Bonington Gallery was pleased to present the fifth in the series of Bonington Film Nights. This screening was the last in the season curated by Joshua Lockwood.
This film screening took place amidst the Publishing Rooms exhibition.
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Pool by Lorna Green was a gallery-filling installation accompanied by music composed by Mark Hewitt on display at the Bonington Gallery from 19 October – 11 November 1992. As each of Green’s sculptures are site-specific, her ideas and designs for the sculpture changed throughout the planning process, as demonstrated by the archival drawings, correspondence, and even a packet of sample materials. In the end, the over 4,500 whole and smashed bricks sprayed with the aquatic colours of blue, green and purple, created the gallery-wide impression of a draining pool. About the exhibit, Green wrote, “My first impression of the Bonington Gallery was that it was like a swimming pool. You enter by going down the steps, the echoes are reminiscent of a pool and the shape and scale of the gallery confirms that impression. I hope viewers will walk through and around the forms, absorb the sound and the colours and gradually let the installation work for them.” NTU students helped Green install the sculpture.
Curated by Brianna Frazier Selph
Curated by Joshua Lockwood
In association with LUX.
For the fourth screening of this season, Bonington Gallery is pleased to present four films by: Ursula Mayer, Laure Prouvost, Rachel Reupke, and Matthew Richardson.
The selected films explore formal exchange within relationships – whether these are between actors in the films – or directed at us, the viewer.
In Mayer’s film, the ambiguous melodrama continually addresses an ambivalent ‘you’. The indirect narrative adopted by Mayer leaves the viewer left unclear as to who is being addressed; are they referring to each other? Could they be addressing us as the viewer? Perhaps they are talking to themselves?
Comparatively, the ‘you’ in Prouvost’s film seduces the viewer. Offering inviting and pleasant images, which we are shown only briefly. The images are interspersed with a sharp intake of breath, contributing to the creation of a sensory and seductive viewing experience.
In Reupke’s film, a man and woman meet for a drink in several nondescript locations, the same actors playing differing characters. The scenes are drawn out, creating the illusion that we are looking at a 2D image. The lack of action and dialogue within the film is used by Reupke to create a void; into which other emotions can be projected.
Throughout Richardson’s High Definition video, a male protagonist is observed, followed and conversed with, across a variety of quotidian London locations. The video picks up and loses narrative threads amidst an accidental, junk-experience, this is made further ambiguous by the video’s lack of sound. The blurry, yet intimate portrait, begets social documentary or a make-believe fashion shoot, in an illusory location. It could be understood as as a product that unilaterally emerges from fictions of: a social subgroup, a highly self-aware friendship, or a city in its own right.
Image: MATTHEW RICHARDSON, Untitled, 2015, digital still, HD video. Courtesy of the artist.
Imprints of Culture explored the contemporary production and use of Indian block prints. Like few other objects, block prints embody richly diverse histories that have been shaped by trade, conquest and colonisation, technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
This exhibition showed how block printing, one of India’s foremost crafts, has not only played a role in the ritual life of the subcontinent but also in the creation of visual identity. Integral to caste dress and modern urban style, block prints have been a significant source of revenue through centuries of domestic and international trade.
This show included block prints from leading centres of the craft in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, including traditional designs as well as innovations. It has been developed in collaboration with block printers in these areas as well as fashion designer, Aneeth Arora.
This exhibition was supported by the British Academy (International Partnership and Mobility Scheme, 2014-17). The research underpinning it was funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2012-14).
Read a recent Q&A with the curator, Eiluned Edwards, as she talks to Aesthetica magazine about the exhibition.
Preview
Wednesday 24 February, 5 pm – 7.30 pm
Joining us for the special preview event will be Deirdre Figueiredo, MBE, who will deliver a welcome speech at 6 pm.
Deirdre is the Director of Craftspace in Birmingham. Aside from the Crafts Council, Craftspace is the only independent crafts promotion, development and touring agency in the country and as such occupies a unique position in the national infrastructure for the contemporary crafts. It supports the creative industries whilst also building social and human capital within communities.
Apart from her position at Craftspace, Deirdre has also played a wider voluntary role contributing to cultural policy and strategy through a range of advisory panels, boards and steering groups including the Museums Association Equal Opportunities panel, Regional Council Member of Arts Council West Midlands, member of Arts Council Capital Lottery panel, Creative and Cultural Skills Advisory Panel and Birmingham City Council cultural strategy working groups.
Block Printing Demonstration
To coincide with the exhibition, Bonington Gallery is delighted to host a public block printing demonstration with Abduljabbar M. Khatri, a renowned block printer from Kachchh district, Gujarat, India.
In January 2016 the Gallery was traced back to an open white space: a surface on which to draw and experience drawing.
Over the course of one month artists were invited to spend a period of time in the Gallery creating lines, marks and tones that explore and responding to the space through a variety of drawing processes. The exhibition celebrated the expanded field of contemporary drawing, including: paper, performance, moving image, installation, projections and three-dimensional drawing.
Artists included: humhyphenhum, Lorraine Young, Catherine Bertola, Joe Graham, Andrew Pepper, Martin Lewis, and John Court.
The month started with humhyphenhum (Deborah Harty & Phil Sawdon), who were the first to enter the white space; drawing with paper and moving image to create a three-dimensional drawing that traces in, on and through the surface of the empty white space.
