YORK charity New Visuality is behind two exhibitions across York that will dovetail with the Love Architecture festival.

The charity is committed to integrating the work of contemporary artists and participants from outreach projects.

With this in mind, New Visuality project manager Phoebe Reith explains how the city-centre exhibitions at All Saints Pavement and St Martin-le-Grand, in Coney Street, came into being, backed by the involvement of Starbucks Coppergate and the According To McGee gallery in Tower Street.

“We loved the sound of Love Architecture as a festival, and we’ve always loved exhibiting work from either professional artists or work from people with learning disabilities in the churches of York,” she says.

“So for this project we thought, ‘Let’s integrate them; let’s curate a show so that the inclusion of one benefits the other, and let’s go for churches whose architecture fits right in with the brief of the festival’.”

New Visuality has linked up with young people with profound disabilities from the Blueberry Academy for two exhibitions on the theme of buildings under the title of New Visuality & Blueberry Academy: home/real/concrete/steel.

The All Saints Pavement show will be open from 11am to 4pm on Saturday; the St Martin-le-Grand show from noon to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday.

“All Saints and St Martin-le-Grand are wonderful, wonderful spaces with a very helpful team,” says Phoebe.

“The budding artists are all participants from Blueberry Academy, which does such excellent work with people with learning difficulties, and I have to say I’m blown away by the energy they’ve put into their work.

“The featured professional artist just had to be Matt Fletcher. He’s a witty, stylish young artist who is on the cusp of great things.”

Matt is equally upbeat about this weekend’s event. ‘‘I’ve had great experiences exhibiting my work in York and I’m now studying in Edinburgh, so this is kind of a homecoming for me,” he says. “It’s good to see my work alongside such wonderful people and in such great spaces as these churches.”

Blueberry Academy member Bethany Hardy says the academy has been working on the exhibitions for a long time. “We’re really excited to get the work ready for the public to see it. It deserves as much attention as possible as everyone has done really well,” she adds.

Summarising the shows, Phoebe says: “There’s a healthy mix of talent and we’ve found that York works best this way. New Visuality, Love Architecture, Blueberry Academy and Matt Fletcher, along with Starbucks Coppergate and According To McGee, are all focused on the same thing: to bring together diverse artists, diverse spaces and celebrate the beauty of world-class architecture.”