Opening Archives - Page 2 of 3

For the opening of Krísis, several artists were invited to perform by Something Human. The opening performance was Tuan Mami’s In/Visible Borderline Project II: The Act of Ceremony & Game.

Tuan Mami welcomed guest to the preview, before handing over to Kittipanyo and Ven. Tuan, who led the audience in a moment of meditation, followed by a group reading of a prayer.

Tuan Mami then invited audience members to interact with a drawing on the wall, which he had prepared earlier. Now that the act of “ceremony” was complete, the “game” could take place.

Visitors and fellow artists took turns to shoot water at the drawing using water pistols, which began to erode and run down the wall – creating a visual parallel to the previous act of pouring water over the sculpture. The drawing / game remains in the Gallery as part of the exhibition, alongside work from Aida Silvestri, Dictaphone Group and other work by Tuan Mami.

To find out more about the artists involved in the show take a look through Something Human’s guest posts here on the blog.

Taking place on Thursday 19 May, this screening will be held in the middle of the Publishing Rooms exhibition – which will also be open to view before the films begin.

Also – don’t forget that our new series of talks, Bonington Lunchtimes, starts tomorrow with Printed Matter?. Join guest speakers Matt Gill, Alex Smith, Andrew & Iain Foxall for an informal discussion examining the importance and relevance of print, chaired by Tom Godfrey. From 1 pm – 2 pm.

Images dominate. Visual representation has a power which goes largely unchallenged in contemporary culture. The ability to pause time and repeat the moment for eternity is a strength of the photographic image which raises the visual above all other senses when we attempt to represent the world around us.

‘Listen and you’ll see’ is an attempt to add another sense to the equation. By recording a minute of sound at the same time as capturing the fraction of a visual second, Peter hopes to draw attention to what is ordinarily missing from our re-presentation of the world and our memories of it. Through repetition of the sound loop we can hear the rhythms of these scenes as well as see them.

This little experiment also presents an opportunity to go back-to-basics in our appreciation of the still photographic image and re-engage with the elements which made it so powerful in the first place.

Nottingham Art Map represents a collective of visual arts venues, artist-led spaces and galleries from across the city of Nottingham. It offers you a go-to place to get the most out of what Nottingham has to offer in the visual arts scene – all in one easy place!

As well as the interactive web version, you can download the Art Map as a PDF. You’ll also pick up a copy from any of the venues listed, or from numerous cafes and shops across the city. Keep your eyes peeled!

Open until Friday 10 July, Monday – Friday 10 am – 5 pm. For more information, visit the Icons of Rhetoric exhibition page.

On 12 June, Castlefield Gallery (Manchester) opened their major Summer exhibition, Real Painting; a group exhibition curated by Deb Covell and Jo McGonigal, which “emphasizes the essential grammar of painting, considering not necessarily what a painting means but what it ‘does’.”

Following on from his solo exhibition Soft Painting here in the gallery in April / May this year,Simon Callery is exhibiting works which continue to focus on engaging the viewer on a physical level, rather than just a reaction to an image.

Installation view from Simon Callery: Soft Painting; Wiltshire Modulor Double Void, 2010 – 2015.

Other artists include; Adriano Costa, Deb Covell, Angela de la Cruz, Lydia Gifford, David Goerk, Alexis Harding, Jo McGonigal, DJ Simpson, Finbar Ward.

Real Painting will be on show until Sunday 2 August, 2015. For more information, visit the exhibition page on Castlefield Gallery’s website here, and be sure to follow Castlefield Gallery on Facebook and Twitter for more images from the show.

Following on from the #NTUDEGREESHOW, our next exhibition opens on Thursday this week!

Icons of Rhetoric is a project created by photographer Chris Barrett and writer Gianluca Spezza which gives us a unique look at “the most isolated country in the world”; North Korea. The exhibition includes over 40 images which are crafted from taking still images from North Korean television broadcasts by the country’s state news network. The pair use appropriated images developed on instant film, to comment on how the West uses such images to reinforce its own limited stereotypical views of the country.

“We’re exploring the idea of ‘seeing is believing’ in the digital age” says Barrett. “People’s concerns about human rights in North Korea are perfectly valid and important issues but it’s dangerous for us to entirely base our understanding on a narrow binary image of good and bad often focused on sensationalised information skewed in favour of click bait ridicule or ridiculous hearsay’. It’s true North Korea is a very difficult place to cover but this should not allow for the anything goes #rareglimpse reporting that seems to surround the country”

A continuing collaboration between artists exploring the industrial architecture and remnants of ceramics at the former Spode factory in Stoke-on-Trent will result in an exhibition of new work at Bonington Gallery.

Staff and alumni from Nottingham Trent University and Sheffield Hallam University have created new material for the Returns exhibition which will open in this month.

The partnership evolved from an international research project titled Topographies of the Obsolete which was set up by Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Norway in 2012/2013 at the disused Spode factory. The work for that project was exhibited and published during the world-famous British Ceramics Biennial in September 2013, and centred on the landscape of post-industry.

