Sweet Factory: An Exhibition by Linny Venables
Sweet Factory is a major new exhibition by Linny Venables at the Atkinson, Southport, celebrating the rich, shared histories of sweet making, working-class food traditions, and seaside culture. Through joyful experimentation, material transformation and community storytelling, Sweet Factory invites audiences of all ages to savour the pleasures of making processes.
Melt, mix, mould, pat, press, settle, slump, stretch: the exhibition draws parallels between the processes of glass making (liquid sand) and sweet making (liquid sugar), featuring newly created glass artworks by Venables and workshop participants from Southport and Bootle, alongside research, documentation, and objects sourced from local sweet factories.
Sweet Factory draws upon local histories of sweet-making in the North West. Exhibition design incorporates graphics taken from from sweet wrappers, advertisements and posters from local sweet factories, Williams Toffee Works, Bootle, Taverners, Liverpool and Holland Toffee, Southport.
Linny has created new glass artworks using processes similar to sweet making, melting, moulding, slumping and extruding glass to create colourful dessert like forms. This summer, Linny worked with participants at Bootle Library and the Atkinson to share accessible glass-making techniques to produce their own jewel-like fused glass bowls which will be activated through dessert-making workshops to create edible sculptures. These are shown alongside collaborations with other artists: new writing by Niamh Riordan, exhibition design with Gregory Herbert, and video by David Linacre. The Art Box has been newly redesigned as a workspace and children’s gallery, featuring a mural by Sam Venables.
The exhibition explores the therapeutic potential of making processes. During the exhibition, Linny will offer a series of workshops, commissioned by the UK’s leading disability arts organisation Shape Arts. Local schoolchildren will have the opportunity to engage in hands on exploration of materials that the artist uses in her practice.
Linny writes: “ I want participants to explore materials in a slow and mindful way, influenced by my own disability journey, using materials / processes as a form of relaxation and therapy. The workshops will explain my experience of living as a disabled artist, which will engage children and young people around what disability means, whether they have a disability themselves or not.”
Sweet Factory is curated by Linny Venables and supported Arts Council England through a National Lottery Project Grant, with partners Shape Arts and At The Library.
The Atkinson, Lord Street, Southport
Saturday 18 October 2025 – Saturday 21 February 2026
Monday – Saturday. 10am – 4pm. Closed Bank Holidays.
Due to essential maintenance in the Art Gallery, the ‘Sweet Factory’ exhibition will now close at 4pm on Saturday 21 February 2026 (previously 28 Feb). We apologise for any inconvenience caused and appreciate your understanding.
About the artist
Linny Venables is a visual artist based in Liverpool, working in sculpture, installation, curation and facilitation. Linny experiments with kiln-formed warm glass processes as a form of therapy. Slumping, extruding and manipulating glass in to fluid, colourful, slime like shapes. https://linnyvenables.co.uk/assorted-works
About Shape Arts
Shape Arts is a disability-led arts organisation which works to improve access to culture for disabled people by providing opportunities for disabled creatives, training cultural institutions to be more open to disabled people, and through running participatory arts and development programmes. https://www.shapearts.org.uk
About At The Library
At The Library is a community arts partnership between Sefton Libraries and Rule of Threes Arts. An Arts Council NPO since 2023, they produce a workshops, commissions and happenings that support creativity, wellbeing and connection in the borough’s library spaces and beyond. https://atthelibrary.co.uk/
