We are delighted to confirm that legendary Nottingham rapper Cappo will perform at the launch of our next exhibition After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024 on Thursday 26 September, 6-8pm. Be sure to book your free ticket! He’ll be accompanied by Claude Money playing records throughout the evening.
Find out more about Cappo:
LeftLion interview from January 2024
Killa Tapes interview
Cappo interviewed for Fly Fidelity podcast
Dr Paul Adey is a Higher Education lecturer of Music Performance and Music Business at Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies (part of NTU).
Performing under the artist name of Cappo, he has practiced hip hop lyricism for over two decades. During this time he’s had the privilege of appearing at many of Europe’s premier live music venues, performing alongside artists such as Public Enemy, Skepta, and Sleaford Mods.
Throughout his career he’s released music on various record labels including Tru-Thoughts and Ninja Tune, and featured live on BBC Radio One (John Peel), BBC Radio 1 Xtra, and BBC Radio 6 numerous times.
Paul’s interdisciplinary research focuses on popular culture, literary devices and music concepts such as intertextuality and allusion, and the semi analysis of song lyrics. The interdisciplinary nature of Paul’s research links his work to Music, English, Creative Writing and Media Studies.
Looking back on Reactor’s two exhibitions Here, the Gold Ones flatter and Here, the Gold Ones meet we commissioned a text by David Burrows released here alongside a single screen edit of the flatter film.
Last night I met Max Gold. This was unexpected as I was at the party celebrating my 100th birthday, invisible to all, feeling sad and sorry for myself (because I could see that I was not in good shape and not long for this world). But I was happy to hear the nice things friends and carers in the care home were saying about me, and enjoying the kind words of (very important) people I had never met before, paying me an unexpected visit. I have had this dream before, several times, but never with Max making an appearance. Max can see me though (in my dream)! Max can see the invisible me (not the me, sitting at a table full of food, shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries). I know this because Max crept up behind me (the invisible me) to deliver a message to my right ear, ‘The fear of loss is a strong motivator… Stronger than the opportunity to gain or change…’ I remember distinctly thinking I have heard these words before but couldn’t place where and when. I looked behind me and couldn’t see a soul but still whispered, ‘Max?’ (Somehow, I knew it was Max Gold who had spoken, a figure or entity that I associate with the art collective Reactor.) Again, with words familiar but not placeable, Max spoke, and with increasing conviction, saying this fear (of loss) was not their own fear. Max was in the zone. Max was the prize. Normally this recurring dream of mine ends after guests praise my stoic acceptance of a life lived less successfully than I might have hoped for, shedding tears at my constant ploughing of a furrow no matter what, which brought reassurance to everyone who counted me as a friend or acquaintance. This part of the dream – the best bit – did not happen. Instead, everyone turned their attention to Max, now materialised as a golden egg (though this description does not do justice to the Gold One – egg-shaped with tentacles, a flickering mouth and rippling, golden skin). On viewing this apparition, I wondered whether this was my dream or, indeed, whether I was in Max’s dream? Was Max in my head, or was I in Max’s head, or were both of us in a stream of thoughts in another head. Or maybe Reactor had hacked my unconscious?
Then I remembered where I heard Max’s words before. Suddenly images of a laptop and video-link flashed in my mind’s eye. Max Gold’s words were from a video I had watched over and over, via a link sent by Reactor, entitled, Here, the Gold Ones flatter. This hour-long film features bodies (creatures, entities, realities?) and their often-overlapping voices. Even though the audio captures every word of the Gold Ones, and their visages are clearly rendered, it is difficult to understand every exchange, every utterance or gesture. Manen’cha – an ever-changing globule of rainbow colours – seemed most coherent of the six Gold Ones that appear in the film, but still oblique in their meaning. The blob-like Gold One suggests the tale told by the film is a prologue and, ‘You’ll need to read between the lines’. Manen’cha does not stop there and offers more authoritative if cryptic comments: ‘it is easy to reveal your hand’ and ‘what we do not imaginatively project our own consciousness into remains strange’. I try to follow Manen’cha’s advice and insights (this is what I am here for after all, I think… to understand the insights of the Gold Ones, when they were flatter). The film does seem to be a prologue, in that it presents a conversation between the Gold Ones about how they are (or were) one or many when flatter. The Gold Ones seem to inhabit different dimensions to each other, or one dimension in which direct exchange is not always straight forward – a latency issue perhaps due to being flat or residents of a two-dimensional world that is the early, soupy stage of the cosmos. Or maybe they just don’t listen to each other when they should, which is certainly true of Max Gold. Somehow though, the Gold Ones communicate ideas and piece together their own origins and the notion that a ‘Fourth Dimension’ promises escape or novel forms of agency for them. So, this is a film about a universe created, or perhaps channelled, by an art collective and their collaborators?
