Atrium Archives - Bonington Gallery

We’re delighted to welcome Arianna, who is currently in residence at NTU on the AA2A programme, to run this public workshop. Through her ongoing project This room has no walls anymore, just endless trees Arianna creates shared spaces through the act of drawing – making opportunity for discussion and the sharing of knowledge, storytelling, materials and skills.

Responding to themes in our Vitrines exhibition, Arianna will explore relationships between fashion, devotional and ritual orientated contexts. You don’t need to have skills in sewing or making and we’ll provide all the materials – though you are invited to bring along an item of clothing to work with on day two if you’d like to.

Arianna Tinulla Milesi is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator based in the UK. Drawing is the core of her work, not only as a practice but also as a cognitive tool to understand reality and create. Coping mechanisms, devotional art, seaweeds, the formation of memories and syncretism are pivotal points in her research, which is open and interactive.

Arianna is a member of the Council of the Society of Graphic Fine Art (SGFA). She collaborates with art institutions all over the world and is devoting an increasing amount of time to the organisation of workshops oriented to nature, to make wearable art, to convey human connections and mental health.

Bonington Connects is a series of talks, discussions and workshops planned by Nottingham Trent University students, inviting people to engage in thought-provoking conversations in response to the Gallery’s exhibition programme. It aims to create an accessible atmosphere, encouraging exploration of the exhibitions in an informal, open and engaging setting. This workshop has been planned and organised by final-year MFA Fine Art student, Vidhi Jangra.

Book your free ticket and join us at Bonington Gallery for the Critical Hits Zine Fair.

Marking the launch of our next exhibition Weird Hope Engines (22 March – 10 May) this event celebrates DIY publishing and tabletop gaming with vendors from Nottingham and around the UK including Melsonian Arts Council, Copy/Paste Co-op, Warp Miniatures, Ramshackle Games and others. Critical Hits Zine Fair brings together independent publishers, artists, and writers exploring themes of critical worlding, resistance, and alternative futures.

Alongside a diverse range of zines and collectables to purchase, the Fair also features a programme of talks and conversations with artists from the exhibition including Zedeck Siew and Angela Washko, and panel discussions on fantasy illustration, game design and miniature fabrication with Andrew Walter, Amanda Lee Franck, Scrap World, and Alex Huntley.

Critical Hits Zine Fair also features gaming sessions with David Blandy, Angela Washko and Andrew Walter, as well as a film screening programme delving further into the narratives, aesthetics, and communities that shape these immersive worlds, including the documentaries World of Darkness (2017) and Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons (2019).

Event programme:

Talks:

12:00 – 12:45
Drawing Down The Moon: The Art of TTRPG Illustration
Amanda Lee Franck and Scrap Princess
Chaired by Andrew Walter

13:00 – 13:45
Warped Worlds and Ramshackle Realms: Worlds In Miniature
Curtis Fell (Ramshackle Games) and Alex Huntley (Warp Miniatures)
Chaired by Chris MacDowell

14:00 – 14:45
Art Can Never Be Games!: What Is An Art Game?
Tom Kemp and Angela Washko
Chaired by Jamie Sutcliffe and Rebecca Edwards

15:00 – 15:45
Games Design For Planetary Survival
Chris Bissette, Laurie O’Connell and Zedeck Siew
Chaired by David Blandy

11.30am: David Blandy, Eco Mofos
2pm: Andrew Walter, Swyvers
3.30pm: Angela Washko, The Council is in Session

Future Factory, based within Nottingham Trent University, is delighted to preset A + B =CC(an) by Paul Matosic. The exhibition which takes place in Bonington Atrium, runs from 16 – 28 April.

The exhibition had been commissioned by Future Factory ad produced in response to the building of a new arts venue: Centre for Contemporary Art, Nottingham (CCAN)

Matosic’s exhibition incorporates a collection of discarded and mislaid objects that are assembled into a sculptural piece that could resemble a cityscape, and which is literally a snapshot of the waste produces by a consumerist society obsessed by the new. Taking the cultural residue of consumer society and re-presenting this is the gallery makes the comment on the process of regeneration.

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The leading speciality paper merchant GFSmith celebrates 111 years of redefining how we view paper promotion with this fantastic heritage exhibition.

Having grown from a small family business in the late 1890’s, to a thriving company with over 150 members of staff and a global sales network, the business has adequate reason to celebrate the impact design has played on its success.

