Linny Venables’ trademark application of saturated colours lends itself perfectly to the subject of sweets and sweet making, and the journey of the project to this point is fun to track.
In around 2018/19 her project, ‘Squish’, rode the height of slime’s success with a tactile exhibition and workshop series, offering children and their carers a space to explore stimulation for all the senses (I think this was the show at OUTPUT when they were on Seel Street).
That work was a collaboration with Nicki Mccubbing, and the outcomes weren’t dissimilar to the outcomes of Sweet Factory: workshops, bright exhibitions, and accessible materials.
Then she got to grips with Rock, filming the factory at Rock Candy Kingdom in Blackpool.
And then, working with Gregory Herbet and Niamh Riordan at Bootle Library, she developed this project (well, almost). It was initially called ‘Ice Cream Factory’, and it was a blend of microwave glass craft and confectionery cooking, exploring the similarities between sugar craft and glass craft.
The results of those workshops, held between Bootle Library and The Atkinson, are on display now as the centrepiece of the exhibition, shared alongside a new film of the workshop process, and archival materials tying the whole thing back to Sefton’s past confectionery industry.
The journey to this exhibition has been several projects long, seen multiple artists and organisations supporting, and developed from several exhibitions. Even in its final stage, it continues to collaborate with the bricks and mortar of its gallery by working through their archives to inform the final display.
Sweet Factory is just an immensely fun exhibition, packed with joy and a handful of simple prompts to visitors to consider the intricate similarities between two very different industries. But it enjoys that junction:
“In Linny’s studio there’s a glass bowl filled with sweets: pink foam shrimps sitting in a glass bowl scattered with coloured shapes.
Or
Liquid sand, transformed, is filled with pieces of liquid sugar, transformed”.
The supplementary text to the exhibition, ‘Outside the Factory, Inside the Studio’, is essential reading. Charting the entire idea behind the show. Designed by Gregory Herbert and written by Niamh Riordan, it’s a childish exploration of overthinking a simple project, and it’s gorgeously accessible because of it, building a world of imagery that helps to inform us not just of the reasoning for the work, but the inquisitive state of mind of the artists behind it.
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Sweet Factory is open at The Atkinson until 21st February 2026
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