Alternatively, and I couldn’t shake this idea, the film is an allegory for a number of scientific and/or philosophical and/or spiritual problems (but this may say more about me). The film is possibly an allegory for:
Other voices from two more Gold Ones featured in the film chime in at different times and add substance to my allegorical readings. Challenger – a golden, glowing creature that seems a cross between a porpoise and a ray (fish) of light, ancient and futuristic looking at the same time – says ‘I am of the Deep-End’. And Ivan Poe – a blue, fluttering sheet with a T-shaped tear – says, ‘There is no map. No route to follow out of ‘ere’.
I think some more about Peeza Peel’s description of the dark rectangles (not squares – this seems important) that may form a cube (which according to conventional understanding, has six square faces). And then I count the number of Gold Ones in the film, all presented through the rectangle of my laptop: Max Gold, Poostied Piper, Peeza Peel, Manen’cha, Challenger, Ivan Poe. Something registers. For rectangles to become a cube, a transformation of dimension, form or perspective, or possibly all three of these things, must occur. And this must require tremendous energy. I get no further with this thought, something else is bothering me.
That there is no map, well that makes me anxious. Why? I am not sure where I am exactly, and I have nothing to help me work this out. I say to myself, right now I am remembering a film watched on my laptop about the Gold Ones who reside in a flat universe. I remember sitting on my bed to do so, but the remembering of all this is taking place in a dream in which I am at my birthday party in a care home, aged 100 years. In the dream I think I am sitting on my bed, but I can’t be sure of this. How do I know I am not one more rectangle? A seventh rectangle! Why have I not woken up yet. I want to get out of this dream place, this recurring dream play. Where exactly is this care home? I need a map, or something, unless there is no other place to get to from here? But there must be another place, where I sat down and watched a film by Reactor on my laptop and where I will wake up, soon I hope.
That sounds strange, I know. How can some other place be in the past and the future? Right now, in my birthday dream, I know I am in the presence of Max Gold, only recently escaped from ‘long before time was invented’, but I also know Max Gold has been out of the soup for a while before this (Max has been in other Reactor works going back over many years). The human habit of thinking through timelines seems to have no relevance when thinking about the lives of the Gold Ones. Loops and cycles may be better analogies for their modalities of being. And, I suspect, this is true of the lives of the artists when collaborating as Reactor; in the midst of collaboration, does time have a linear flow for them? There is perhaps an acknowledgement of physics in the discussions of the Gold Ones which may influence the thinking of the Reactor collective: most contemporary physicists will attest to the fact that there is no absolute time, no linear time. But, again, maybe I am reading too much between the lines. Maybe there is no allegory, no metaphor in Reactor’s work. Here, the Gold Ones flatter literally presents the Gold Ones when they were two-dimensional beings, projections in the cosmic soup or just after they escaped or exited? An origin story at any rate, which like all origin stories, is a myth that may have low reality content but that marks a question. This standard, lay-person’s science-fictioning-anthropology. For anyone might observe, as Sun Ra implied, reality can be produced through myth science – ‘I don’t exist, but that’s OK because neither do you!’. In the case of Here, the Gold Ones flatter, the question is where are we (the Gold Ones) from, how did we get here from nothing? The Gold Ones and Reactor themselves make the answer to this question explicit if not entirely clear: at the beginning there was only ‘of the shelf’.
I am thinking (still in my dream), what does this mean – ‘of the shelf’? – when Max Gold speaks again:
‘I is sticky
Stuck
And I’ve got five ways to get unstuck:
1. Make sure the goal is a upward cosmic call
2. Make that cosmic calling an upward BOOST
3. Always avoid backward boosting
4 Put your mind to it.
5. Put your grind to it.’
The effect of this short speech was instant, I was forgotten by the guests at my (dream) birthday. They demanded to know who this motivator-prophet was, and should they all try and get unsticky, to change and follow the motivator’s example? (And another worrying thought surfaced, were my birthday guests now in my bedroom, watching the film on my laptop?) I wanted to wake up but couldn’t, and experienced a terrible dream-paralysis… I was stuck (the irony was not lost on me). Max Gold continued, ‘I am the One’, and something about not knowing twos or threes. Someone new to the dream shouted, ‘You’ve got that the wrong way round’. This was from Poostied Piper. I don’t know how I knew this as I couldn’t move to look around, and I couldn’t see them amongst the guests. I reiterated Poostied’s observation, as loudly as I could, but no one could hear me. I was not just invisible; I had become inaudible.
And then Max Gold declared, ‘One for permanent change, shoot for the boost!’ and I woke up. But not in my bed! I found myself in a large gallery, and on the walls, surrounding me on all sides were the Gold Ones, projected above several assemblages. The six Gold Ones from the film were present: Poostied Piper, Max Gold, Manen’cha, Ivan Poe, Peeza Peel and Challenger. And the conversation picks up where it left off in my dream. Poostied asks Max, ‘Are ya serious?’, for the Gold One might be bluffing about leaving for another dimension. But Max is not. Poostied wants to go too but is wary of the fourth dimension and asks Max for some precious ‘time-periods’. I understand Poostied’s fear, the lack of security and danger that might follow Max pulling the ‘cosmic trigger’, but Max is off, off the shelf so-to-speak (as Max puts it) and leaves without ‘Fear of loss!’, for as they say, ‘Life and death are permanently changing.’
