Catch it while you can – this new exhibition at Castlefield Gallery tells a story that’s worth hearing.

It’s an unusual premise for an exhibition: begin with the classic line ‘It was a dark and stormy night…’ and work from there. But that’s what the six artists chosen for Castlefield Gallery‘s latest Launch Pad exhibition – a short-running platform for artists, writers and independent curators – have done. First, the story: a bizarre, rambling tale involving hickeys, crocs and Iraq, written collaboratively over email and text message, and finally narrated by the mysterious Snake Man and Lindsey Mendick, one of the artists involved. As you can imagine, the work inspired by said story is also less than conventional.

Five photographs from an exhibition well worth catching on its short run

The crocs reappear, melted down and trodden into the yellow, pulpy mess hung on one wall. So too do the hickeys, and the bucket of KFC fried chicken the protagonist dreams about walking through – the latter appearing as a mesmeric, palpitating video of rippling oil with chicken and chips submerged beneath. The story, then, acts as a kind of key for the eclectic work on show, in a way that both points to and helps mitigate the challenge of harmonising a group show. Below are just five shots from an exhibition well worth catching on its short run. We didn’t want to include more because, as with any good story, we didn’t want to give too much away.