CURATED BY COLLECTIVE ÇUKURCUMA
Throughout centuries, libraries have been perceived as places where knowledge on life and space is organized, read, and interpreted, yet at certain times, their political significance are underestimated. Public libraries have been important symbols of political power and formation of cultural identity. They play a significant role in the political struggle for independence, as centres of democratic ideals, such as free access to cultural heritage and information. As public spaces, they are essential for bringing people together to share information, and they become even more important during times of collective resistance and protests for freedom.
Curated by the Istanbul-based Collective Çukurcuma, House of Wisdom explores the political power of books and libraries in our century, and is presented as a travelling exhibition/library that explores the increasing levels of censorship on information and the current sociopolitical situation in and around Turkey. It started its journey in the non-profit art space, Dzialdov, Berlin. The show moved to Istanbul as part of the 15th Istanbul Biennial’s public program, and then to the art space Framer Framed in Amsterdam, as part of the Amsterdam Art Weekend 2017 programme.
The exhibition and public programme of events now reside in Nottingham, with a panel discussion at Primary, in June 2018, followed by the exhibition here at Bonington Gallery and across the city, see public programme events (curated by Cüneyt Çakırlar) below for full details.
Artists include: Mohamed Abdelkarim, Burak Arıkan, Mahmoud Bakhshi, Yael Bartana, Mehtap Baydu, Kürşat Bayhan, Ruth Beale, Ekin Bernay, Burçak Bingöl, Nicky Broekhuysen, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Cansu Çakar, Ramesch Daha, Işıl Eğrikavuk, Didem Erk, Foundland Collective, Deniz Gül, Beril Gür, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, İstanbul Queer Art Collective (Tuna Erdem and Seda Ergül), Ali Kazma, Yazan Khalili, Göksu Kunak, Mona Kriegler, Fehras Publishing Practices, Elham Rokni, Natascha Sadr Haghighian & Ashkan Sepahvand, Sümer Sayın, Erinç Seymen, Bahia Shehab, Walid Siti, Ali Taptık, Erdem Taşdelen, Özge Topçu, Viron Erol Vert, Ali Yass, Eşref Yıldırım, Ala Younis
This project is being run in collaboration with Queer Art Projects (London, UK), Nottingham Trent University’s Bonington Gallery, Primary, Bromley House Library, Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, and Five Leaves Bookshop.
Talk: Islam in the River of Wisdoms, with Prof. Wendy Shaw
Date: Wednesday 3 October, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Location: Five Leaves Bookshop
This talk was recorded, you can access the footage on Vimeo.
Talk: A Feeling of Loss: Mutterzunge, with Adnan Yildiz
Date: Wednesday 10 October, 6 pm – 8 pm
Location: Primary
Bookings: Please visit Primary’s website for details
This talk was recorded, you can access the footage on Vimeo
Film Screening: Gürcan Keltek’s Colony (2015)
Date: Wednesday 17 October, 6 pm – 8 pm
Location: Bonington Lecture Theatre (room 143)
Bookings: please email cuneyt.cakirlar@ntu.ac.uk to reserve your place
View the trailer on Vimeo
Uplefter: A workshop on Political Depression with Aylin Kuryel
Date: Monday 22 October, 6 pm – 8 pm
Location: Bonington 146
Bookings: please email cuneyt.cakirlar@ntu.ac.uk to reserve your place
This talk was recorded, you can access the footage on Vimeo
Exhibition Walkthrough with Mine Kaplangı and Cüneyt Çakırlar
Date: Wednesday 24 October, 1 pm – 3 pm
Location: Bonington Gallery
Bookings: please email cuneyt.cakirlar@ntu.ac.uk to reserve your place
Film Screening: Shevaun Mizrahi’s Distant Constellation (2017)
Date: Wednesday 24 October, 6 pm – 8 pm
Location: Bonington Lecture Theatre (room 143)
Bookings: please email cuneyt.cakirlar@ntu.ac.uk to reserve your place
View the trailer on Vimeo
Istanbul Queer Art Collective
Performance
Visiting Bibliophiles: Fellowship of Books
Tuna Erdem and Seda Ergül will visit NTU Emeritus Professor of Gay and Lesbian Studies, Gregory Woods. Presenting their Just in Bookcase, they will have a conversation on book loving, personal libraries, queer archiving and memory. This is a closed performance, the video documentation of this event is available on Vimeo.
Public programme curator: Dr Cüneyt Çakırlar, Senior Lecturer in Communication, Culture and Media at Nottingham Trent University. The events in this public programme are sponsored by School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University.
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is delighted to host, in collaboration with New Art Exchange and Nottingham Contemporary, this guest lecture by Keith Piper, BA (Hons) Fine Art alumnus and founding member of the BLK Art Group.
