This one-day symposium focuses on identity representation in the context of international, large-scale, survey exhibitions of contemporary art.
Identity Complex aims to provide new insights into the challenges involved in the staging of these exhibitions. The symposium seeks to bring together renowned artists, curators, academics, and researchers across the Midlands and beyond to contribute to a growing body of research and curatorial practice relating to the relationship between identity, contemporary art, and globalisation.
When it comes to the representation of nations and cultures beyond the Western canon, exhibitions have played a key role in the promotion of contemporary art in a global context. While mega-exhibitions such as biennials, triennials and the quinquennial documenta are rooted in the celebration of ethno-geographic diversity, many exhibitions, museums, and collections have also attempted to capture the essence of national identity, addressing the complexities behind the definition and reaffirmation of identity, as well as advocating for singular, nationalist conceptions of contemporary art.
Influenced by postcolonial theory and decolonisation processes, exhibitions have sought to reverse Western hierarchies of visual qualities and categories, shifting the attention to contemporary art practices of previously colonised and marginalised nations.
However, as argued by art historian David Joselit, ‘despite their undoubtedly good intentions, such exhibitions sever artists from their heritage in a superficial form of multicultural representation – or tokenism – that fails to do justice to their art’s histories’ (Joselit, 2020). Nevertheless, the question of identity remains relevant within global curatorial narratives, so much so that the title of the 2024 Venice Biennale is ‘Foreigners Everywhere’, alluding to the multiple ways artists can be considered foreigners.
How can we understand identity representation in a globalised world? Is it still sustainable to think about exhibitions grounded on a nation-based framework? How do we approach different epistemologies within global exhibition-making?
Drawing on these enquiries, the symposium aims to explore various perspectives on the subject while fostering debate among artists, curators, academics, and researchers.
Dr Shwetal A. Patel is a writer and researcher working at the intersection of contemporary art and its production, research practice, and development theory, and founding member of India’s first biennial, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.
Sunil Shah is an artist, writer, and PhD candidate at Central St. Martins, University of the Arts London (UAL) researching art and exhibition histories with a particular focus on Okwui Enwezor’s Documenta11 (2002).
Dr Yaiza Hernández Velázquez is a transdisciplinary researcher and lecturer in visual cultures at Goldsmiths, with a particular interest in the histories and theories of curating, archiving and museum-making and in the visual cultures of tourism.
Jessica Taylor is a curator and deputy artistic director at International Curators Forum and curator of the Diaspora Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
Abdulrazaq Awofeso is a UK-based Nigerian artist and sculptor working on the topics of migration and identity.
Ibiye Camp is an artist, architect, and fashion designer living between London and Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Co-convenors: Caroline Fucci (University of Leicester) & Claudia Di Tosto (University of Warwick)
This event is supported by AHRC Midlands4Cities and hosted by Bonington Gallery.
Alongside our current exhibition, Karuppu, join artist Osheen Siva for this free, in-person workshop rooted in Dalit history, focusing on the legacy of the Dalit Panthers.
This event utilises speculative fiction as a tool to explore a future in which multi-dimensional narratives are built, while being anchored through an anti-caste, anti-racist and intersectional feminist lens.
Things to note:
About the workshop:
During the workshop, we’ll look into the origins, history, legacy of the Dalit Panthers movement. Exploring how the call for action was manifested physically through art and design, through the means of newsletters, posters, typography, colours, and so on. In parallel, we also focus on the history of protest artworks throughout history such as the poster designs from the 70s punk movement, art practices of creatives like Keith Haring, Shiva Nallaperumal, Rajni Perera, Panther’s Paw Publications, and Octavia Butler amongst others.
With the knowledge of Dalit history and the universe of futurisms we’ll combine the two using speculative fiction to create our own empowering narratives. Using the Dalit Panther newsletter as the template, we speculate what the year 3000 would look like for the Dalit community.
This will be envisioned through:
Osheen Siva is a multidisciplinary artist from Thiruvannamalai, currently based in Goa. Through the lens of surrealism, speculative fiction and science fiction and rooted in their Dalit and Tamil heritage, Osheen imagines new worlds of decolonised dreamscapes, futuristic oases with mutants and monsters and narratives of queer and feminine power.
