Social Experiment
27 November 2025 Programme
→ artists · programme · entry · access · credits Updated 27 November at 2.45pm
A Social Experiment on 27 November, presented by Word of Warning + Contact
Artists
Gemma Lees · Gin Niemtus · Howard Walmsley · Matt Rogerson · Nightingale & Sage · The Chubby Northerner · Y Talking Nonsense Participating artists subject to change.
Programme
November’s event kicks off at 6pm… and finishes about 9pm.
Gin Niemtus · Alter
Parts. Ingredients. Tools. Scraps. Toys. Ideas. Catalysts. Fantasies.
This piece explores the nature of change, metamorphosis, and alchemy.
Do we have what we need in front of us? What makes us want to use it? Can we find ourselves through transformation?
Insta @ginniemtus
Nightingale & Sage · The Grief Manicures Project
An interactive, intimate piece that blurs the lines between performance, beauty regime, and death café.
A dialogue about grief, loss, and bereavement — during the painting of nails.
This project transforms the personal experience of double bereavement into a work of live art that addresses universal themes of death, loss, and self-care.
Insta @nightingaleandsage
Matt Rogerson · Dromos/Autos
An audio-visual live art performance that interrogates and represents the artists’ autistic lived and embodied experience.
It utilises EEG-facilitated neurofeedback to establish an affective feedback loop, whereby the performer — using their brainwaves — simultaneously alters and is affected by a sensorially provocative real-time audio-visual system.
This project is the outcome of a Masters by Research degree that has been supported financially and conceptually by De Montfort University, Leicester.
linktr.ee/matt_rogerson · Insta @matt_rogerson_
Gemma Lees · Badge of Dishonour
What is it like to be physically badged as receiving poor support as in Elizabethan times, and how does that stigmatisation of benefit claimants and the disabled manifest today, especially in the wake of Kier Starmer’s proposed PIP reforms?
Join disabled artist and PIP claimant Gemma Lees to find out and get the opportunity to respond to modern-day Britain’s invisible yet enduring beggar’s badges.
gemmaleesartist.co.uk · Insta @gemmathepoet
Howard Walmsley · I Looked Into Their Eyes And Saw Only Pixels
A performance lecture by Howard Walmsley featuring the Kodak Carousel Slide Projector, with live improvised soundscape by Graham Massey.
In slide collages, cutout digital citizens escape their building site hoardings. They overlap and collide, becoming framed in new relationships and chance meetings. Pressed up hard against the grit and noise of the everyday, they begin to reflect the chaos of the city. What will be the fate of these Imagined people in their yet-to-be places?
Howard is a film-maker, artist, and anthropologist based in Manchester. His film work examines the skewed anthropology of everyday life.
Graham Massey is a musician, producer, and remixer.
howardwalmsley.co.uk · Insta @howard_walmsley
Y Talking Nonsense · I love myself but I don’t like me
A monologue and movement piece exploring race, identity, and internalised racism.
Shifting between dance, silence, and spoken confession, the work embodies the tension of belonging everywhere and nowhere, revealing the fragile space between self-love and self-rejection.
dorisun.com · Insta @ytalkingnonsense
The Chubby Northerner · Mr Chubba Chubba
A spoken word theatre show that wrestles, laughs, and dances with the idea of what it means to be a man then and now.
Part confession, part comedy, part cultural archaeology. The show examines the contradictions of masculinity: tough in the changing rooms but tender on stage, loud with the lads but quiet in the mirror. The show is in its early stages of development and is a work in progress.
Insta @thechubbynortherner
Entry
FREE: there’s no ticketing… just turn up!
Time: Thursday 27 November 2025, 6pm onwards (ends about 9pm).
Location: Contact (space 0 & bar), Oxford Rd, Manchester M15 6JA.
Access
Age Advisory: 16+ (aimed at adults, parent/guardian/carer discretion).
Content Warnings: some works involve interaction and/or participation; specific warnings listed here.
Features: seven Live Art & contemporary performance works with varied content.
NB works occur on Contact’s step-free ground floor in space 0 & bar, and vary in format — they could be immersive, participatory, roaming, seated, standing, spoken word, visual, etc.
Queries: please contact Contact via boxoffice@contactmcr.com
Credits
Social Experiment (November 2025) produced by hÅb; supported by Contact and using public funding by Arts Council England.