Wednesday 4th December, 1-2pm. Book here (only open to NTU students)
Bonington Connect is a new series of get-togethers at Bonington Gallery where themes within our exhibitions can be discussed and explored in a friendly and informal setting. Led by MFA student Vidhi Jangra, this session will explore photography from a working-class perspective, drawing upon ideas from Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes.
By students and for students, Bonington Connect invites the NTU student community to engage in thought-provoking conversations in response to Bonington Gallery’s exhibition programme. Aimed at creating an accessible atmosphere, this series encourages students at all levels of study to connect with each other and explore themes & ideas in an informal, open and engaging setting.
Each event in this series will explore specific themes and highlight influential thinkers in the arts. The inaugural session, led by MFA student Vidhi Jangra, will focus on working-class perspectives in the arts, drawing on the current exhibition After the End of History: British Working-Class Photography 1989-2024. Referencing theories from Susan Sontag’s On Photography and Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, the session will examine the layered dynamics between photographer, subject, and viewer. Engaging directly with the exhibited works and theoretical insights, the talks promise to be both informative and conversational.
A 30-minute talk in the gallery will be followed by refreshments in the Bonington Atrium, where you’re invited to continue the conversation in a friendly and informal atmosphere.
…for women within oppressed groups who have contained so many feelings-despair, rage, anguish-who do not speak, as poet Audre Lorde writes, “for fear our words will not be heard nor welcomed,” coming to voice is an act of resistance. Speaking becomes both a way to engage in active self-transformation and a rite of passage where one moves from being object to being subject.
bell hooks, talking back thinking feminist, thinking black (London: Routledge 2015), 12.
When I Dare to be Powerful International Conference is an in-person conference that will be held in Nottingham, England. It will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists in order to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change. Centred on voice as a lens through which we conceive of a social alterity that undermines current ideological dominance, we would like to invite proposals from academics, practitioners and activists interested in exploring coming to voice as an act of resistance. Has adequate progress been made in remedying the lived experience of minoritised people? How will social parity be achieved? Can dissent facilitate a space from which an alternative, socio-cultural narrative can thrive?
We are looking for contributions that explore the conception, portrayal, perception and/or representation of marginalised groups, and that foreground racialised voices and acts of resistance. We welcome a plethora of critical and artistic approaches and proposals from participants from international and geographically diverse areas, those with varied experiences and perspectives on different parts of the world, and across all genders and racial groups.
The conference is free to attend and will take place at Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England on Wednesday 21st June 2023.
A number of additional activities are planned as part of the conference. The details relating to this can be found on our When I Dare to be Powerful website.
Suggestions include and are not limited to:
Please email whenidaretobepowerful@gmail.com with:
We are able to offer seven bursaries of up to £60 to support self-funded students with travel costs. If you wish to apply for one of these bursaries, please confirm your self-funded status at the bottom of your abstract, along with a brief summary explaining why you require the support.
We will let you know the outcome of your application upon acceptance of your proposal.
Deadline for all submissions 13th February 2023.
Conference date: Wednesday 21st June 2023.
Email us at whenidaretobepowerful@gmail.com if you have any questions or submit your inquiry on our ‘Contact’ page.
We look forward to receiving your submissions.
This conference is made possible by generous funding and support provided by Midlands3/4Cities, New Art Exchange, the Postcolonial Studies Centre at NTU and Bonington Gallery.
FORMATIONS looks forward to welcoming audiences for both online and in-person events in 2022-23. This year, events include conferences, author events, creative writing workshops, and wellbeing workshops. This year’s speakers discuss places including Trinidad, India, the US, Canada, and the UK. Themes our speakers consider include land and nature, voices and sound, borders and hospitality.
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
This segment of Formations, CADALFEST, relates to the Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival (CADALFEST) taking place across India and in Nottingham. CADALFEST is the first international festival series dedicated to artists whose work creatively resists caste discrimination and social exclusion in India.
