Join us for a special film night hosted by filmmaker Huw Wahl and curator Holly Grange, showcasing their thought-provoking series, Speaking Back. This compelling programme explores how so-called ‘outsider artists’ – those often positioned at the margins of the art world – challenge and converse with the institutions that collect and interpret their work. Showing newly released films documenting Valerie Potter and Marie Rose-Lortet, the event will reflect on the lives and practices of artists such as Madge Gill and Aloïse Corbaz – featured in our exhibition, Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur – whose deeply personal, visionary work has often been misunderstood or underappreciated.

Wahl and Grange will be joined via Zoom by artist Valerie Potter, and self-taught, disabled and overlooked artists champion Jennifer Lauren. They will discuss power, representation and the radical potential of outsider art. This event invites audiences to reconsider how these artists ‘speak back’ through their work.

The featured artists are part of the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, the largest public collection of its kind in the UK, which has played a vital role in preserving and championing their work. Speaking Back is a series of four films about artists from the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection. Commissioned by the Whitworth Art Gallery.

About the speakers: Huw Wahl is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally at festivals such as CPH:DOX and Open City Docs, in venues including Centre Pompidou Metz, Royal Museums Greenwich, and aboard a Thames sailing barge. His films have received international awards, featured in Sight and Sound, The Guardian, and The Wire, and been supported by Arts Council England, The Henry Moore Foundation, and the Royal Photographic Society. He has published widely, curated film programmes, taught internationally, and worked as an AHRC-funded researcher. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. His latest film, Wind, Tide & Oar, is on UK cinema release with Tull Stories.

Holly Grange is a curator and writer based in Leeds, UK. She served as Exhibition Curator at Leeds Art Gallery for four and a half years, where she curated major exhibitions and the public programme.

Prior to her role at Leeds Art Gallery, Holly was the curator of the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection at the Whitworth, Manchester, where she worked to reframe narratives around self-taught and marginalised artists. She has also worked in curatorial roles at S1 Artspace in Sheffield, the Hepworth Wakefield, and Tate St Ives. 

About Outsider Film Season: Join us for a season of films inspired by our exhibition Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur, celebrating self-expression, unconventional creativity and the art that exists beyond the expected.

Take part at the museum: Join us at the museum for this special event, followed by an evening view of Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur until 20.45.