The Same Deep Water as You at PINK

This May, Stockport’s artist-led space PINK plays host to a new immersive collaboration between two of Greater Manchester’s most inventive artists: Rowland Hill and Darren Nixon. Taking place over a single evening on 31 May, The Same Deep Water as You promises an ambitious takeover of PINK’s three-storey venue, weaving together live performance, video, sculpture and sound.

Working under the collaborative alias Rowland’s Leaving, Hill and Nixon are no strangers to pushing the boundaries of art-making. Both have built reputations for playful, shape-shifting work that blurs the lines between disciplines. Hill’s background lies in performance and installation, often creating evocative soundscapes and constructed environments; Nixon’s practice, meanwhile, blends painting, video and performance into complex, process-based installations. Together, their work speaks to ideas of transformation, memory and the transient nature of identity.

This new project builds on their acclaimed 2024 performance Host, originally developed during a residency at the Venice Biennale, commissioned by PROFORMA. For its UK debut, Hill and Nixon aren’t just revisiting the work – they’re opening it up. They’ve invited a programme of artists to join them in re-enacting, reimagining and invoking traces of their own past performances, which will be staged over three floors.

We love that audiences are invited to explore the building freely across the night as they encounter a series of live and installed works. Part theatre, part concert, part exhibition – expect flickers of narrative, half-heard voices, sculptural assemblages and moments of intimate performance. This is not a sit-down-and-watch affair, but something more porous and participatory.

While Hill and Nixon have each exhibited widely – Hill’s Logical Song at Castlefield Gallery and Nixon’s The Awkward Ambassador for Salford Art Collection – The Same Deep Water as You offers a rare chance to see their ideas coalesce in a richly layered, durational format.

For fans of experimental theatre, visual art and performance that occupies the cracks between genres, this one-night-only event offers a rich, unpredictable evening out.