Adivasi and Dalit Futurism: Artists Subash Thebe Limbu and Osheen Siva in Conversation
Thursday 20 October, 2022
4 pm – 5pm (BST), online
In Conversation with the Dalit Feminist Writer, Gogu Shyamala
Thursday 27 October, 2022
4 pm – 5 pm (BST), online
Ningwasum Film Screening and conversation with Subash Thebe Limbu
Thursday 24 November, 2022
7 pm – 8:30 pm, online
Channelling Queer Depths: An Evening with Poet Shivanee Ramlochan
Tuesday 15 November, 2022
6:30pm – 8pm, at Nottingham Contemporary
Poetry Workshop: Writing Your Truth with Radical Honesty
Wednesday 16 November, 2022
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm, at Bonington Gallery
Nottingham Trent University second year BA English, BA Creative Writing, and BA Secondary English Education students have collaborated with students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Canada to write, edit and publish a special issue of the Literary Cultures journal, focused on representations of land in modern and contemporary literature wherein land may be perceived as vulnerable or under threat.
Watch their online segment, which includes discussions of the articles written for the journal special issue, the accompanying book and film reviews, as well as the on-campus event in January 2023 with poet Jo Dixon.
Thursday 23 February, 2023
12:30pm – 1:30pm, online
more info
This online roundtable is a pre-conference event on Dalit magazines with editors and subject experts from West Bengal and Maharashtra.
Wednesday 5 April, 2023
7pm – 8pm, online
more info
To coincide with Cedar Lewisohn’s solo exhibition earlier this year, Patois Banton, join us for a free online talk by Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson, this will be followed by a Q&A with Ramisha Rafique.
Thursday 13 April, 2023
6:30pm – 8:30pm
more info
Professor Gus John and poet Yolanda Lear join Jenni Ramone’s Black Writing in Britain students and Formations audiences for a special event on the history of New Beacon Books and its place in the history of Black British publishing, writing, and activism.
Thursday 15 June, 2023
6:30pm – 8:30pm
more info
Join us for a free screening of a newly-translated documentary that explores the emergence of performance art in Cuba in the 1980s. The screening will be followed by a conversation with film director and artist Glexis Novoa.
When I Dare to be Powerful International Conference will bring filmmakers, artists, writers and activists together with conceptual thinkers and cultural theorists to answer pressing questions relating to voice as an agent of change.
The conference period begins on 26th April and runs through to the one-day conference in June, all information can be found here.
October 2021 – September 2022
The Formations programme is led by the Postcolonial Studies Centre in collaboration with Bonington Gallery. The series foregrounds the work of underrepresented writers, academics, artists, intellectuals and activists worldwide who address inequalities of all kinds, often bringing people from different places and working practices together for important conversations.
In 2020-21 the series presented events focused on Black History, Literature, Art, and Critical Thinking as central to global creative and intellectual work. Events running throughout the year were prompted by the themes History, Land, Memorials, DNA, Milk, and Lace. Artists, writers and thinkers considered the structures, patterns, and materials that connect global creative and intellectual histories. Many of the events are still available to watch on Bonington Gallery’s YouTube channel.
In 2021-22 the centre will continue to explore the Inequalities by engaging with global writers, artists, and thinkers, in three themed segments: Indigeneity (October-December), Love (January – March), and Audio/Visual (May-August). In April, postgraduate researchers from the Postcolonial Studies Centre will host a conference, building on Patterns of Struggle and Solidarity, last year’s Formations conference. This year’s segments help us to develop solidarities across communities and to pose urgent questions about persistent inequalities.
Everyone is welcome to join us for free events which intend to bring together people from all over the world in important and exhilarating conversations. Events this year will include film screenings, book launches, interviews, exhibitions, conversations, and creative writing workshops and interviews delivered by prizewinning novelist Eve Makis.
The series is developed by the Postcolonial Studies Centre at NTU and directed by Dr Jenni Ramone and Dr Nicole Thiara.
Jenni Ramone is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Global Literatures at NTU. Her recent book publications include Postcolonial Literatures in the Local Literary Marketplace: Located Reading, The Bloomsbury Introduction to Postcolonial Writing, Postcolonial Theories, and Salman Rushdie and Translation. Jenni Ramone specializes in global and postcolonial literatures and the literary marketplace. She is pursuing new projects on Global Literature and Gender, and on literature and maternity.