Alongside our current exhibition, Karuppu, join us for a free online in-conversation event between our exhibiting artist Osheen Siva with Jelena Sofronijevic, producer of EMPIRE LINES podcast and Nicole Thiara, researcher of Dalit and Adivasi literature.
Together, they will explore topics related to Osheen’s practice; their inspiration from cultural aesthetics that explore speculative futures and racial identity, including Afrofuturism. Osheen’s work uses science fiction, mythology, and religious heritage amidst their love of comic books and the vibrant soul of South India. Their artworks imagine fantastical dreamscapes, whilst reclaiming and reinventing Indian folktales and myths to imagine a decolonised future.
This event will be live streamed on YouTube, with auto generated closed captions. During the live event there will be the opportunity to ask questions.
Osheen Siva is a multidisciplinary artist from Thiruvannamalai, currently based in Goa. Through the lens of surrealism, speculative fiction and science fiction and rooted in their Dalit and Tamil heritage, Osheen imagines new worlds of decolonised dreamscapes, futuristic oases with mutants and monsters and narratives of queer and feminine power.
Jelena Sofronijevic is a producer, curator, writer, and researcher, who makes content at the intersections of cultural history, politics, and the arts. Beyond their works in print they are the producer of EMPIRE LINES, a podcast which uncovers the unexpected flows of empires through art, and historicity, a new series of audio walking tours, exploring how cities got to be the way they are, recorded on location in London (2022) and Tokyo (2023). Their full portfolio of work is available on their website, and social media.
Follow Jelena on Instagram – @empirelinespodcast, and on Twitter @jelsofron
Nicole Thiara is Co-Lead of Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial and Global Studies Research Group and Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded Research Network ‘Writing, Analysing, Translating Dalit Literature’ and its Follow-on Grant ‘On Page and on Stage: Celebrating Dalit and Adivasi Literatures and Performing Arts’. She teaches postcolonial and contemporary literature at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Her area of research is Dalit, Adivasi and diasporic South Asian literature and her current research project focuses on the representation of modernity in Dalit literature.
Join us for a free tour of current exhibition, Karuppu by Osheen Siva, with BSL interpretation.
Alongside, discover more about Shahnawaz Hussain: My Nottinghamshire Perspectives in Watercolour and Peepshow: An Illusion Cut to the Measure of Desire in our extra gallery spaces.
Free, open to all
Join us for a free tour of current exhibition, Karuppu by Osheen Siva, led by Deputy Curator Joshua Lockwood-Moran.
Alongside, discover more about Shahnawaz Hussain: My Nottinghamshire Perspectives in Watercolour and Peepshow: An Illusion Cut to the Measure of Desire in our extra gallery spaces.
Free, open to all
Presenting over 120 works across a 35-year period, After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024 brings together contemporary working class artists who use photography to explore the nuances of working class life in all its diversity.
The exhibition, curated by Johny Pitts, emphasises the perspectives of practitioners who turn their gaze towards both their communities and outwards to the wider world.
Instead of looking at working-class people, the exhibition will explore life through the lenses of working-class practitioners, who have not only turned their gaze towards their own communities but also out towards the world.
The year 2024 will mark 35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the symbolic end of Communism. The weakening of the Soviet Union in the 1980s prompted economist Francis Fukuyama to announce the triumph of Western Liberal Democracy as the only viable future for global politics.
The counter-cultural energies of the 1980s, very often powered up by the alternative ideologies embodied by Communism, produced a collective, coherent, politically engaged generation of working-class artists. But after the so-called ‘End of History’, what became of working-class culture? Who identifies as such, and why? What of the working class creative? What kind of images has working-class life produced in the last 35 years?
After the End of History will offer a counterintuitive picture of working-class life today, from Rene Matić’s portrait of growing up mixed race in a white working-class community in Peterborough, to Elaine Constaintine’s documentation of the Northern Soul scene, to Kavi Pujara’s ode to Leicester’s Hindu community, and JA Mortram’s documentation throughout his life as a caregiver. After the End of History will explore the challenges and beauty of contemporary working-class life, in all its diversity today.