Max does indeed seem to go somewhere beyond the soup, to make a new home or world (though little changes here). I am unable to follow Max. I am still where I was. I find a guide for the exhibition Here, the Gold Ones flatter, dated late March 2022, only it isn’t. I know I have lived until June 2024 at least and the exhibition has been deinstalled. I can’t be sure if this is still a dream though. I remind myself, Reactor time is not linear time and reflect that confusion is to be expected. On being approached to write about the Gold Ones – specifically Here, the Gold Ones flatter – I felt excitement tinged with trepidation. Their past projects have included many strange manifestations, including: a kind of factory in which it was not clear what happened or who was who, even after documentation of the event was made available – there is alleged manipulation of audience member’s memories (Total GHAOS, 2005); a venture in which the objective was to form a cult-like (my italics and term) group that believed whole-heartedly in systems rather than fighting them (Big Lizard’s Big Idea, 2009-10); and a world in which time is a currency, to be traded in periods (Dummy Button 2013). And then there is the Martinmas Interviews, held annually, to recruit secret members of the group. These secret members, should they exist, could be anyone, including people you probably know (I swear I am not and never have been a member of Reactor). They play with your sense of what is real (that is why I had a sense of trepidation on being approached to write this text), but they also offer you a way out of mundane realities, to get unsticky and take a chance (it is exciting to get lost in the worlds they create). To enter the narratives of Reactor involves becoming somebody or something else as well as disassembling your ego. It is best not to think you know best, or you know much at all when encountering Reactor. I suspect, the ethos of Reactor and the world’s they create is not focussed on understanding but making, changing, breathing a different air.
Yet I want to wake up! Still in the gallery, I close my eyes and think hard on something bizarre that Peeza Peel says, which stops my heart beating. As Max boasts about the qualities of Gold – its ‘bold’, ‘courageous’, ‘brave’, ‘strong’, like ‘steel’, ‘a champion’, ‘a hero’… ‘the Gold One’… he must be talking about himself here – Peeza says my name. This must be coincidence. After stating ‘The landing of Max on this Fourth World became known to the Hands as the ‘day of Gold’, Peeza says, ‘Poostied Piper of Hamline Instrategy – David size see Max in the cosmic care home. Does ee know that you trapped him in this celestial loophole?’ I think back to a past discussion with Reactor, about their use of materials of all things, and a brand of filler that I think was called ‘David’s Eyes’, but I am not sure, I could have just made this up out of desperation. I play Peeza’s words through my head one more time. Peeza definitely says ‘David’ – that is my name! What the actual fuck! I open my eyes and… oh no! I am now inside the Cosmic Care Home. I know this place from viewing another video that Reactor sent me some time ago, to aid our discussion of the group’s performance at the Bonington Gallery in 2021. The Cosmic Care Home is where the Gold Ones reside in the future. (Wrong word perhaps – future? I don’t know, Reactor were hesitant when talking about times and dates, for reasons stated above). During our discussion, I was fascinated and eager to understand the protocols and rules of the Cosmic Care Home, and the nutritional regime of its residents. It is a place in which care is evident but in which the Gold Ones’ irrational behaviour (irrational to me at least) is disturbing. But then the Gold Ones may well be very old (if that means anything) when they are residing in the care home, or I was seeing customs from the present that have evolved beyond recognition, so as to become a foreign culture to me. As eager as I was to find out about the care home, I did not want to visit it though, or be trapped in a celestial loophole. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. I couldn’t possibly be trapped there (here). How to escape this feeling of reverse déjà vu? How do I get out of here? Context! I will reach for context.