Nicole Thiara is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature(2014-16) and On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts (2020-21). She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature, and her areas of research are Dalit, Adivasi and diasporic South Asian literature.
October – December 2021
Formation: Indigeneity — Rights and land access, sustainability, global inequalities.
The first segment of 2021-22 pays attention to the concept of indigeneity, and to indigenous people, communities, landscapes, artists, writers, and groups. Often considered controversial and closely associated with activism and protest related to rights and land access, indigenous artists and writers are creating some of the most innovative work and asking important questions about sustainability of all forms in New Zealand, Australia, Pacific Islands, Northern Europe, and North and South America. This segment brings together creative work by indigenous writers and artists from separate locations, to forge conversations about the ways in which indigenous scholarship, activism, and creativity is central to global questions of inequality.
January – March 2022
Formation: Love — The transformative nature of the everyday feeling of love.
Destiny Ekaragha once said that Black British filmmakers were not expected to make films about ordinary family stories and everyday things – like love. This segment foregrounds the transformative nature of the everyday feeling of love in art, writing, and research, while it also helps us to think about how the concept of love is defined, understood, and restricted, if love is understood and represented in limited ways. Events in this segment consider the expression, meaning, contexts, and impact of love by exploring the work of artists, writers and thinkers, emphasising questions of gender, sexuality, race, and culture.
4-7 April 2022
Hosting a wide range of presenters from across the globe, papers explore contemporary topical issues of decolonisation and its socio-political structures. The conference is open to discussions and deconstructions of long-held dominant ideologies and narratives which function to sustain the invisibility of colonial and empirical legacies in the contemporary world.
May – August 2022
Formation: Audio/Visual — Global artists, experimental sound and the visual arts.
Audio/Visual invites conversations about the significance and impact of visual communication (art, design, imagery, media, advertising, maps) and audio communication through music, but also the impact of language choice, and conversation. Events in this segment foreground meaning conveyed by music and art, and invite attention to global artists working in experimental ways with sound and the visual arts.
October 2020 – September 2021
The Postcolonial Studies Centre at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and Bonington Gallery is pleased to present Formations, a year-long programme of events in response to Black History Month, Black Lives Matter, and the Decolonisation agenda.
NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre invites the public to enjoy a year of events which focus on Black History, Literature, Art, and Critical Thinking as central to global creative and intellectual work. The series begins in October 2020 with a month of events led by artists, writers, theorists and students which critically consider the place and impact of Black History Month. The subsequent yearlong programme is accompanied by commissioned work by artist Honey Williams, which will be launched at the end of October with a special event, and displayed in Bonington Gallery. Themed events running throughout the year are prompted by themes or objects and are centrally concerned with making visible the centrality of Black artists and thinkers, and the patterns and materials that connect global creative and intellectual histories.
The series is developed by the Postcolonial Studies Centre at NTU and directed by Dr Jenni Ramone and Dr Nicole Thiara.
Jenni Ramone is Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Studies at NTU. Her recent book publications include Postcolonial Literatures in the Local Literary Marketplace: Located Reading, The Bloomsbury Introduction to Postcolonial Writing, Postcolonial Theories, and Salman Rushdie and Translation. Jenni Ramone specializes in global and postcolonial literatures and the literary marketplace. She is pursuing new projects on Global Literature and Gender, and on literature and maternity.
Nicole Thiara is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network Series Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature(2014-16) and On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts (2020-21). She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature, and her areas of research are Dalit, Adivasi and diasporic South Asian literature.