Artists in the exhibition include Richard Billingham, Sam Blackwood, Serena Brown, Antony Cairns, Rob Clayton, Joanne Coates, Josh Cole, Artúr Čonka, Elaine Constantine, Natasha Edgington, Richard Grassick, Anna Magnowska, Rene Matić, J A Mortram, Kelly O’Brien, Eddie Otchere, Kavi Pujara, Khadija Saye, Chris Shaw, Trevor Smith, Ewen Spencer, Hannah Starkey, Igoris Taran, Nathaniel Télémaque, Barbara Wasiak, Tom Wood.
‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition curated by Johny Pitts with Hayward Gallery Touring.
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry: 29 March – 16 June 2024
Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea: 3 July – 14 September 2024
Bonington Gallery, Nottingham: 26 September – 14 December 2024
Press
Art Review
Studio International
Aperture
Creative Review
Tribune
Dazed
Aesthetica
Huck
Fad
British Journal of Photography
BBC
There is an audio described introduction to the gallery space and exhibition which can be accessed here
In this exhibition, the works by Kelly O’Brien have been audio described which can be listened to here
In the gallery space, you can listen to these audio descriptions using an iPod and pair of headphones available from the gallery invigilator. The row of photographs being audio described are indicated by textured floor markings, situated just to the right of the accessible entrance. Our invigilators are on hand and happy to assist you with this.
Textured floor tape indicates where to stand when listening to the audio description.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible. General access information is available here
You can watch a visual journey into the gallery space from the main entrance here
For any additional questions or access needs contact Tom Godfrey: tom.godfrey@ntu.ac.uk
Header image: Eddie Otchere, Goldie, Metalheadz (Blue Note Sessions) Blue Note, Hoxton Square, 1996 © Eddie Otchere
As part of this year’s city-wide Transform festival, Talking Back is an interdisciplinary conference uncovering the power of shared testimony as an act of political resistance.
Inspired by bell hooks’ (1989) discussion of ‘talking back’ and speech as a radical force against the systemic silencing of marginalised voices, this one-day conference will present critical and creative work by creatives, writers, researchers, poets, and activists who challenge disciplinary and cultural barriers.
“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.
hooks’ ideas have inspired many movements towards the liberation of oppressed voices and groups, as well encouraging cross-cultural dialogue between voices from marginalised backgrounds and perspectives. Reflecting on hooks, we suggest that the action and impact of speaking out is achieved only when we are willing to hear the narratives of others. This one-day conference aims to contribute to the formation of collaborative networks of resistance with the potential for profound societal change.
This conference aims to bring together and amplify voices of marginalised individuals. It also aims to create a safe space that fosters collaborative thinking and discussions on representation and resistance.
Consisting of critical and creative approaches to decolonial activism, reclamations of culture and identity, and the transformative power of voice, this will include academic papers, creative workshops, and poetry readings.
We want to encourage cooperative discourse, centred narratives of representation and resistance. Speaking out together against their hegemonic constraints, scholars and artists alike will transcend both disciplinary and identity barriers to take part in an open and inclusive dialogue.
For further information please visit the dedicated Talking Back conference website.
Co-organisers
Rahiela Seef (she/her) is an M4C funded PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University. Her doctoral thesis, entitled “‘Like Surah, Like Song’: The Poetics of Faith, Femininity and Orality across the East African Diaspora,” analyses representations of faith, Black womanhood and female defiance in diaspora Sudanese and Somali poetry.
Drawing connections between the collections in theme, rhythm and form, Rahiela will explore the blend of African, Islamic and contemporary Black oral traditions expressed within the poems, making a case for a shared literary canon in which diasporic East African women’s writing resides. Her research interests include Black feminist literature, intersectional theory, and contemporary spoken word poetry.
Ramisha Rafique (she/her) is a Vice Chancellor Bursary funded PhD researcher at Nottingham Trent University. Her creative-critical doctoral thesis explores the ontology of the postcolonial flâneuse and decolonisation in British Muslim women’s writing. For the creative component of her doctoral thesis, Ramisha will produce a pamphlet length collection of poetry.
