmer, currently in development and opening in May 2025 in Reading.

A performance along a table

A show and talk

A long table

Underneath, an archaeology, of sorts

Objects are assembled, time and space fold

The sea rises, the sea falls

Vapour.

In this new art-work, artists Sheila Ghelani and Sue Palmer, turn over the interconnections between climate and geology, fuel and feelings, the strata and layers of atmospheres through performance and action.

Everything we make is from the earth and will go back to it

Performances in 2025:

Saturday 17 May | 2.00pm to 4.00pm | South Street Arts, Reading – Info and Book Tickets

Tuesday 17 June | 7.30pm – 9.30pm | Silk Mill Studios, Frome, Somerset – Book Tickets

Thursday 19 June | 7.00pm – 9.00pm | Customs House Exeter, as part of PILE UP! – Book tickets

Autumn – Loughborough, East Midlands hosted by Radar/LUArts

Black mirror making workshops with young people...

Sheila was really pleased to work with Fermynwoods Alternative Provision Students at the end of November, over two different days… Together they made and explored black mirrors - an activity loosely based on Sheila’s art-work On Reflection…

Activities included wandering, walking, sketching, writing, spray painting and lots of general chat.

Sheila also introduced her practice generally through lots of materials, objects and ephemera…

Modern Painters New Decorators Crowdfunder

Sheila is a studio holder at Modern Painters, New Decorators in Loughborough.

Modern Painters, New Decorators was started seven years ago by artists and makers with a connection to Loughborough. Based in Carillon Court since 2017 MPND has facilitated a free programme of workshops, exhibitions and community gatherings alongside running artist studios and a shop.

In 2025, the organisation will open the doors to a new public arts venue on Aumberry Gap in Loughborough, near Pinfold Gate. This new arts venue will include a public gallery, learning space, artist studios, community kitchen and resident micro-bakery (serving coffee and baked goods).

To make these plans possible MPND is currently running a Crowdfunder - aiming to raise 20K by 23rd November 2024.

Please consider donating!

There are lots of rewards on offer including a few from Sheila…

Find out more HERE

New work & Common Salt at Fierce Festival 24

Sheila is currently making new work Softly/Tenderly for premiere at Fierce Festival in October 2024.

The piece is a participatory art-work exploring the complicated history of gun-making within Birmingham, but, as the name suggests, does so with care.

Hosted in small groups, those that experience the work get to play a part in the creation and manufacturing of a small precious metal object that they then get to keep. A gift or totem to take away, acting (perhaps) as a gentle reminder of some of the better things industrious hands can get up to – many people making together being a nod towards some of Birmingham’s more celebrated workshop industries, such as jewellery and toys.

For those able to engage with the heavier aspects of history, a piece of print accompanies the work illuminating Birmingham’s role in its lesser talked about trade.

Attentive, pleasurable, gentle and bespoke, Softly/Tenderly is – with intention – the very opposite of everything weapons stand for and do.

Credits

Softly/Tenderly is supported by Arts Council England and commissioned by Fierce and performance, possession + automation, a three-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Details

Softly/Tenderly runs every hour from 12 pm to 6 pm from Thursday 17 October to Saturday 19 October and 1 pm to 4 pm on Sunday 20 October. The performance lasts 45 minutes.

Book Tickets HERE

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Sheila & Sue are also pleased to be sharing Common Salt at the festival too on Wednesday 16 October! Further Details HERE

Infinity Knot at Appetite's Big Feast this August

Sheila has been re-visiting Infinity Knot this summer (first made for South bank Centre’s ‘Pragma’ weekender in 2014) getting it ready to next share at Appetite’s Big Feast in Stoke on 23 & 24 August.

Further details below:

Learn how to tie an infinity knot whilst thinking about someone or something you are connected to always, then carefully package it up to keep. If you’d like, you can also record the tying of your knot in a special dedications book for all to see.  

Drop-in anytime to try out this simple but meaningful activity – both a reflective ritual and gentle challenge for your head, heart and hands. Who or what will you tie your infinity knot for? 

“Knot – a complex symbol embracing several important meanings all of which are related to the central idea of a tightly closed link.” – A Dictionary of Symbols, J.E Cirlot 

Where to see it

Create your Infinity Knot on both days at Airspace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent centre (Hanley)

Friday 23: 12pm to 1.30pm, and 2.30pm to 5pm

Saturday 24: 11am to 1.30pm, and 2.30pm to 4pm

Click HERE for full festival programme

Atmospheric Forces RADAR residency in July

Sheila & Sue are in residence at RADAR in Loughborough this July continuing to work on their new work Atmospheric Forces:

Atmospheric Forces Artist Residency

Tues 23 – Fri 26 July

Drop-in session: Fri 26 July, 10am – 12pm

Meet artists Sheila Ghelani & Sue Palmer during their residency at Martin Hall Gallery and hear about their work in progress, Atmospheric Forces. 

If you can’t make the drop-in session and would like to learn more about this project then please email Radar curator Lucy Lopez at L.Lopez@lboro.ac.uk

In residence at Reading University in April 24 - photo credit Amie Cliffen

We Are All Memory Bodies Exhibition

Sheila has been working with Charlotte Spencer Projects this summer as part of their new exhibition We Are All Memory Bodies.

She is part of stellar line up of artists working on the project which includes Charlotte Spencer, Becky Edmunds, Vicky Malin, Shivaangee Agrawal, Petra Söör, Alberto Ruiz Soler, Zoe Manders and Marty Langthorne…

The exhibition explores the relationship between felt experience and memory; tracing story, connection and humanity in caring, hopeful, encouraging ways.

Made up of a collection of 6 participatory artworks, by 8 artists, we are all memory bodies is full of things to touch, to sense, to feel, to rest in. It incorporates a variety of ways for audiences to engage with the exhibition through hands on invitations to work with crafts and tactile materials,  conversation, listening, watching and resting. 

Read more about it and watch a trailer by Zoe Manders on Charlotte Spencer Projects’ website HERE

Infinity Knot as part of Charlotte Spencer Projects’ We Are All Memory Bodies… Photo by Zoe Manders

On Reflection at Timber festival this weekend

Sheila is pleased to be sharing On Reflection - a wander with a black mirror at Timber Festival this weekend, at 11am on both Saturday & Sunday:

Hold a black mirror carefully in the palm of your hand and look, listen and think about who you are in relation to the natural world around you on this participatory wander led by artist Sheila Ghelani.

What do you see and what remains just off to the side – hidden, overlooked, forgotten, unnoticed?

Popular in the 1800s with landscape painters and tourists, black mirrors were used to ‘tint’ views - a bit like the instagram filters we use today.

During this activity you'll learn more about black mirrors and their use through time and will be given the chance to sketch like a landscape painter, write like a poet and look like a tourist - amongst other things.

Suitable for adults.

If you’re interested in taking part you will find her at the Shivelight meeting point (spaces available for up to x15 people).

Sheila is sharing the wander as part of her research towards On Rock & Air supported by a National Forest Arts Grant.

Further details on Timber Festival can be found HERE

Photo credit Sheila Ghelani