October 2020
Formation: History — Critical Responses to Black History Month
November – December 2020
Formation: Land — Dispossession, Agriculture, Place
Formation: Memorials — The Place and Meaning of Memorials, Statues, and Renowned Figures
Formation: DNA — Identity, Care, Inequality, Disease, and Vaccination
Formation: Milk — Global Practices and Representations of Breastfeeding in Art and Literature
Conference: Patterns of Struggle and Solidarity
Formation: Lace — The Global History of Lace and its use in Colonial Contexts
Formation: Re-Viewing — A look back on the 2020-21 Formations Programme
Throughout the month of June, we have been sharing films and documentaries to raise awareness of injustices faced by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer communities. June is Pride Month, commemorating the Stonewall riots in New York city in 1969, a key event that triggered the modern LGBT liberation movement in the United States and beyond.
Please visit this page to learn about key dates towards LGBTQ+ equality.
Difficult Love presents a lively personal take on the challenges facing Black lesbians in South Africa today. It features the life, photographs, work, friends and associates of visual activist and renowned photographer, Zanele Muholi (who also narrates the film).
This colourful and challenging collection explores screen representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives over the past century.
A television series about New York City’s African American and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming ballroom culture scene in the 1980s and, in the second season, early 1990s.
Directed by Stephen Isaac-Wilson, Day Dream features artist and founder of club night Body Party Kareem Reid. Filmed on the first weekend of Spring, the short poetically explores issues of queer loneliness, male vulnerability, and platonic intimacy. Despite an improvement of the LGBT community’s rights and media representation over the years, queer people still disproportionately suffer from loneliness and social isolation.
Victoria Cruz investigates the mysterious 1992 death of black gay rights activist and Stonewall veteran, Marsha P. Johnson. Using archival interviews with Johnson, and new interviews with Johnson’s family, friends and fellow activists.
In this short film, the eponymous ‘attendant’ is a middle-aged black man who finds his homoerotic fantasies taking over the museum he supervises when a painting depicting scenes of slavery becomes a tableau vivant of sadomasochistic desire. With this work, Julien explores spatial temporalities in a museum context, commenting on queer history and racial boundaries.
Barbara Hammer is a pivotal figure in American experimental film and a pioneer of queer cinema — constructing revelations on gender, sexuality, community, and later illness and mortality. Working primarily with eight-millimetre, super 8 and 16-millimetre film, she produced nearly 70 films, ranging from experimental shorts to essay and full-length documentaries. As part of Company Gallery’s ‘In Company With’ series, a selection of films by Barbara Hammer are available for viewing online.
Disclosure is an eye-opening documentary film looking at transgender representation within film and media, featuring leading trans creatives and thinkers sharing perspectives and analysis about Hollywood’s impact on the trans community. Reframing familiar scenes and iconic characters in a new light, director Sam Feder invites viewers to confront unexamined assumptions, and shows how what once captured the American imagination now elicit new feelings. Disclosure provokes a startling revolution in how we see and understand trans people.
Before You Know It is a 2013 documentary directed by PJ Raval following the lives of three gay seniors as they navigate the adventures, challenges and surprises of life and love in their golden years.
Marina’s life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.
We have been delving into the archive of fashion designer and Nottingham Trent University lecturer Juliana Sissons. Housed within the Gallery Vitrines, London’s Calling reveals an eclectic collection of Juliana’s personal memorabilia and influences, iconic magazine features, design objects, and video footage.
This unique display gives a snapshot of her life as a fashion designer in London through the 1980s, working with the likes of Lee Alexander McQueen, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Top of the Pops, Divine, Scarlett Cannon, Leigh Bowery, Isabella Blow, and Judy Blame.
London’s Calling will be open to the public from Friday 22 September – Friday 27 October, with a special preview on Thursday 21 September, from 5 pm to 7 pm.
Here is a selection from MOULD MAP 6 — TERRAFORMERS showcasing parts of the screening programme and the #MounldMap6 competition.
13 September 2016
Mould Map and Landfill Editions invite NTU’s current students, staff, alumni and visitors to the exhibition, Mould Map 6 – Terraformers at Bonington Gallery, to design your very own Terraformers armour and enter into our online competition.
Background:
From Saturday 21 September – Friday 21 October, Bonington Gallery plays host to over 50 artists and designers whose work demonstrates a diverse array of comic and narrative art. Mould Map 6 takes the form of an exhibition / walk-through magazine and will include talks, film screenings, performances and open workshops.