This event coincides with an exhibition of Keith’s work at New Art Exchange, Unearthing the Banker’s Bones, which opens from Friday 31 March to Sunday 2 July 2017. It also coincides with the current group exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary, The Place is Here, which is open until Sunday 30 April.
Keith Piper (born in Malta, 1960) is a leading contemporary British artist, curator, critic and academic. Piper was a founder member of the ground breaking BLK Art Group, an association of black British art students who exhibited together throughout the country between 1982-83. Their work was noted for its boldly political stance and critique on the state of intercommunal, class and gender relations the UK.
Adopting a research-driven approach and using a variety of media, Piper’s work over the past 30 years has ranged from painting, photography and installation through to use of digital media, video and computer based interactivity.
Image: Keith Piper, Unearthing the Banker’s Bones, 2016, film still. A 70th anniversary commission for the Arts Council with Bluecoat and Iniva. © the artist
LOCATION: BONINGTON LECTURE THEATRE
Featuring works by, George Barber, Storm De Hirsch, Daina Krumins, Alia Syed
Nottingham based collective Annexinema organise screenings of experimental film and visionary moving image, often in interesting and unusual locations. Recent events have been held in disused shops, medieval churches, and former factories. Programmes are curated thematically and bring together work by well-known experimental filmmakers, contemporary artists, and archival oddities.
For Bonington Film Night #7 Annexinema have selected a series of film works in response to our current exhibition All Men By Nature Desire To Know curated by Joshua Lockwood.
Several of the films will be shown in original 16mm film.
Further reading: http://annexinema.org
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is delighted to invite Alan Michael to speak as part of the 2017 Fine Art Live Lecture Series.
(b.1967 Paisley, Scotland) Alan lives and works in London. His work combines existing styles and codes of painting, photography and text to highlight tensions between displays of labour and casual under-performance. While making allusions to an unresolved relationship between photorealism, Pop and the ‘realness’ of street photography, his works often refer to various processes used to generate the ideas, circuits of reception and, ultimately, the finished works themselves.
Alan is currently exhibiting in a group exhibition entitled All Men By Nature Desire To Know, which is on at Bonington Gallery until Friday 17 February 2017.
Recent solo exhibitions include:
Recent group exhibitions include:
The Fine Art Live Lecture Series is an initiative by Nottingham Trent University’s Fine Art course, whereby creative practitioners are invited to deliver a lecture to current students. The lectures are also open to staff, alumni and the general public.
The lectures take place during term-time only.
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is delighted to invite Audrey Reynolds to speak as part of the 2017 Fine Art Live Lecture Series.
Audrey is an artist and writer, her work includes sculpture, painting, text, film and spoken-word audio. She studied at Bath College of Art and at Chelsea College of Art, London.
Audrey is currently exhibiting in a group exhibition entitled All Men By Nature Desire To Know, which is on at Bonington Gallery until Friday 17 February 2017.
Solo exhibitions include:
Group exhibitions include:
A collection of her writing will be published by AkermanDaly in Spring 2017.
The Fine Art Live Lecture Series is an initiative by Nottingham Trent University’s Fine Art course, whereby creative practitioners are invited to deliver a lecture to current students. The lectures are also open to staff, alumni and the general public.
The lectures take place during term-time only.
Join Something Human and Little Wolf Parade for the second round of CCLAP performances in Nottingham. A series of live art interventions by international and UK-based performers will take over Nottingham streets and public spaces addressing the notion of ‘crisis’ as part of the public programme of the Krísis exhibition on show at Bonington Gallery until 9 December.
CCLAP’s 2016 series of indoor and outdoor performances is part of the public programme in association with the exhibition Krísis, curated by Something Human in partnership with Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University and Little Wolf Parade.
CCLAP is a three year live art project curated by Something Human began in 2014 that instigates the sharing of the developments and critical reflections of significant and diverse live art practices in Southeast Asia and the UK, to bring the critical contexts for Southeast Asian live art practice in conversation with developments in the UK/European scenes. The project presents thought-provoking live art performances by Southeast Asian and international practitioners in London, bringing their work to both local and a wider international audience.
Rachel Parry ‘Transparent Freedoms’
Time: 12 pm – 4.45 pm
Location: Outdoor performance starting at noon at the Bonington Gallery, Dryden Street, NG1 4GG
(Finale at 4 pm at the Speakers’ Corner)
Boedi Widjaja ‘Imaginary Homeland: 谢谢你的爱’
Time: 5.30 pm – 6 pm
Location: Outdoor performance in front of Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, NG1 2GB (TBC)
Talk: Something Human in conversation with Rachel Parry and Boedi Widjaja
Time: 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Location: G.A.L., 25 Broad Street, Nottingham, NG1 3AP
Melissa Thomas ‘Collaboration with Children’
Time: 1 pm – 4 pm
Location: G.A.L., 25 Broad Street, Nottingham, NG1 3AP
Sarah Todino ‘The Coronation’
Time: 2 pm – 5 pm
Location: Secret garden / Edin’s garden (next to Jam Café, 12 Heathcote Street, Nottingham NG1 3AA)
Orinta Pranaityte ‘Finding Place Within Displacement’
Time: 2.30 pm – 5 pm
Location: Between Heathcote Street & Broad Street
whatsthebigmistry ‘BANG’
Time: 2.30 pm – 5.30 pm
Location: Broadway Cinema (Gallery), 15 Heathcote Street, Nottingham NG1 3AL
Rachael Young ‘A Natural’
Time: 3 pm – 5.30 pm
Location: Jam Café, 12 Heathcote Street, Nottingham NG1 3AA
VENUE: Nottingham Contemporary
Delivered by Collective Creativity, this workshop will look at race and racism, in art and art schools in the UK.