I am writing a text on Here, the Gold Ones flatter, and the work of Reactor, and I fell asleep. When I wake up, I am going to list the context of Reactor’s film and the Gold Ones project. I have thought a lot about the context of this film, and also the earlier exhibition Here, the Gold Ones meet situated in the Cosmic Care Home. The earlier work seemed to have a relation to performance and installation that emerges in the territories first explored by American artist Paul McCarthy, but Here, the Gold Ones flatter moves my frame of reference closer to home. The film has the frontality of theatre, a directness of delivery and, at times, a musical layering of intersecting monologues spoken by various avatars, which makes me think of the theatre of Samuel Beckett. In particular, Beckett’s Not-I (1972) – a single pair of lips in a dark void speaking at break-neck speed – and Play (1963) – three figures in funeral jars, facing an audience, babbling away. In the first work, a mouth says, ‘not I’; in the second, three figures constantly talk of themselves and over each other, and about an affair that obsesses the small ensemble. Is Here, the Gold Ones flatter, a digital, sci-fi Beckett-like play with non-human, cosmic existential questions aired by six Gold Ones? There is something else though that will not stop nagging at me. The word ‘flatter’ in the title of the film differentiates it from the earlier work Here, the Gold Ones meet. This is not just a play on words. To meet suggests a three-dimensional space or four dimensional spacetime in which bodies come together. To be flatter implies the Gold Ones are not in a dimension of volume and duration, perhaps not in a realm of entropy either. They are in a flat space, in perhaps what they call ‘cosmic soup’. I think here of the novel Flatland (1884) by Edwin A. Abbott, about a square that lives in a two-dimensional world who is visited by a sphere. The sphere shows the square a three-dimensional world that the square does not believe in until lifted high and above his homeland, a two-dimensional plane that looks like a table-top or perhaps a screen. But this is not the only world they see. The square and the sphere also view a land of one dimension – dots and dashes that do not see each other as they are arranged, side-by-side as a line (just like the Gold Ones in the Bonington Gallery installation, as entities projected in a line around the gallery’s walls) – and a land of no dimensions – where a single dot lives and thinks they are the whole of the cosmos (similar perhaps to the soupy world the Gold Ones speak of, which may explain their confusion or disagreement about whether there is only one of them or many). And this would mean that I am in flatland – I am the square – watching the Gold Ones as rectangles, the Cosmic Care Home being a three-or more-dimensional space in which the Gold Ones evolve new forms. Perhaps Reactor’s Gold Ones explore, above all else, mathematical states within the cosmos, from the soup to the Cosmic Care Home?
This cannot be right though. The community of the Gold Ones, and the long-term collaboration of Reactor, is not a mathematical exercise, it is social and communal work – it is a society of actual and virtual people. And in thinking this through, I feel one last reference must be mentioned: Félix Guatarri’s schizoanalysis – his counter to, and development of psychoanalysis – which, as has been said elsewhere, involves experiments that dissemble and dissolve the self and other configurations or modes of organisation to realise a diversity of different individuations and durations, organic and inorganic. It is the legend of La Borde Clinic too, where Guatarri worked with Jean Oury, that also seems relevant; a clinic that dispensed with hierarchies as much as possible and engaged doctors and patients alike in group performances, storytelling and art-making.
Whether right or wrong, my art writer’s reverie has brought me home. I am looking at my laptop, still playing the film Here, the Gold Ones flatter. Yet I can’t quite trust what I am sensing and blink several times and stare at my hands to make sure I am truly awake (hands always look different in dreams and this knowledge helps with lucid dreaming). I think about the contexts I have outlined: McCarthy, Beckett, Abbott, Guatarri – they seem like the magic words of a spell that has freed me from a cosmic loophole. It is an interesting mix, but I am not sure these figures set the right context. ‘Rats seeing what David’s eyes see?’ (I don’t know where this question comes from, and my fear of being manipulated briefly surfaces again. Am I really back?) My doubt about the contexts I have drawn comes from knowing the work of Reactor over many years. I suspect the basis of what I think of as a genuine cosmic practice is a commitment to chance and embracing what is unknown or nonsensical (perhaps they follow the advice of the Greeks, ‘never turn a stranger away from your door, they may be Zeus in disguise’). And this is why I have a sense that the dense and oblique narrative of Here, the Gold Ones flatter is both a play on, and embrace of a cosmic order. The film on my laptop is reaching the end now. While Max Gold declares first residency in the Cosmic Care Home, Manen’cha – the Gold One that I count as the most sensible – says that I understood but did not comprehend the explanatory matter relayed by the Gold Ones. I understood, I think, from outside – my artist writer’s context – but did not comprehend from inside. Manen’cha isn’t finished and before a farewell, I am asked, ‘if you flip memory around does it become anticipation? Let’s imagine, but, for all that ‘as ‘appened, that you are still ‘ere now. Here me CORRECTLY, then ask yourself, what have I become?’
I cannot answer this but know, last night I met Max Gold, and I will most likely meet Max again, as everyone might well do, in the Cosmic Care Home. And the next time it will not be a dream.
David Burrows is an artist, writer, member of the group that produces the collaboration Plastique Fantastique and Professor of Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.
On Thursday 20th June Bonington Gallery was delighted to welcome 300+ school children as part of the inaugural Creativity Showcase – Nottingham School of Art and Design’s partnership with East Midlands Education Trust (EMET). The event’s aim was to reposition creativity as a vital skill set and inspire young people to aspire to higher education, particularly within the vibrant and dynamic environment of the Art School and its resident art gallery.
The Creativity Showcase featured a variety of engaging activities with pupils having the opportunity to explore diverse creative disciplines, from visual arts and design to digital media and performance art, highlighting the boundless potential of a creative education.
Event Highlights included:
In the spring term at Nottingham Trent University, students on NTU English module Black Writing in Britain were joined by poet and Caribbean literature and culture specialist Emily Zobel Marshall and novelist Jacqueline Crooks.
In March 2024, poet and Caribbean literature and culture specialist Emily Zobel Marshall visited NTU to read from and discuss her new poetry collection, Bath of Herbs.