Competition brief:
If you had your own armour, what would it be like?
What does it look like, what it is made from, what does it protect you from, and what world do you wear it for? Is it decorative? Is it utilitarian? Is it symbolic? What does it say about you and your world?
To create your armour you can use any materials of your choosing, it can be two or three dimensional, the choice is yours.
Everyone needs armour sometimes, and we want to give prizes for the most exciting, imaginative armour out there.
Prizes:
Judged by Hugh Frost and Leon Sadler, the winning entrant will take home the following prizes:
If the winner is 15 years and over:
A limited edition copy of Mould Map 5, Black Box; and either a copy of Mould Map 4 or Jaakko Pallasvuo’s Pure Shores.
If the winner is 14 years and under:
A copy of Will Sweeney’s Tales from the Greenfuzz 4
How to enter:
To enter, begin by following The School of Art & Design and Bonington Gallery on Twitter and/or Instagram (see below for details).
Use your wildest imagination, design your own armour and show us what it would look like by posting it on using Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #MouldMap6. Entrants are welcome to include a short description about their design (no essays please!).
The competition is open to entries from 10 am on Saturday 17 September until 12am (midnight) on Wednesday 19 October 2016.The winner will be announced on Friday 21 October via Bonington Gallery and NTU School of Art & Design accounts on Twitter and Instagram. Good luck!
Bonington Gallery:
Twitter: @NTUBonGallery
Instagram: @boningtongallery
NTU School of Art & Design:
Twitter: @NTUArtandDesign
Instagram: @NTUart
See the competition’s terms and conditions (PDF)
03 October 2016
Feeling inspired by the Mould Map 6 — Terraformers exhibition? We’ve teamed up with Landfill Editions to offer you the chance of winning Mould Map goodies…
If you had your own armour, what would it be like? What does it look like, what it is made from, what does it protect you from, and what world do you wear it for? Is it decorative? Is it utilitarian? Is it symbolic? What does it say about you and your world? Everyone needs armour sometimes, and we want to give prizes for the most exciting, imaginative armour out there.
To be in with a chance of winning, design and share your own armour with #MouldMap6 on Twitter or Instagram. Read the full details on how to enter.
Check out this great entry from bethanyhkelly on Instagram. What does your Terraformers armour look like?
03 October 2016
Join us on Wednesday for the first Terraformers film screening event, featuring Ericka Beckman’s 1983 film, You the Better.
DATE: Wednesday 5 October
TIME: 1.15 pm – 2.45 pm
LOCATION: BON 002, Bonington building
Ericka Beckman (b1951) is an American filmmaker who began to make films in the 1970s as part of the Pictures generation. Her films are concerned with the relationship between people and images and how images structure people’s perception of themselves and of reality. Represented by Mary Boone Gallery.
11 October 2016
Join us on Wednesday for the next Terraformers film screening event!
DATE: Wednesday 12 October
TIME: 1.15 pm – 1.45 pm
LOCATION: BON 002, Bonington building
First shown as part of Williams’ debut exhibition at Limoncello, and taking the form of a series of animated monochrome ink drawings, the video weaves a morose fable of a 39 year old man, The Big Scholar, who backs up his secrets to a hard drive in a cave for no-one to find. Probably ever.
13 October 2016
This Friday / Saturday!!! Mould Map 6 — Terraformers Events Series
FRIDAY – TERRAFORMERS / Landing Strip Bar with L-v-L at Syson Gallery 8 pm – 1 am.
SATURDAY – Exhibition open 10 am – 8 pm – Table selling books from Landfill Editions / Mould Map / Famicon Express and others all day.
10 am – 4 pm: Mould Map Workshop 2 — World Making in Visual Story Telling with Jon Chandler and Joseph Kelly.
4.15 pm – 5 pm: Rhys Jones & Ben Price – Post-Capitalist Architecture. Room Bon 002. Discussing projects undertaken as part of their 3rd year studies at NTU, Rhys and Ben will present speculative proposals for post-capitalist built environments followed by a Q & A.
