Castle Fine Arts Foundry, one of Britain’s leading fine arts foundries (Antony Gormley, Nic Fiddian-Green, Sophie Ryder, Colin Spofforth), supports the charity through residencies for Kosovar artists, technical support, and the production of sculpture.
Foundry staff have visited Kosovo many times.
All the artist/technicians working at Castle Fine Arts Foundry and the foundry management kindly support MaK financially as the foundry’s official charity.
Foundry Manager Mike Anitt is a co-director of ‘Art in the Park’, the creative heart of the 22 acre Manchester Peace Park in Kosovo, a project full of life and hope requested by five children medically evacuated to Manchester who survived the massacre of their family.
The first sculpture installed in the Manchester Peace Park is by Kosovar artist Agron Blakçori. The life size plaster figure was transported from Kosovo by Castle Fine Arts. The sculptor himself worked with foundry staff in Oswestry. Mike Anitt and his wife Bleta Kabashi (Mike married MaK’s interpreter in Kosovo and they now work together) helped Agron mould and cast his work. Elements of the sculpture were completed at Eden Project and Yorkshire Sculpture Park before completion at Oswestry. In 2010 ‘Thinking Man’, now cast in aluminium, was installed in the Manchester Peace Park, Kosovo, establishing a standard of excellence through partnership.
The Manchester Peace Park is close to completion and is used by the whole community of Podujevë.
Learn more about the MaK Castle Fine Arts collaboration.
