If awarded the £10,000 bursary, I will use the funding to develop a new body of work that explores grief, care and collective memory, through sound (including karaoke), performance, and community participation. Building on an ongoing collaboration with artist Emily Simpson, I intend to initiate a project in Darlington that partners with the local Quaker community. My practice is influenced by my Quaker values and my approach to working collaboratively with others is rooted in Quaker discernment.
The project will include a series of public workshops and events centred on the themes outlined above. These may take the form of poetry/writing workshops, experimenting with sound, and grief karaoke nights that explore how we hold space for loss and change. Ultimately, I hope the project will culminate in a body of work that incorporates performance, film and sound, which is directly influenced by the workshops and experiences of those involved.
The bursary will allow me to dedicate significant time to research, engagement, and experimentation. It will also support the development of my technical skills in video and sound recording/editing (through 1-2-1 sessions with Oliver Sutherland), helping me to push my work with moving image. Additionally, I will use part of the funding for mentoring (e.g. 1-2-1 sessions with Matt Stokes) to deepen the conceptual aspects of the work.
This award would offer vital support at a pivotal time in my career, enabling me to take creative risks, expand my community-focused practice, and deepen my engagement with grief as a public and political subject. My work frequently weaves together humour, history, and social critique. With this support, I can bring that approach into new contexts and create work that resonates both locally and more widely.
I see the Dover Prize as a meaningful opportunity to embed my socially engaged practice within the community of Darlington and to work collaboratively to produce something rooted in place. The town’s rich Quaker history presents a unique and resonant context for my ongoing exploration of grief, care, and collective memory.
I hope to work closely with the local Quaker community to co-develop creative workshops and public events that are inclusive, intergenerational, and open to all. These will explore grief through karaoke, sound, and experimental writing; encouraging participation, dialogue, and connection. I believe such events can foster a sense of shared space and visibility for experiences/emotions that are often hidden or suppressed.
I will also offer mentoring opportunities to local recent graduate artists, and present new work developed through the residency within Darlington itself. My aim is not only to create art, but to leave behind sustainable relationships, skills, and experiences that contribute to the town’s wider cultural ecology. By combining humour, tenderness, and criticality, I hope my work can help raise the profile of Darlington as a place for bold, inclusive, and socially-engaged creative practice.
I’m an artist, based in Manchester, UK. My practice spans a range of media and approaches, including; socially engaged projects, video essays and textile banners. In 2012, I founded ‘English Disco Lovers (EDL)’, an anti-fascist, pro-disco group that subverted the EDL acronym. Over the last 10+ years, I’ve made quilts from army surplus clothing, designed a font based on the silhouettes of migratory birds, worked with young skateboarders to map their city, and used a rhythm ‘n’ blues band as a vehicle for discussing tax avoidance. Since 2021, I’ve been working in collaboration with Emily Simpson on a project regarding grief, the lack of language for expressing it, and the creation of public spaces for it to be shared. We host workshops, dinners, and grief karaoke nights. In 2024 we presented a large-scale textile installation, titled ‘Grief Must be Love with Nowhere to Go’, at Bloc Projects. My work often draws on mythology, history, and humour to engage with themes that include; soft power, hierarchies, Britain’s colonial history, and climate justice. I’m also a Quaker and a skateboarder; two communities that shape how I move through the world: slowly, playfully, and with purpose. Key exhibitions & commissions include; Grief Must be Love With Nowhere to Go, Bloc Projects (2024, with Emily Simpson); Tied to Everything Else, Paradise Works, Salford (2023) The slabs whistle; a song under my wheels, KARST & Take A Part (2022); Englishness Is A Moving Target, Studio KIND., Braunton (2021); Survey, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art; Bluecoat, Liverpool; g39, Cardiff; & Jerwood Space, London (2018-19); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery; & Liverpool Biennial (2018-19); Adam Speaks, The National Trust, Croome, Worcestershire (2017); and Outdancing Formations, Edith-Russ-Haus, Oldenburg (2015).
BA (Hons) Fine Art, Middlesex University, 2011-14
Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant, 2023
a-n Artist Bursary 2022
The Eaton Fund: Grant for Artists 2021
Jerwood Bursary 2020
a-n Artist Bursary 2020
Fenton Arts Trust Bursary 2017 (As part of Syllabus III)
Edith-Russ-Haus Award for Emerging Media Artists of the Sparda Bank 2015
Lewisham Arthouse Graduate Studio Award 2015
Collyer Bristow Graduate Award 2014, selected by Emma Dexter
From March 2022 to March 2023, I served as the Secretary and Committee Chair of Bankley Studios + Gallery, an artist co-operative in Levenshulme, Manchester. I am currently a member of the Artist Direction Group of Paradise Works, an artist-led gallery and studio group in Salford.
PRIMEdesign Commission, Commissioned by: KARST, Take A Part, Plymouth Culture & Historic England, Plymouth, 2022
Aspex at 40: Banner Commission, Commissioend by Aspex, Portsmouth, 2021
Adam Speaks Commission, Commissioned by: Trust New Art / The National Trust, Croome, 2017
Grief Must Be Love with Nowhere to Go: In Conversation with Emily Simpson and Chris Alton, Amelia Crouch, Corridor8, 11/03/2024
Chris Alton: Throughout the Fragment of Infinity That We Have Come to Know, Lesley Guy, Corridor8, 03/2020
Parade, Sara Makari-Aghdam, thisistomorrow, 21/01/2020
Dissenting Voices, Disobedient Gestures, Iris Aspinall Priest, Jerwood Arts, 09/2019
“A showcase and a kind of challenge” Survey: Reviewed, Mike Pinnington, The Double Negative, 23/06/2019
London’s emerging artists at Jerwood, George Vasey, Burlington Contemporary, 07/11/2018
Brighton Photo Fringe: Chris Alton, interview by Idil Bozkurt, 22/10/2018
Young Artists in Conversation: Chris Alton, interview by Harry Meadley, 10/2018
Chris Alton & Liam Geary Baulch: The Ballad of The White Ship, Saffron Ward, Corridor8, 13/08/2018
Feature: Crudely Plucking the Strings, CCQ Magazine, Issue 15, 08/2018
Ey Up: Chris Alton, Harry Meadley, 09/07/2018 (Podcast)
Review of MEANWHILE, LOWER.GREEN, Norwich, Sarah Lowndes, Enclave Review, 07/2018
Chris Alton: ‘By bringing different artists together…’, Hatty Nestor, Studio International, 07/09/2017
International Disco Latin, Hito Steyerl, e-flux, 05/2013
Work/Leisure_4, Abingdon Studios, Blackpool, Aug – Oct 2024, with Emily Simpson
PROFORMA x Begehungen Residency, Longsight Art Space, Manchester, July – Aug 2022
SUSTAIN: Artist Digital Exchange, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester & Aarhus Billedkunstcenter, DK, Oct 2021 – Mar 2022
Link & Shift Residency, Eastside Projects, Nov 2018 – July 2019
Interdisciplinary Residency, Hospitalfield, Arbroath, Nov 2018
Email: chrisjalton@gmail.com
Address: 2 Rands Clough Drive, Salford, Greater Manchester, M28 1HJ, GB