This exhibition will showcase material which encompasses both European and American promotions, featuring work from contributors such as Saul Bass, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, Bill McKay and SEA Design.

Vitrines in rows in the Bonington atrium. — GF Smith exhibition Atrium Bonington

11 vitrines in rows in the Bonington atrium. — GF Smith exhibition Atrium Bonington

‘Perception’ is intricate. The removal of accumulated layers of meaning attached to material culture challenges frequently held perceptions. This exhibition confronts commonly held notions relating to the built environment in the Ajegunle community in Lagos, Nigeria and national identity in the Republic of Ireland. Both of these areas of research relate to physical architecture. However, they move beyond the tangible to explore ‘human’ architecture and identity.

Image of a slum in Lagos, there are figures walking along a path which is lined with rubbish. To the left there is a built up section of makeshift tents, to the right there are prefabricated huts. — A slum in Lagos

A house which is made out of different lengths of wood. There is a front deck, and railing which has multicoloured textiles hanging from it. There is a sign by the entrance which has written in white spray paint, "room to let" — Image of a house in a slum in Lagos

A child balances a large whicker basket on their head. The basket has a variety of different tomatoes one it. The child has a stick in their mouth, and is wearing a lime green dress. Behind them is a wall of a wooden shack which has blue plastic attached to the side — Image of a slum in Lagos

A single Story House with a tin roof. There are three columns which join archways, in the central one is a red iron gate with two figures standing behind it. — Image of a house in a slum in Lagos

A run down stone house in Ireland. The roof is missing many tiles, so much so you can see through to the sky on the other side. One of the windows is boarded up with corrugated metal, and the door is missing. — Image of a house in rural Ireland

A heavily rusted TV antenna on the side of a building. — Detail of an antenna in Ireland

A detail of stone work at the bottom of an arch. This is a ball with a scroll relief — Detail of stonework in Ireland

A green pillar box stands centrally, on the backdrop of a grey lard stone building. — Close up of a post box outside a museum.

Uniting 250 artists from 25 countries over 7 days, UK Young Artist (UKYA) City Takeover (Now UK New Artists) will span multiple venues across Nottingham, immersing visitors in an array of extraordinary, innovative and contemporary work, from visual arts to performance; music; applied arts; literature; digital arts and moving image.

One of the largest biennials of national and international artists in the world, UKYA City Takeover will be discerning and cutting-edge. Presenting an exemplar survey show of contemporary art, performance and music being made today. Expect to encounter art and performance in cultural spaces as well as unusual places. From caves to cafes; markets to museums; studios to the streets – the City Takeover weaves a rich tapestry of venues across Nottingham.

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.

Artists Include:

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)

Installation view. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Julian Lister.

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To coincide with the In Place of Architecture exhibition in the Gallery from 6 November – 11 December, this symposium brings together photographers, filmmakers, and writers on photography and architecture to examine the role that photography and moving image play in our contemporary interpretation, perception and understanding of the architectural environment.

Symposium Handout

In July 2015 a group of BArch (Hons) Architecture students from Nottingham Trent University (NTU) participated in a research project, which involved the documentation of invisible memory points in Nottingham.

As part of their research the students visited the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA), a key location for national remembrance in the UK. Most of the images included in this show are a direct response to the commemorative architecture: a visual and textual reaction to the experience of visiting the NMA and other memory points in the UK.

NTU students, David Symons, Emma Hewitt and Rumbi Mukundi worked with three students from Brazil – Marina Martinelli, Felipe Bomfim and Alina Peres – to create a website with an interactive map and blog, as well as a printed tourist map. The idea of the site was to increase awareness of the architecture of memory in Nottingham and beyond.

Public Engagement

The group have also printed out a selection of quotes which refer to photography and the visual representation of memory, as well as the experience of architecture.

When visiting the exhibition we invite you to respond to these images and quotes by writing directly onto the wall in order to contribute to the work in progress. Tell us how the image or text makes you feel – do you agree with what they represent?

The project was led by Dr. Ana Souto, Senior Lecturer in Architecture and supported by Prof. Duncan Higgins, Professor of Visual Arts at NTU.

Inscription: The Almshouse Tempera Project presented the work of four contemporary artists who have investigated the historical but still very active form of social housing known as the almshouse, through the early painting medium of egg tempera.

The artists Derek Hampson, Deborah Harty, Atsuhide Ito, and Peter Suchin also included actual material fragments from almshouses within the exhibition, inscribing both the image and the physical presence of the almshouse into the gallery.