The cold black rain shall be your coat

Free Event

Please note: Yonder Gallery is accessible from its back entrance, located on Gordon Street (postcode: HD7 5LN). For detailed directions to the gallery, please click here. For accessibility information, click here.

Charlotte Cullen, Roma Hardaker, Fraz Ireland, Oren Shoesmith
The cold black rain shall be your coat (2021)

Centering the experiences of queer and trans artists, Claye Bowler’s Yonder Gallery uses its quiet rural setting in West Yorkshire village of Slaithwaite to offer residencies and collaborations to those exploring new avenues within their practice. A new installation for the space curated by Bowler, The cold black rain shall be your coat involves four artists responding to Slaithwaite’s local environment, which encompasses the peat moorlands of the Pennines. 

Drawing on elements of sound art, film, performance and sculpture, The cold black rain shall be your coat is named after ‘The Gardener’, a folk song dating back to 1956. Inspired by the song’s depiction of retaliation against unwanted attention and harassment – and weaving in metaphors of a wild, stormy and dark Slaithwaite hillside – the work finds Charlotte Cullen, Roma Hardaker, Fraz Ireland and Oren Shoesmith taking ownership of their anger, channeling it righteously and disdainfully into a work of self-assertion.

Produced by hcmf//

Created as part of the hcmf// Young Curators’ Programme, funded by the Leeds City Region Business Rates Pool through a bid secured by Kirklees Council

Photo © Charlotte Cullen