Collective Creativity are an artist group focused on Queer, Transgender and Intersex People of Colour (QTIPoC), within creative practice. They have recently launched a zine titled Serving Art School.
Open to the public and free to attend, this workshop will discuss many of the issues raised within the zine.
Suitable for people aged 16+
To book your place please email AlbaColomo@nottinghamcontemporary.org
This event is part of the public programme in association with the exhibition Krísis. Curated by Something Human and presented in partnership with Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham Contemporary.
In what seems like an intensifying atmosphere of global, media-driven expressions of shock, horror, fear and anxiety – how can we use states of crisis as a way to rethink the future? Can we harness these acutely painful conditions and represent them in a creative way?
Curated by Something Human and presented in partnership with Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham Contemporary, Krísis presented an exhibition and events programme of international visual and performance artists, to engage our audience with multifaceted perspectives on the meaning of ‘crisis’, and its understanding within the current socio-political climate.
Through multidisciplinary artworks, performances, and conversations, Krisis explored how these critical conditions can be reclaimed and reconfigured to drive change through artistic practice.
We’ve invited Something Human to write on our blog – read more about them.
Sama Alshaibi (Palestine-Iraq), Nicola Anthony (UK), John Clang (Singapore), Dictaphone Group (Lebanon) Collective Creativity (UK), Maryam Monalisa Gharavi (US-Iran), Núria Güell and Levi Orta (Spain-Lebanon), Lynn Lu (Singapore), Marija Milosevska (Macedonia), Rachel Parry (UK), Post-Museum (Singapore), Raju Rage (UK), Aida Silvestri (UK), Srey Bandaul (Cambodia), Tuan Mami (Vietnam), and Boedi Widjaja (Singapore)
When artists ‘perform’ states of crisis, do they also ‘perform’ states of regeneration? How can live art ignite new conversations and reflections on crisis?
CCLAP is a three year live art project that began in 2014. It aims to bring together the critical contexts of Southeast Asian live art practice, in conversation with developments within the UK and Europe.
On Thursday 27 October CCLAP presents thought-provoking live performances by Southeast Asian and other international practitioners to address the notion of crisis. The performances will take place as part of the Krísis exhibition preview from 5 pm – 8 pm, RSVP to confirm your attendance.
Lynn Lu (Singapore), Soni Kum (Japan – Korea), Marija Milosevska (Macedonia), Rachel Parry and Little Wolf Parade (UK), Raju Rage (UK), Tuan Mami (Vietnam) » Boedi Widjaja(Singapore)
CCLAP’s 2016 series of indoor and outdoor performances is part of the public programme in association with the exhibition Krísis, curated by Something Human in partnership with Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University and Little Wolf Parade.
CCLAP is kindly supported by Arts Council England, National Arts Council Singapore and City of Skopje.
Krísis: critical interventions is a one-day symposium that brings the international network of artistic practices and narratives from the Krísis exhibition and public programme into a day of talks, presentations and performative lectures.
It provides an opportunity for artists, curators, academics and the general public – both local and international – to engage in dialogue; reflecting on the complex topography of Nottingham and the UK, the relationship to the art world and how socio-political issues are addressed in both Nottingham and in international contexts.
Presenters include the international artists involved in Krísis, Nottingham-based activists on refugees and female genital mutilation issues, guest speakers, and Nottingham Trent University lecturers and researchers from the School of Art & Design and School of Arts and Humanities.
Participants will explore the exhibition themes and the artists’ responses and practices which encourage the debate on art as a transformational tool for research on contemporary societal matters.
Krísis: critical interventions is chaired by Professor Duncan Higgins, (NTU School of Art & Design), Dr Roy Smith (NTU School of Arts and Humanities) and Dr Anna Ball (NTU School of Arts and Humanities) in partnership with the curators from Something Human, and Nottingham Contemporary.
This event is part of the public programme in association with the exhibition Krísis. Curated by Something Human and presented in partnership with Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham Contemporary.
Download your copy of the programme (pdf)
Image credit: Sama Alshaibi, Al-Tariqah (The path), 2014 Courtesy of the artist and Ayyam Gallery