Her research interests include Flânerie, British Muslim women’s writing, and Islamophobia. Ramisha has been published by The Journal of Postcolonial Writing (2023), Literary Encyclopaedia (2023), and NTU Research Blog (2023). Her poetry has featured in Bystander (Laundrette Books, 2017), the NTU Postcolonial Studied Centre website (2021), and The Journal of Postcolonial Writing (2023). Ramisha’s forthcoming publications include: ‘#HandsOffMyHijab: Muslim women writers challenge contemporary Islamophobia’. Rafique, R. and Ramone, J. In: Irene Zempi and Amina Easat-Daas, The Handbook of Gendered Islamophobia. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Keynote speakers
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is an critically acclaimed poet, writer and public educator focused on disrupting narratives about history, race and violence. She speaks and performs her work nationally and internationally and is the author of Seeing for Ourselves; and even stranger possibilities (2023); Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia (2022) and the poetry collection Postcolonial Banter. Suhaiymah is also a co-author of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University; and a contributor to the anthologies Cut from the Same Cloth? and I Refuse to Condemn. Her writing has featured on BBC Radio 4, in The Guardian and Al Jazeera, and her poetry has been viewed millions of times online. She is a co-founder of the Nejma Collective, a group of Muslims working in solidarity with people in prison. She is based in Leeds and is currently writing for theatre.
Muneera Pilgrim is a Poet, Cultural Producer, Writer, Broadcaster on BBC and Ujima, TEDx Speaker, and WOW Festival Speaker with international acclaim. She conducts workshops, shares art, guest lectures, hosts, and finds alternative ways to educate and exchange ideas while focusing on methodologies of empowerment for non-centered people. At heart, Muneera is a storyteller, concerned with telling stories to disrupt mainstream narratives of non-centered people globally and to beautify truths that are rarely told.
Muneera regularly contributes to Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2, she is an Alumni Associate Artist with The English Touring Theatre, and she is an in-house poet and thinker, with In Between Time where she developed The Joy Project.
Muneera has written for The Guardian, Amaliah, Huffington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera, Black Ballard and various other digital and print platforms. She has been featured across the BBC network including BBC News, as well as Sky News, Sky Arts, Al Jazeera, and various other television channels. In 2015 a documentary was commissioned and screened about her former group Poetic Pilgrimage called Hip Hop Hijabis.
Muneera holds an MA in Islamic studies where she focused on Black British pathways to spirituality, migration, gender, and race. She holds a second MA in Women’s Studies, where she focused on the intersection of faith and spirituality, race, gender, autoethnography and methodologies of empowerment for non-centered people. Her innovation in her work and the use of poetry won her The Ann Kaloski-Naylor Award for Adventurous Academic Writing.
She etches a poetic space of dialogue which is accessible to all regardless of religious and cultural boundaries. Rooted in spirituality she uses communication and art for edification, enrichment and change.
Her debut poetry collection ‘That Day She’ll Proclaim Her Chronicles’ was released in November 2021 through Burning Eye Books.
About Transform
Transform, a City Takeover – a ground breaking festival co-curated by 14 major cultural organisations across Nottingham in Spring/Summer 2024. Together, we’re celebrating the leadership, creativity, and stewardship of the Global Ethnic Majority in Nottingham.
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. Reddleman and Fuggle will begin by taking up the case of the Ginkgo Biloba – often described as a ‘living fossil’ due to the fact it has remained unchanged for over 80 million years.
Drawing on Claire Reddleman’s research, and its arrival in Britain in the 18th Century, they will consider the ways in which the ginkgo has become an important presence in the British landscape. The speakers will then look at the castor bean, a very different plant, which has been used by humans for at least 24,000 years. In the late 19th century, the castor bean’s best-known product, castor oil, started to be used as a lubricant for car and aircraft engines. It enabled greater speed and fluidity, and joined fossil fuels in the service of capitalism’s quest for ever faster, ever more efficient movement. Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing and others call this era the ‘plantationocene‘, to identify how capitalism, colonialism and labour have, often destructively, shaped the natural world.
Plants Beyond Empire is 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. The events will explore a range of creative and community interventions aimed at understanding complex human-plant entanglements within postcolonial Britain and beyond.
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.
Claire Reddleman is Lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Manchester and works on digital cultural heritage, visual methods, mapping and contemporary art including her recent project ‘Ginkgos of the British Isles‘. She is a photographic artist and can be found online at www.clairereddleman.com / @reddlemap
Photo credit – dendrologista by Claire Reddleman. Map credit – 1725 Kaart van de provincie Utrecht, François Halma, collection of Universiteitsbibliotheek, Utrecht
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.