5 pm – 5.45 pm: Hui-Ying Kerr – Magazines of The Japanese Bubble Economy. Room Bon 002. Going into further depth on the issues of hyper-consumerism and representation touched upon in her article within the Mould Map exhibition itself, Hui-Ying will be drawing upon her PhD thesis undertaken at The Royal College of Art and in collaboration with the V&A.
6 pm – 6.45 pm: Dr David M. Bell and Dr Miranda Iossifidis – World-building and Utopianism. Room Bon 002. David M. Bell is interested in the possibilities of utopia(nism) as a form operating within, against and beyond this – and any – reality. He has explored such utopia(nism)s in and through art, fiction, music and education; and currently works on the ‘Imaginaries of the Future’ network at Newcastle University. His first book, Rethinking Utopia, will be published by Routledge in 2017. Miranda Iossifidis is a Lecturer in Contextual and Theoretical Studies at LCC. Her current research interests are at the intersection between urban studies, audiovisual culture and utopianism.
7 pm: Cocktails with Furgastro Bonington Gallery. Join celebrity chef and star of Stefan Sadler’s Dinnerplates, Furgastro for a refreshing drinks-based lucky-dip.
8 pm: Close & head somewhere in town for a drink.
Here is a selection of Posts relating to the exhibition Publishing Rooms:
Foxall Studio have extended Publishing Rooms out into the city of Nottingham – presenting a selection of scanned portraits from the show in Tunnel Vision, a new digital exhibition space in the Broadmarsh bus station:
Publishing – whether that be images or text – is now an inherent part of social media. Tweeting 140 characters or posting pictures of your cat is fundamentally a decisive act of self-publication. Once published, you relinquish control over what it is the post truly does. Even now in the workshop run by the Foxall brothers, conversation steers towards ideas of branding and promotion. All public activity on social media is an act of branding – branding yourself in the way in which you want to be perceived and building a digital collage of who you are (see Reece Straw’s earlier blogpost, ‘Adidas or Nothing’, for more on this). What is it you are trying to say or be? How decisive can you be in these acts?
The transmutation between digital and physical is of particular interest to me. As an artist, writer, and curator, I cannot escape the intrinsic necessity of using both formats. While the lean towards digital (tweets, posts, e-books…) is getting a more apparent lean in ideas of successful circulation, like many people, I cannot help but relish in handling a physical object. What Publishing Rooms highlights is the possibility for a more succinct dialogue between the two.
Having paid witness to the evolution of social media in my teenage years, of course I know how impactful the digital is – so why wouldn’t I use every opportunity for self-promotion? With the exhibition being such a delightful and useful self-publication tool how could I not try to promote my other work of self-publishing?
Beginning as an exercise in curation and extending from my own interests in creative writing, oneiroi is now almost ready to launch.
Starting with the first issue – entitled ‘withholding’ – oneiroi aims to showcase creative writing that shows unique and original flair. Curated, designed, edited, printed, and hand-bound by myself, ‘withholding’ contains writings by 12 young artists and writers from around the country. The original intent of the zine was to create a casual yet polished surface for people to put their writing out to the world. As a young creative it is often hard to know where to place work in the wider landscape, and often not have the confidence to put it anywhere at all. Being on a visual arts course creative writing is not often looked at with great scrutiny, but it was clear to me that artists are writing regardless. After all, writing is inherently a visual thing, whether it be a meticulously organised piece of concrete poetry, or a simple paragraph on Word. As an extension of aural language, humans have constructed the written word to help convey messages, and now most of us are taught (potentially brainwashed) to understand characters and symbols. Even while reading this you cannot avoid decoding the sequence of letters to understand their symbolic meaning.
For my own practice, creative writing and poetry is a great enabler in making messages that I find difficult to convey in other visual forms. Writing has the potential to create an infinite combination of images, emotions, ideas, tones etc. A picture can say 1000 words, but a word can create a million images, purely because a word is an absolute construction of human knowledge. Every individual has their own experiences and inevitably, this has a knock-on affect on their perception of particular words and phrases. It is for this reason, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the submissions for oneiroi‘s first issue. Each piece chosen has that certain quality of withholding information, making it hard to avoid not wanting more. Personally, I tire easily when presented with a narrative that gives information too willingly – I enjoy the game of a teasing chase.
