Salford Voices banner exhibition

Artists Chris Alton and Emily Simpson have collaborated with residents at Broughton Community Centre to design a series of banners that mark the centenary of Salford’s city status. The group have learned textile and sewing techniques, whilst exploring how banners have been used to express shared values and local pride.

Nine banners make up this exhibition; the largest banner reimagines the coat of arms of the City of Salford and the eight smaller banners feature some of the things that make Salford unique. The banners include visual references to local history, landmarks, wildlife, green spaces, and waterways. They also reference Salford’s industrial heritage, as well as the city’s thriving technology and media businesses. All nine banners are a visual celebration of Salford’s renowned community spirit.

The banners will be on display in Salford Museum and Art Gallery from Saturday 21st February to Saturday 9th May 2026. The exhibition is free to visit and suitable for all ages. Full information including gallery opening hours can be found here.

Location: Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Peel Park, The Crescent, M5 4WU

Dates: Saturday 21st February to Sunday 10 May 2026

This exhibition is part of Salford Voices, discover more about the project here. 2026 marks 100 years since Salford was officially granted city status, and we’re on a mission to capture what it truly means to be from Salford, putting Salfordians firmly at the heart of the centenary celebrations.

Created by Chris Alton and Emily Simpson in collaboration with Broughton Community Centre community members, commissioned by Art with Heart.

Chris Alton and Emily Simpson have been working collaboratively since 2020. They host dinners, facilitate workshops, publish writings, and create textile-based artworks. Their shared practice centres sincere care, active listening, and gentle tending.

Chris Alton’s practice spans a range of media and approaches, including; socially engaged projects, artist films, textile banners, and publications. Since 2021, he has 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. Exhibitions and 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 and Take A Part (2022); Survey, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art; Bluecoat, Liverpool; g39, Cardiff; & Jerwood Space, London (2018-19); and Adam Speaks, The National Trust, Croome, Worcestershire (2017).

Emily Simpson is an artist whose socially engaged practice invites people to share experiences of grief through communal activities like sewing, cooking, pickling and grief karaoke. Their recent work explores folklore, natural cycles and tending their dad’s allotment after his death – how grief takes root in the landscape. Emily often shares a collaborative practice with Chris Alton. Together they’ve created large-scale textile installations which explore grief and the language available to communicate it. The hope is that by going public with what living with loss looks like, we can better support each other collectively through the inevitable. Emily was born in Salford and has a cat called Tofu.

Broughton Community Centre has been serving the Broughton and Salford communities for 100 years. Broughton Community Centre and Broughton Community Church (known locally as “The Naz” Community Hall) is a bustling ministry hub in the Lower Broughton area of East Salford.

They specifically focus their ministry and community work on the relief of poverty, food deprivation, and social isolation, signposting to specialist agencies and providing facilities for a range of community groups. They value inclusion, justice, sustainability, learning, seeing lives transformed, human dignity and wellbeing.

Exhibition visitors can get involved by signing the centenary celebration book where residents can reflect on what kind of place they would like Salford to be in 100 years’ time – for its people, its communities, and its future? The book will be deposited in the Local History Library at Salford Museum and Art Gallery for future Salfordians to enjoy for years to come.

The book has been created by bookbinders Walker Print, a family firm founded in Salford, and its design is a tribute to the old corporation buses of Salford, fusing bottle green with a gold coat of arms. Throughout 2025 the book travelled across all 8 neighbourhoods of Salford for local residents to sign. The book travelled to schools, food banks, community centres, libraries, museum, festivals and fayres, during which time residents left messages of hope and celebrations of community for future Salfordians to enjoy.

Lead artists

Chris Alton and Emily Simpson

Access consultant

Ada Eravama

Community artists

Bev Jones    Clare CW    Jacqueline Cassar

Janet Reygan    Jayne Gosnall    John Garrity

Kath Kershaw    Tracy Fitton    Winnie CP

Funders