Closure of Allotted

We tried to submit the press release shown below to the Bolton News but unfortunately it was not included in Saturday's paper.

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Could you please let people know that the  Slug Society's  "Allotted" exhibition in neo:gallery27 in Bolton's Market Place - will close after Sunday's session?

The exhibition has been very well received and very well supported and the exhibitors had hoped to fulfil the advertised run until August 7th.
However the continuing success of the Market Place means its owners have now found paying tenants for the space occupied by the exhibition and those tenants want the space as quickly as possible.
The Market Place have generously  provided a new space for the neo:gallery (also on the 1st floor of the Market Place) so the future of neo:artists' exhibition programme is secure - they will restart with the Print Prize exhibition in August.
However there is no space available for the Allotted exhibition at present and so the Slug Society and the team will be packing its bags and (rather sadly) be making an early departure.
The Association of Bolton Allotment Societies are hoping that they may be able to offer the artists and writers some space for the writers' booklets and maybe a few prints at the Bolton Onion, Leek and Vegetable Show on August 20th but for now  from all concerned with the exhibition it's thank you and goodbye. 

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We could unfortunately do nothing to save the exhibition, neo simply got a message on Thursday morning (July 21st)  telling them they had to have the gallery cleared by Friday 29th July. As you can see above Moorgarth have offered them new premises further down the mall and these will be available for the next exhibition (The Print Prize) in August.

However there was no provision available for the continuation of the Slug Society's "Allotted" exhibition, so there was no alternative but to take it down.

Naturally the Slug Society (as a group) are very disappointed that the show has been closed before its planned date. We had known there was a risk that new tenants might need the space but had hoped to keep going until at least the end of the month.. A great deal of effort went into planning the show, getting funding, getting pre-publicity and creating the two publications (the catalogue and the writers' booklet). At least some members of the group now feel somewhat disillusioned at not being able to see the project brought to its planned conclusion.

We hope that opportunities will be found to show (and potentially sell) at least some of the artists' works in other venues at other times. David is keeping the blog going for a few more weeks - he hopes that the projected 'review' of the exhibition can still be completed and published.

We'd like to apologise to those who were planning to come along during the last two weeks of the exhibition i.e. up until August 7th - we've tried to let as many people as we could know about the closure by email wherever possible.

We hope that the Slug Society has a future, exactly what form it will take will be up to the members once they have time to take stock.

In the meantime, we 'd like to thank everyone who helped bring "Allotted" into existence especially our sponsors The Bolton Arts Forum and the National Allotments Gardens Trust and most of all, all those people who came along to see the exhibition, talk to us, leave comments and more...

THANK YOU