Emily Zobel Marshall is a Reader at Leeds Beckett University, specialising in African and Caribbean folklore and literature of the African diaspora. Emily is also an expert in the role of trickster figures in the literatures and cultures of Africa and its Diaspora and has published widely in this area. Bath of Herbs is a vivid collection of poetry drawing on the poet’s life and history, including her childhood in rural Wales, mixed race identity, the British North, Martinique, illness, recovery, mourning, and family.
In this event held at NTU’s Clifton campus, Emily reads from and discusses her poetry, her literary inspiration from her grandfather, the writer Joseph Zobel, and answers questions from NTU English students on Jenni Ramone’s Black Writing in Britain module.
In April 2024, students on NTU English module Black Writing in Britain were joined by novelist Jacqueline Crooks.
Jacqueline Crooks was born in Jamaica and moved to London as a child. Her short story collection, The Ice Migration, was longlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize in the Political Fiction category, and she has also been shortlisted for the Asham and Wasafiri New Writing awards. Her short story, ‘Silver Fish in the Midnight Sea’, was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2019. Her stories have appeared in Wasafiri, Virago, Granta and Mslexia. Fire Rush is her debut novel and it has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Jhalak Prize, and the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and chosen as an Observer Best Debut Novel of the Year and a New Yorker best books of 2023. The narrative of Fire Rush takes place between late 1978 and early 1982. It is the story of Jamaican-British woman Yamaye, her friends, her search for her mother, and dub reggae.
In this event, Jacqueline Crooks reads from and discusses her novel in conversation with Jenni Ramone.
On the 11th of April, cinephiles gathered in the heart of Nottingham at the Bonington Gallery for ‘The Night of the Red Herring’ held by our student film collective Reel Em In. This evening was the product of our Film Programming module at Nottingham Trent University where we were given the opportunity to build a film night from the ground up, taking on various responsibilities such as curating the film programme, which involved undertaking research into relevant short films, contacting directors and putting together the programme making sure the sequence of the films flowed. Other roles included event setup and organisation, as well as marketing and promotion.
Promising a night of crime and mystery shorts, the event was a success with a substantial number of people in attendance. The auditorium was set up for a fully immersive experience, decorated with caution tape, a chalk figure, some crime scene treats (edible body parts!), and a rogues’ gallery, whilst a pianist sat at the keyboard playing his graceful chords as everybody entered. The film programme was accompanied by our host, who, as on theme as the rest of the event, was dressed head to toe as a detective, working as the commentary and driving the interactive crime mystery we staged, which gave our audience the opportunity to engage in it.
Our programme consisted of eleven different films shown in two instalments. From a twisted family who will do anything to access their inheritance, to beautifully curated noir animations and dystopian tales of murder and a whole bucketful more each film fell under the sweeping umbrella of crime, noir, and mystery. One of the best consequences of dealing with shorts is that the films were made by independent directors from all over the world, allowing us to introduce their work to a new audience of film fans all the way over here in our city of Nottingham.
In short, this evening allowed us to celebrate short films with one another and collectively revel in the thrill of the unknown. On behalf of Reel Em In, we appreciate everybody who was in attendance, and can only hope you enjoyed the night as much as we enjoyed organising it.
You can find us on our socials: Reeleminnotts
As a legacy to our Art Schools of the East Midlands exhibition by John Beck & Matthew Cornford in Sept/Dec 2023, we invited Stella Couloutbanis who was Exhibition Organiser (later Exhibitions, Events and Festival Director) at Bonington Gallery between 1989 and 2007 to jot down memories of her time at Bonington Gallery & NTU.
This piece of writing is also shared on the occasion of our current Bonington Archive display entitled Stella’s Dilemma, that documents some of the process behind the creation of Tom Hackett’s 1991 solo exhibition Burst. This presentation is on show in the foyer of Bonington Gallery from 16 March – 4 May, 2024.
Memories of Bonington Gallery by Stella Couloutbanis
“In April 1989 I joined Trent Polytechnic as an Exhibitions Organiser for the Bonington Gallery, having left my previous role as Touring Exhibitions Officer within the Arts Division of Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC).
It was an interesting time to join the Polytechnic. Local authorities had relinquished responsibility and Trent Polytechnic was moved away from NCC – two years later becoming an independent university, first called Trent University and later changed to its current name, Nottingham Trent University. With its new statute a Vice Chancellor (VC) was appointed, Professor Ray Cowell. He had a passion for the arts and played a pivotal role in developing the art culture within the university.
The strategy was to transform the space into a public contemporary art gallery. The early years presented some significant challenges, with no designated office area, no staff, a limited budget, limited technical support, no funds to publicise the space, no doors to the gallery, no easy access, and no invigilation.
I initially shared an office within proximity to Professor Robert Ayres, Head of Visual Arts and Fine Art Department, who was my manager and led the vision for the space and the city.
Up to this point the gallery was referred to as ‘The Exhibition Hall’. It had an outline exhibition programme established by external bookings and by members of the Fine Art staff.
