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Past
  Exhibitions
    The Tasting Garden
    Landed (Freeman's Wood)

A short history

This site presents the ongoing work of StoreyG2, and maintains the history of the work of Storey Gallery.

Storey Gallery was started in 1991 by a group of Lancaster-based artists.  Initially known as the Storey Institute Art Gallery, then as Storey Art Gallery, and later as Storey Gallery, it presented a programme of temporary exhibitions of contemporary art in the splendid Victorian gallery in the Storey Institute for 20 years until 2012. The exhibition programme included one-person shows by Andy Goldsworthy, Gillian Ayres, Basil Beattie, Michael Brennand-Wood, Simon Callery, Anthony Green, Albert Irvin, Michael Kenny, Sophie Ryder, and Richard Wilson, plus touring exhibitions from Japan, Spain, and Italy, and a variety of curated group shows.

As well as exhibitions, the programme included installations, residencies, talks, discussions, practical workshops, sessions for schools, professional development for local artists, and projects in the public realm including The Tasting Garden by Mark Dion next to the Storey building, and various works in Lancaster's Market Square. 

Details of this programme are on the ‘past’ section of this website.

In 2007-09 the building was refurbished by Lancaster City Council to become the Storey Creative Industries Centre.  It was expected that this change would provide a supportive context for planned further development of the Storey Gallery operation and programme, but unfortunately the physical gallery received negligible improvement, and the organisation was faced with a decrease in space and increase in rent. At the same time all three of its regular funders cut their arts funding due to the government's austerity policies. (The government cut Arts Council England funds by 30%, and cut funds to all local authorities.)

So the company moved out of the building in 2013 and took a new direction, shifting its focus away from exhibition delivery towards an engagement with social issues. To reflect this change in activity, it changed its operating name to StoreyG2.

The first project, Landed (Freeman's Wood), took the situation of conflict over a local plot of land as an appropriate example through which to explore the topic of landownership and its effects on people’s lives.

The ongoing project, Landed (Cadastral Maps) - a pilot, is undertaking research which aims to produce artists’ cadastral maps (maps of landownership) showing current and historical landownership of a rural area of north Lancashire, and revealing change over time. 

By 2022 StoreyG2 was no longer delivering charitable activities, so it was decided to terminate its registered charity and company status. The work on landownership is being continued by John Angus, who was previously director of Storey Gallery, and initiated these projects. This website shows both the current and previous activities.