Testing Ground is our residency programme at Exchange Place Studios, intended to provide an intensive period of creative experimentation for an artist based in Sheffield. Our artist-in-residence for April/May 2025 is Emma Bolland, a transdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the intersections of painting, drawing, and assemblage.

Emma works primarily with these media, though their practice also encompasses writing across poetry, fiction, essays, and scripts. Previously, they have worked with sculptural installations and video projections, and they intend to revisit this during their residency.

For Testing Ground, Emma will create an ambitious ‘expanded painting stage set’ that continues their material exploration of a decommissioned psychiatric hospital in Yorkshire. Using their sensory memories of the building and its internal architecture, Emma will create impermanent compositions that seek to reproduce their experience of the hospital’s specific and affecting atmosphere. They are interested in the physical and bureaucratic boundaries of such institutions: who is kept in and who is kept out?

Through a series of public open days, you are welcome to visit Emma in the studio for a glimpse of their developing work and the chance to ask them questions.

Follow Emma's progress by reading their residency blog on a-n.

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STUDIO OPEN DAYS

Drop in during an open day for an opportunity to meet Emma and engage with their developing works-in-progress.

Friday 25 April, 12-4pm
Saturday 26 April, 12-4pm
Friday 9 May, 12-4pm
Saturday 10 May, 12-4pm

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CRIT

Come along for our monthly crit group for the chance to critically engage as a group with Emma's work. Free, but booking essential: contact tyler@artspace.org.uk to reserve a space.

Wednesday 30 April 4 - 5.30pm

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CLOSING EVENT

Join us for a celebratory closing event to meet Emma and see an informal presentation of work developed during their residency. No need to book, just drop by.

Friday 23 May, 5-7pm