Birmingham Botanical Gardens was founded in 1832, originally as a site of botanical and horticultural research and later with a greater emphasis on leisure and wellbeing.
Similar to many Botanic Gardens, its collection is linked to colonial expansion and trade. These links can be observed throughout the site, for example through the economic plants in the glass houses or the ornamental plants from China at the Wilson border, named after the ‘plant hunter’ Ernest Henry Wilson who brought plants over to the UK.
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.
Taking place online via YouTube.
Plants Beyond Empire is 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. The events will explore a range of creative and community interventions aimed at understanding complex human-plant entanglements within postcolonial Britain and beyond.
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.
Jen Ridding is currently the Head of Engagement & Learning at Birmingham Botanical Gardens. A dynamic cultural leader, Jen is experienced in strategic development of Learning, Audience Development, Engagement and Visitor Services. Skilled in bringing people, stories and ideas together, Jen has a successful track record in designing innovative engagement strategies across a range of arts, heritage and culture settings.
Photo credit: Birmingham Botanical Garden (2024). Photo courtesy of Katharina Massing
Join us for the launch of three new exhibitions:
Osheen Siva: Karuppu
The first UK exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Osheen Siva is entitled ‘Karuppu’ (கருப்பு – meaning darkness/black in Tamil). Taking a cue from Afrofuturism, Siva’s work brings together science fiction, mythology, heritage, their love of comic books, and the vibrant, joyful colours of South India.
Bonington Vitrines #24: Shahnawaz Hussain: My Nottinghamshire Perspectives in Watercolour
An exhibition of paintings by self-taught Nottingham-based artist Shahnawaz Hussain, which capture key buildings and landmarks across Nottingham and the wider county.
Peepshow: An Illusion Cut to the Measure of Desire
As part of this year’s Light After Dark Film Festival, we are pleased to present Peep Show, an innovatively staged exhibition of archival film curated by feminist collective Invisible Women.
Enjoy music in our Atrium from electronic DJs MOAN and AJA.
MOAN explores self-liberation, sexual pleasures and unique narratives from all over the world through a variety of creative outputs.
An erotic platform that acts as a diary for as many people as possible – with a primary focus on women and non-binary. A safe space and a judgement free zone for experiences, fantasies, fetishes and issues to be discussed through a women and non-binary perspective openly. A narrative not often explored in mainstream media.
Using the power of electronic music & events to connect with the community on a deeper level, to rebel and to create multisensory narratives, which make our activism harder to silence. MOAN events bring people together and are a catalyst for liberation and exploration. If you are interested by this, online mixes are uploaded on SoundCloud for you to listen and all event details are updated through the Instagram.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moan_zine/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/moan-zine
Aja Ireland is an award-winning sound and performance artist making deconstructed club and industrial techno whose live shows are described in The WIRE Magazine as “Shifting from ethereal diffusions to potent explosions.”
The album SLUG was released on Opal Tapes in October 2021. The video GRIME created by IMPATV and AJA, featured on Creative Review’s ‘Best Music Videos of 2021’ who described the track as: “brutal, visceral and unrelentingly noisy”.
Aja’s debut album released in 2018 on Opal Tapes was greeted with critical acclaim and
the artist was featured in VICE, The Quietus, Elephant Magazine, Red Bull Music and The Dazed Magazine. IN 2018, Aja won the PRS Oram Award for innovative music production.
Aja scored the spatial sound design for Joey Holder’s art installations Ophiux, Adcredo The Deep Belief Network (toured at Matt’s Gallery and 6th Athens Bienalle), Semelparous which was shown in The British Art Show and and Cryptic at Two Queens Gallery.
In AJA’s latest project, CRYPTID, an EP, music video, and full audio visual live set will be released later this year for the upcoming 2024 AV performance tour. The visuals project a realm where volcanic, ritualistic circles of standing stones merge seamlessly with projections of microscopic creatures. AJA takes on the persona of a cryptid hybrid, adorned in sculptural fashion nightmares, eating green lasers and morphing into underwater creatures.
Instagram: instagram.com/ajaireland
Facebook: www.facebook.com/musicwithaja
Website: www.ajaireland.co.uk