Alongside this, I was also particularly interested in the eclectic range of styles and formats in the submissions. Each writing has a clear personality to it and a definitive message to voice. The launch of the zine will be coming soon, with a launch party to be hosted in Nottingham, with some of the featured writers doing reading of their work. For more info, follow oneiroi on social media sites listed below.
Instagram – @oneiroi_zine
Facebook – /oneiroizine
Twitter – @oneiroi_zine
Joseph Winsborrow
As a studio, Andrew and Iain have worked with scanners a few times in the past years. Here are two examples:
Bond Street Windows
The 243 windows of four big buildings on New Bond Street were the canvas. Vacated during Crossrail work, we were commissioned to make a feature of their facades during the construction.
With just two weeks to go until Publishing Rooms opens here at the Gallery, Iain and Andrew Foxall have been busy working on tests for the scanner wall installations.
Iain also shared some thoughts on Instagram and zine culture:
“…I liked what Simon Armitage said when asked about whether he would be a poet if poetry was mainstream, and replied a quick ‘no’, because he got into poetry precisely because it was on the edges. So it’s interesting to think how a punk zine-founder would have used instagram.”
Iain Foxall
You can see more from behind the scenes of Foxall studio by following them on Instagram, and using the #PublishingRooms on Instagram and Twitter.
In the run up to Publishing Rooms, Iain and Andrew of Foxall Studios introduce us to the project, giving you a glimpse into the scanner camera tests and some of the plans for the exhibition:
Currently we are surrounded by 103 flatbed scanners with cables and computers everywhere. Living with the flatbed scanners, and testing various configurations and optical adjustments, and involving good minds and hands has uncovered a lot. The collective, innate curiosity to see what will happen once we collide the variables seems to be the main driver for our daily work.
The main events so far that bring us to today have been; finding a palette of flatbed scanners in a recycling plant, rewriting the scanner drivers so that they can be called through a web browser remotely, having 4 scanners running concurrently from one computer, etc.
Please be in touch with anything that you think would be relevant. We are promoting resourcefulness with this show. We reconfigure simple, everyday, ubiquitous elements to enable inventive expression. So please keep an eye out for anything that we can utilise. That could be a box of old magazines for a library, or a roll of fabric that you’re not using.
For the show, our intern Marion (photographed on a scanner camera test, below) will be keeping the outside world up-to-date on progress.
In this post you can find work form the artists in residence during Performing Drawology.
humhyphenhum is the ongoing collaboration of Deborah Harty and Phil Sawdon. Since 2005, the “hums” have developed a method of drawing and research referred to as “meaningful play”. The process of drawing commences through openness and responsiveness to discovery, and a willingness to ‘play’ with marks, media and concepts. Through a dialogue between collaborators, drawings and theme – where each has a role in co-constructing consequences – the hums’ responses, deliberations and reflections are drawn, distorted, erased and redrawn.
Performing Drawology brings this research into the Gallery – allowing the public to witness and engage with the entire process. humhyphenhum will be both curator and artist in residence; the first to enter the space (starting from today), to create a three dimensional drawing. The following artists will then continue to add and respond to the drawing in turn, with humhyphenhum returning to complete the drawing on Thursday 11 February.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS: Friday 15 – Friday 22 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Wednesday 20 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 22 January 3 pm – 4 pm
Thursday 11 February
IMAGE: ]us[ (digital still), humhyphenhum, 2014
Lorraine Young is currently a University teacher in Fine Art at Loughborough University. Lorraine studied for her undergraduate program in sculpture at the Loughborough College of Art & Design (LCAD) and holds a Masters of Arts in Drawing from the University of the Arts (UAL): Wimbledon. Her practice is situated in the exploration of drawing.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 January (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Tuesday 26 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
More info: http://lyoung365.wix.com/drawings
Catherine Bertola’s work involves creating installations, objects and drawings that respond to particular sites, collections and historic contexts. Underpinning the work is a desire to look beyond the surface of objects and buildings, to uncover forgotten and invisible histories of places and people, as a way of reframing and considering the past.