To reposition the gallery as a contemporary public gallery we needed to shift away from external bookings and use by internal staff towards a more public remit. Like any change it was initially tricky to implement, but after two years the switch was well underway. The gallery had been renamed to ‘The Bonington Gallery’ (later shortened to just ‘Bonington Gallery’), and a programme of contemporary artworks and performances was being programmed for up to two years ahead.
In the early 1990’s we successfully secured two significant grants which helped elevate the Gallery and establish its position as a public art gallery. We became clients from East Midlands Arts (now the Arts Council England) receiving an annual grant plus match funding from Trent Polytechnic.
The Henry Moore Foundation awarded us a grant to upgrade the gallery, allowing us to procure and fit doors, install a disabled access lift, install bannisters on the staircase, procure and install theatre lights and completely renovate the wooden floor.
We also managed to get a disabled toilet installed in the Bonington building with a grant from Nottinghamshire County Council.
The most amazing thing for me about the Bonington Gallery was its size. It was one of the largest, single room galleries in the Midlands with a ceiling height of 22 feet and 2153 square feet of flooring. It had a beautiful maple floor which was in stark contrast with its brutal concrete egg box ceiling – all these distinguishing features making the gallery iconic, in my opinion. I would often describe the space to artists as a space you walked down into and, “imagine you are at the bottom of an empty public swimming bath”. The vastness of the space also meant the acoustics were difficult to work with making public speaking sometimes a challenge.
Forming partnerships and collaborations with artists and art organisations was pivotal in the gallery’s development and helped create a robust programme. Over the 18 years the team worked with all the key organisations and festivals in Nottinghamshire, such as Dance 4, Now, Expo, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Djanogly Art Gallery, Wollaton Hall… and many more. Hosting some of the best talent in the arts.
I worked with some amazing artists and performers during my time, too many to count, who were based locally, regionally, nationally and internationally – I never did a head-count, but it must be over a thousand. One of our key success factors was our growing reputation for supporting artists where we would do all that was possible for them to produce their creative work. Mentoring was very important to me, to help artists develop their artistic ideas. We were always being flexible, understanding that work was fluid and the creative outcome could be very different to what was originally proposed.
Bonington Gallery was always a space for site specific and installation work. In 1991 John Newling installed his work, Lost. It covered the entire floor of the gallery with a map of Nottingham City Centre made from paracetamol laid on steel plates. It was a significant point for me – not only was the work powerful and thought provoking with a striking visual impact, it showed that the gallery was ideally positioned to commission site specific works for the space and not just hosting and housing wall and floor-based work.
Over the years we had some fantastic installations; David Wilkinson & Mary McIntyre, Ray Lee, Dunn & Dempster, Shelley Sacks, Ansuman Biswas (collaboration with NOW Ninety 9), Rosie Leverton, Tom Hackett, Lorna Green, Natasha Kidd, Lone Twins, Gobb Squad, Opera North, Bodies in Flight, Hancock and Kelly, Ivan Smith, Susie MacMurray, Mariele Neudecker, Richard Brown are just a few to name.
Dance was a significant aspect of our programme, and we held the first Dance Festival in 1991, organised by Nottinghamshire County Council. At this festival I was introduced to the company Salamanda Tandem. This was the beginning of a very long working relationship between us, lasting several decades. Isabel Jones, the director (a dancer, singer, musician and visual artist) worked in Bonington Gallery for many years and I became chair to the company in 2005.
The gallery was a host and collaborator for Notts Dance and Body Shape Image – two major dance festivals organised by Dance 4. We worked with Expo and Now (Nottingham City Council) presenting, co-commissioning and supporting performances.
Around this time the VC’s passion for the arts led to the establishment of a collection of artworks for the university, focusing on purchasing works from practitioners living and working in the East Midlands. Bonington Gallery was responsible for sourcing, hanging, caring and cataloguing the works.
With an increase in our Arts Council grant, Future Factory was created by Professor Rober Ayers who was appointed as the first Artistic Director ever established at a university. This funding allowed us to commission new work and host our own performance festivals, Celebration Nottingham, Sensitive Skin and Body Space Image. We also ran artist fellowships – giving support, mentoring, opportunities and bursaries to help further their practice. Future Factory’s exhibition and performance programme was housed at Bonington Gallery and Powerhouse, Victoria studios (the site for the new DaDA building). This included a multi-disciplinary contemporary exhibition programme involving photography, film, video, sound and multi-media plus a live art and performance season every year.
When Future Factory was established, Bonington Gallery had a team of eight, including a marketing officer, marketing assistant, technician, education officers, the director and myself. This was an amazing time as it was the start of a feasibility study for a new contemporary art and performance space in Nottingham which was awarded to Nottingham Trent University. The outcome was a success, which led to a further award from Arts Council England to continue with a more thorough and detailed feasibility study working in collaboration with Nottingham City Council and University of Nottingham.
