Archive Display #9: Slum City – The Bonington Building Protests, 1969

In October 1969 the Bonington Building opened against a backdrop of student protest and demonstration – not against the new building itself – but with local planning decisions to selectively and acceleratedly clear slum housing in the vicinity of the new building, in time for the grand unveiling by the Duchess of Kent.

This presentation acknowledges the themes of student protest in the corresponding exhibition Naeem Mohaiemen: THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY, and also in John Dean’s photography within Bonington Vitrines #30: A Semester in Nottingham, 1976, capturing the city 7 year’s on, still in a state of flux and transformation.

This display presents reproductions of newspaper cuttings that reported the event, photos of the protest and the Duchess, in a setting that emulates the window of an abandoned shopfront.