Art shown at the biennial included pieces using abandoned decorative ceramic transfers by Nottingham Trent University researcher Danica Maier. The transfers were produced in bulk in large stacks with which Danica worked, often making them into plinths or frames for themselves – blurring the boundary between what is the ‘artwork’ and what is the ‘frame’.

Danica said: “In my work two-dimensional and three-dimensional identities are combined together: a whole series of flat planes together unite into three-dimensional forms. A ‘flat’ decorative transfer, when stacked in multiple, creates a new three dimensional form in space. It is the continued development of these ideas that I am playing with in the Returns exhibition.”

Meanwhile her Nottingham Trent University colleague Andrew Brown led ‘sound walks’ around the disused factory in which participants walked through the site while listening to a specially-composed soundtrack, comprising contemporary recordings made in that environment and sounds from other times and places. He also exhibited video and installation works.

Returns develops themes and initiatives which started at the Spode factory by focusing on placing objects in a new context, developing site specific work as well as further work with performance and sound.

Andrew explained: “My design for each sound walk is informed by perspectives on the past, present and future of each site, and Bonington Gallery and its environs provide diverse material with which to work.”

In addition to artistic researchers Andrew and Danica, fellow Nottingham Trent researchers exhibiting will include Debra Swann and Joanne Lee, with recent Fine Art graduates Ciaran Harrington and Christine Stevens, both participants in the original Spode project, being artists in residence for the duration of the exhibition. From Sheffield Hallam University, Chloë Brown will be exhibiting.

Following Returns, a subsequent exhibition will be taking place at Sheffield Hallam SIA Gallery in winter 2016. Each exhibition will be a new development from the work previously exhibited, demonstrating the progression of the research.

Returns will show at Bonington Gallery from Thursday 12 February to Wednesday 4 March, Monday – Friday, 10 am – 5 pm.

The body becomes the centre of a provocative exhibition which, through a selection of visionary artworks, will explore how the human form has been crafted, interpreted and re-imagined in historical, contemporary and future contexts.

Crafting Anatomies brings together an intriguing collection of exhibits by national and international artists and designers who explore the body through the themes of material, performance and identity.

Dr Katharine Townsend, Reader in Fashion and Textile Crafts at Nottingham Trent University, is co-curating the January exhibition alongside Dr Amanda Briggs-Goode, Head of Department for Fashion, Textiles and Knitwear, and Rhian Solomon, Researcher from The Creative Textiles Research Group. They have devised the project and exhibition to provide an opportunity for artists and makers to investigate the body and its meaning in contemporary society’.

Considering skin as a material, designer Amy Congdon is fascinated by a future world where materials are not made but are grown and luxury goods are fashioned from skin cells, not fabric. Her work, Biological Atelier, imagines the sorts of jewellery and adornments that could be created, in the near future, through biotechnology.

“With one of the most controversial sets of materials becoming available for manipulation, that is our body and those of other species, it could be argued that future fashion could be grown from the ultimate commodity,” she said.

Attention shifts to how the body performs for the Human Harp project, by London-based artist Di Mainstone, who has created a piece of body sculpture which literally turns the wearer into a human harp. When attached to the wires of a suspension bridge, the garment allows the wearer to ‘play’ the bridge by translating the structure’s vibrations into sounds.

Artist Amanda Cotton, who gained press attention for her photo frames made out of placentas, will be showing her work Portrait as part of the exhibition. Portrait is a visual diary created from face wipes that the artist used during a three-month period to remove the make-up and natural oil from her face, questioning whether this “mask” is indeed dirt or beauty.

“It is my belief that the by-products of the human race hold equal value aesthetically, to their raw material origins,” said Cotton. “Through critical engagement with my own body’s materials I have crafted a ‘body of work’ that questions people’s preconceptions and explores notions of aesthetic beauty and value.”

Researchers from Nottingham Trent University, whose work draws from and enhances the body, will also exhibit their work. These include senior lecturer and respected couture pattern-cutter and knitwear designer Juliana Sissons.

She will be exhibiting examples of her work that focus upon the fashioning of garments using plastic surgery cutting techniques which she has developed from observations of surgeons at work in the operating theatre.

Sissons began developing surgical processes for fashion through her collaboration with Rhian Solomon and the sKINship project, which is concerned with promoting collaborations between reconstructive plastic surgeons and pattern cutters for fashion.

Her work also explores research into ‘Langers Lines’ – a visual mapping of the grain of skin, used by plastic surgeons. She hopes to consider the benefits of this research for swimwear and body contoured clothing ranges.

Alongside artworks on display, the exhibition will feature a series of historical films concerned with the ‘crafting of anatomies’ from The Wellcome Trust’s film archive and from local historical collections.

Crafting Anatomies will be in the Gallery from Wednesday 7 January until Wednesday 4 February.