In 2003, due to staff changes, I was promoted to Exhibitions, Events and Festival Director to programme and curate exhibitions, performances and events in Bonington Gallery and 1851 Galleries (Waverley Building), Powerhouse/Basement performance spaces and other University venues. In 2004 I was seconded part time to Nottingham Contemporary as a member of the development team, attending project and client team meetings, stakeholder/sub board meetings and Capital Network meetings.
I have so many happy memories at Bonington Gallery… In the 1990s it was one of the locations for the TV series Boon. We had students exhibiting work in the gallery, including Sue Webster and Tim Noble and we negotiated a fee of £50 per student and a fee for the gallery. In addition, we were allowed to use the catering wagon which was stationed outside the gallery. It took a week for the crew and actors to film a 1-minute-long scene which was a confrontation of a student and a lecturer with a slap on the face!
Having Tom Hackett’s Burst sculpture installation at the Gallery included sourcing, transporting and installing 70 industrial scale cable reels. I cannot remember how we got them in but I do remember the very long chats with the health and safety staff. The Gallery, over the years, has housed many other installations made from a wide variety of materials including bricks, books, fabrics, banana skins, radiators, and performances featuring bodily fluids, duration, audience participation and dancers performing with paintings and other media.
On one occasion an external booking for a flower show had been taken that I was not aware of which clashed with a show I booked in – we had to temporarily take the show down for the weekend to allow the flower show and then rehang it again (not to be recommended!).
We held a Guinness World Record Breaking event. Matt Hand in collaboration with Leif Alexis and Ben Mawson-Harris broke the world record for the longest table tennis rally on their 16th attempt over a 24-hour period, reaching 5 hours, 8 minutes and 22 seconds.
I worked with many students and graduates showing their work in the numerous associated spaces; from gourmet meals being cooked and served by two creative arts students in the Bonington Foyer, to tomato throwing in the gallery, to exhibitions, to awards (Margaret Bryan and Geoff Ball awards) and Expo which was started by NTU graduates.
In 18 years at Bonington Gallery we played host to many school and student placements and graduates. I enjoyed working with all of them, some as volunteers for specific events, others just working at the gallery as assistants supporting our staff and the programme.
I tried to give them an overall experience of what we did at the gallery, from curation, marketing, and education to the hang and finally the opening night. I am very grateful to all our volunteers without whose help it would have made our work much harder. There are so many of them I can’t remember all of them but you know who you are – a big thank you! I have been privileged to work with some amazing volunteers, many of whom have developed their own careers and I hope we played a part in it.
I feel strongly that the work we did at Bonington Gallery/Future Factory was the catalyst for what is now Nottingham Contemporary. Our input in getting the two feasibility study funds from ACE was initiated by us and NTU. Without the initial steer and the passion from Bonington Gallery and Future Factory, Nottingham Contemporary may never have happened.
It was extremely sad for me and my staff to close the doors of Bonington Gallery in August 2007, our Arts Council Grant England Funding had finally been diverted to Nottingham Contemporary which was well on its way in the build and had a new Director in place.
We left with our heads held high, knowing we had done our jobs well. I worked with some amazing people who contributed massively towards Nottingham Contemporary. Deborah Dean, friend and colleague showed outstanding passion and work. Professor Robert Ayres, friend and colleague demonstrated extraordinary vision and determination. NTU VC Professor Ray Cowell, for being such an advocate of the arts in all its forms.
And of course, my amazing team over the 18 years included Janice Britton, John Hewitt, Raif Killips, Stephen Fossey, Jenny Rainforth, Lisa Simmons, Haj Kaur, Sam Rose, Annette Foster, Geoff Litherland, Bo Olawoye… I hope I have not missed any names out!
Looking back, it is great to see Bonington has been repositioned back into the University and continues supporting research and development – something that we were also keen to support during my time at Bonington.
(It is to be noted this has been done by memory as I had no papers to refer to, apologies if I missed any names or organisations out, it was over 15 years ago!)”
‘Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side, a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes new life, and new growth possible. It is that act of speech, of “talking back” that is no mere gesture of empty words, that is the expression of moving from object to subject, that is the liberated voice.’
– bell hooks, “Talking Back.” Discourse (1986), p. 128.
Talking Back interdisciplinary conference is an in-person conference that will be held in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It will form a prominent part of Transform, a city-wide collaborative and transformative endeavour involving major cultural organisations across Nottingham in summer 2024, led in partnership by New Art Exchange.
Reflecting on speech as a radical force against the systemic silencing of marginalised voices (hooks, 1989), we would like to invite proposals from writers, academics, creatives, and activists alike who are interested in exploring critical and creative approaches to decolonial activism, reclamations of culture and identity, and the transformative power of voice.
We invite contributions that explore marginalised voices, representations of dissent against western hegemony and rigid binaries, and resistance to silencing and structural oppression. We welcome critical and creative approaches to proposals from participants of all genders, racial groups, and faith groups.
The conference is free to attend and will take place at Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, England on Tuesday 25th June 2024.
The conference will be followed by an open-mic poetry and networking event, centred on the theme of ‘talking back.’