Catherine Bertola was born in Rugby in 1976; she studied Fine Art at Newcastle University, where she lives and works. She has worked on a number of commissions and exhibitions, nationally and internationally with institutions such as; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany; Artium, Vitoria Gastiez, Spain; Temple Gallery, Philadelphia, USA; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK; National Museum Wales, Cardiff, UK; V&A, London, UK; The Government Art Collection, National Trust and Crafts Council, UK.
She has work in several public and private collections and is represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead and M+R Fricke, Berlin
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Wednesday 27 – Friday 29 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Thursday 28 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 29 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
More info: www.workplacegallery.co.uk/artists/6-catherine-bertola
dimensional volumes in which they are manifest.
He works with holography, projected light and installation to combine and manipulate marks, releasing them from the surface they appear to rest on.
Recent pieces attempt to question our expectations around the visual fidelity of holographic images and employ aspects of the ‘sideward glance’ the peripheral view and the vocabulary of ‘framing’ and ‘placement’.
RESIDENCE:
Thursday 4 February
More info: www.apepper.com
Joe Graham’s artistic practice engages in the production of serially developed drawing, employing processes and structures connected with seriality to ask questions about drawing across a range of media and materials.
His artistic research explores how serially developed drawing re-presents (‘records’) the successive nature of conscious experience, in order to query the assumption that ‘drawing records thought’. Scrutinising the process of drawing in close proximity to Husserlian Phenomenology, he examines ways to connect ‘drawing’ and ‘thought’ via the topic of temporality which underpins both.
In methodological terms, serially developed drawing describes a repeated form across a number of iterations. Within any given series an eidetic method searches for what the individual instance indicates is purely possible. Via this process a rhythm emerges: repetition and difference, within a temporal return.
Drawing described in phenomenological terms as: the diagram of thought.
RESIDENCE:
Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 February (inclusive)
DISCUSSION SESSION:
Wednesday 3 February, 3 pm – 4 pm
Martin Lewis is a Nottingham-based artist and PhD research student at Nottingham Trent University. He also teaches at Loughborough University.
Lewis’ practice explores drawing and thinking as an embodied activity with the focus of the drawing on its act rather than its outcome as an artefact. The drawings employ simple lines or marks repeated over and over using pre-determined instructions. The most recent work involves drawing directly with my fingers onto a purpose built amplified ‘desk’ employing sound as the drawings medium. participating in Performing Drawology connects closely to Lewis’ current PhD research providing a critical context for him to test out a live enquiry in conceptual and performative terms in the form of a durational performance-action exploring ideas of drawing and attention.
RESIDENCE:
Friday 5 February
John Court was born in 1969 in Bromley, Kent. He graduated from Camberwell School of Art, London in 1994 and from Norwich School of Art and Design in 1997 with a degree in Sculpture. He moved to Finland in 1997, and was awarded a three year grant by the Arts Council of Finland. He lives and works in Lapland, close to the Arctic Circle.
Court has exhibited extensively in Scandinavia, and performed by invitation at major events such 7a*11d in Toronto, Canada, DigitaLive Guangzhou, China, 2014; SpaceX Gallery, Exeter, UK, 2012; Guangzhou Live Art Festival in China and ANTI Contemporary Art Festival , Finland, both 2010; the Venice Biennale, 2005 and the Liverpool Biennial, 2004.
John Court’s performances interweave personal experiences encountered from childhood to the present day. John left school unable to read or write. He interacts with modified versions of familiar objects that featured throughout the difficult times of his formal education; objects such as desks, dictionaries, pencils and paper. He worked on building sites in and around London for many years before being introduced to art.
RESIDENCE AND DISCUSSION SESSIONS:
Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 February (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Tuesday 9 February, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Wednesday 10 February, 4 pm – 5 pm
More info: www.johncourtnow.com