Another Nottingham: Inventing an alternative history for Nottingham School of Art & Design

Join us for a free workshop reimagining an alternative history of Nottingham School of Art – one that rejected the government strategy of 1843, and embraced local radical activism and self-organisation.

Get hands on with editing and remixing existing and new source material, and help create and expand this parallel universe.

Book your free tickets

Free and open to all. The structured workshop will run from 1–3 pm, followed by an informal opportunity for further exploration until 5 pm.

In a fictional parallel world, the Nottingham Independent Arts School is a thriving institution focused on people, planet and possibility. It offers space to think, to make and to share skills. The school is deeply integrated with the local community and guided by a focus on care and cross-disciplinarity.

This fictional vision was created by a group of participants who came together a few months ago to imagine an alternative history for Nottingham School of Art & Design. While the real-world School is rooted in a government plan to support British manufacture, the origins of its fictional equivalent lie in Nottingham’s radical history.

You are invited to this afternoon workshop to contribute to the next instalment of the parallel-world thought experiment. We will build on and extend the Nottingham Independent Arts School fiction, editing and remixing historical materials from the real-world Nottingham School of Art & Design via hands-on exploration to create a series of speculative documents that illustrate the history of the invented School.