Suggestions include and are not limited to:
Please submit a 250-word abstract/proposal for a 20 minute paper or presentation along with a 100 word biographical statement to: talkingbackconference@gmail.com
Please title your email with the type of submission you are applying for:
20 minute paper: Talking Back Conference 2024
20 minute presentation: Talking Back Conference 2024
The conference is free to attend. We are also able to offer 2-3 small travel bursaries to support self-funded and disadvantaged students with travel costs. If you wish to apply for one of these bursaries, please express your interest at the bottom of your abstract, along with a brief summary explaining why you require the support.
Deadline for all submissions: 1st April 2024.
Conference Date: 25th June 2024
Email us at talkingbackconference@gmail.com if you have any questions.
We look forward to receiving your submissions.
This conference is made possible by generous funding and support provided by Bonington Gallery and the NTU’s Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group.
We are delighted to announce a new series of conversations starting in February 2024, as part of our Formations programme, in partnership with the Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group. They will explore a range of creative and community interventions aimed at understanding complex human-plant entanglements within postcolonial Britain and beyond.
Image credit: Sophie Fuggle.
Bringing together interlocuters from a variety creative, botanical and creative backgrounds, the human-plant stories told across the series will draw on a variety of philosophical, historical and artistic perspectives.
In proposing the concept of the ‘plantationocene’ as one (of multiple) possible ways to understand the planet-wide impact of industrial capitalism and colonialism, Donna Haraway describes how the wide-scale agriculture and cultivation projects of empire differed significantly from earlier forms of seed dispersal due to factors of ‘scale, rate/speed, synchronicity, and complexity’ (Haraway, 2015). Colonial institutions, in particular Botanic Gardens, played an integral role in the distribution of seeds and research into economic crops leading to changes in economy and landscape (Barnard 2016). In their conversations around vegetal being, Luce Irigaray and Mark Marder (2016) have argued that greater understanding of plants and the worlds they create and sustain is key to our own development and, moreover, the survival of the planet.
Moving plants from landscape to centre stage, we will be looking at the different roles they play in shaping the world as we know it, from conceptions of time, growth, invasion, dispersal and dissemination to ideas around beauty, colour, form and structure.
Plants Beyond Empire is curated by Sophie Fuggle and Katharina Massing.
Join artist Rebecca Beinart for a free online talk where she will share stories and work-in-progress from her long term research into plant-human relationships, medicine and porous bodies.
During this talk she will share a short film made in collaboration with Usha Mahenthiralingam and Freddy Griffiths. The work explores the Island site in Nottingham – that once housed the Boots pharmaceutical factories and is currently under redevelopment – and spills out into histories of plant medicine, land, bioprospecting, pharmaceutical production, and thinking with plants and fungi.
Find out more and book your ticket here.
Join Katharina Massing and Jen Ridding for an online talk exploring how Birmingham Botanical Gardens is working with local communities and visitors to highlight its colonial connections and diversify voices within plant interpretation.
Katharina Massing and Jen Ridding will look at how the garden is working with local communities and visitors to highlight some of these colonial connections and diversify voices within plant interpretation.
Find out more and book your ticket here.
For the third and final event from our Plants Beyond Empire series, Claire Reddleman and Sophie Fuggle will explore how plants have become aligned with human ideas about time, seasons and cycles.
Many plants have been co-opted into colonial and capitalist ways of understanding time. For this talk, Reddleman and Fuggle will focus upon the Ginkgo Biloba – often described as a ‘living fossil’ due to the fact it has remained unchanged for over 80 million years, and the castor bean, a very different plant, which has been used by humans for at least 24,000 years.
Find out more and book your ticket here.
Sophie Fuggle’s research focuses on connections between empire and ecology. She has conducted extensive field and archival work in French Guiana, New Caledonia and Vietnam looking at the legacy of France’s overseas penal colonies. Most recently she has begun to explore the colonial, cultural histories of the castor bean plant.
Katharina Massing is a museum and heritage expert interested in holistic approaches to the safeguarding of landscape and traditional knowledge and sustainable heritage practices. She teaches and researches on ways museums can engage with and communicate anthropogenic changes. At the moment she is involved in a project between Nottingham Trent University and Birmingham Botanical Gardens that investigates diversifying ways in which plant stories are told.
Established in 2020, Formations is an event programme led by NTU’s Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group 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.
As part of our current Vitrines exhibition, Art [School] Histories, we have been collecting materials from former Nottingham School of Art and Design students and staff that reflect the more candid and informal moments during their time here. Below are a selection of these submissions – see the full set on the specially constructed noticeboard next to the Vitrines, just outside the gallery entrance.
With thanks to Claire Simpson, Daisy Hayward, Diana Pasek-Atkinson, Lis Evans, Rebecca Efstatiou, Alex Jovcic-Sas, and Giorgio Sadotti. If you have any images or memories you’d like to submit, please email boningtongallery@ntu.ac.uk
We were really pleased to be featured in the Observer Sunday 17th September, as part of an article looking at John Beck and Matthew Cornford’s art school project. You can read the full article here.