Lorraine Young and Catherine Bertola followed, spending two days and three days respectively on the developing drawing. The third week saw contributions from Joe Graham, Andrew Pepper and Martin Lewis.
John Court was the final invited artist to enter the space, spending three days drawing in the Gallery.
Finally, humhyphenhum returned to the space to complete the drawing and prepare for a closing night celebration on Thursday 11 February, where visitors could view the final collaborative drawing.
Performing Drawology was curated by humhyphenhum and forms part of the ongoing research project by Deborah Harty entitled Drawing is Phenomenology.
In addition to the residency, informal discussions with the artists, student workshops and outreach events also took place.
Developments in the space were recorded throughout the process on our blog.
Vantage were made available in the Gallery throughout the exhibition to encourage visitors to witness and engage with the work as it continuously unfolded and took form.
The artists welcomed responses from the public and designated specific discussion events when visitors were invited to meet the artists and to pose any questions they had about the work taking place. Below is a record of when these sessions took place:
humhyphenhum, Friday 15 – Friday 22 January (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Wednesday 20 January, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Friday 22 January 3 pm – 4 pm
Lorraine Young, Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 January (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Tuesday 26 January, 3 pm – 4 pm
Joe Graham, Tuesday 2 – Wednesday 3 February (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Wednesday 3 February, 3 pm – 4 pm
Andrew Pepper, Thursday 4 February
Martin Lewis, Friday 5 February
John Court, Monday 8 – Wednesday 10 February (inclusive)
Progress discussion: Tuesday 9 February, 2 pm – 3 pm
Summary discussion: Wednesday 10 February, 4 pm – 5 pm
humhyphenhum, Thursday 11 February
Thursday 11th February, 5pm – 8 pm
The exhibition culminated in a closing event on Thursday 11 February from 5 pm – 8 pm, whereby the public were invited to come and see the outcomes of the show as a final staged exhibition.
Bonington Gallery Atrium
Alongside the closing event we also hosted an exhibition by 400 students from Architecture and Interior Architecture at Nottingham Trent University and West Bridgford Infant School, who participated in a series of collaborative drawing workshops during the course of Performing Drawology.
Curated by Joshua Lockwood
For the third in its series of popular screening events, Bonington Gallery is pleased to present four films by: Benedict Drew, Jacob Dwyer, Matthew Noel-Tod, and Heather Phillipson.
Each of the artists approach the process of filmmaking in differing ways but there are clear and common threads that run between each of the selected films. Each of the artists have used text to deliver and highlight the narrative within their film. Differing speeds of sequences in each film allows intonations of the text; or none in the case of Dwyer’s relentless text – using Spritz technology, which allows viewers to read up to 1,000 words per minute.
The works presented have real and constructed references, actual and virtual landscapes, the overlaying of manufactured imagery, and the production of digital realms – each has a relationship with the developments of technology.
Based in London, his recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition at Quad Derby (part of the Grand Tour) and at Matt’s Gallery, London. He has shown work in group exhibitions at Island Gallery, Brussels and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
Based in Amsterdam, he recently completed a residency at De Ateliers. He currently has an exhibition at C&H Art Space, Amsterdam and has completed a residency with Delta Works in New Orleans.
Based in London, Matthew is currently course leader of Moving Image at University of Brighton. From 2010 – 2015 he was a recipient of the ACME Studios Fire Station Work/Live Programme. He also took-up artist-in-residence in Victoria Park, London with Chisenhale Gallery in 2012.
Based in London, Heathers recent exhibitions include a solo installation at Performa, New York and at Istanbul Biennnial, Turkey. She also has an upcoming exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Curated by Joshua Lockwood
For the second in its series of screening events, Bonington Gallery is pleased to present Time Together by Mark Aerial Waller – a feature length artist film originally commissioned by the Baltic Triennial in 2012.
Time Together, a film in 14 episodes, is set against the luscious backdrop of summertime Lithuania, where a lost woman (Smiltė Bagdžiūnė) is befriended by a stranger (Monika Bičiunaitė) and led through a series of ritual exercises towards the formation of a cult or political cell. The story is deeply mysterious, yet the strangely compelling scenarios, each with a cliffhanger, leave the mind racing. What-if’s on a cosmological scale.
Mark Aerial Waller’s unique films almost come from another dimension, from a position shared with the science fiction and mystery writing of Adolfo Bioy Casares or Philip K Dick.
Time Together was commissioned by the Centre For Contemporary Art Vilnius as part of Midaugas Triennial, The 11th Baltic Triennial Of International Arts with additional funding from The Elephant Trust.
This event has been organised in association with LUX, London.
FILM LENGTH: 72 minutes.
IMAGE:
The original Time Together poster from 2013.
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.
Keynote speaker: Andrew Higgott, author and co editor of Camera Constructs.
Speakers will include:
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Click here to download the symposium handout
So much of our experience of architecture is not the result of a first-hand encounter, but is the consequence of a photographic image. Photography does not merely facilitate our experience of architecture, it arguably constructs that experience – much of what we see has been decided by the photographer.
In Place of Architecture brought together a group of contemporary artists to explore the role that photography and moving image play in our interpretation, perception and understanding of the architectural environment. Artists included:
Peter Ainsworth, Michele Allen, Emily Andersen, Peter Bobby, Tim Daly, Charlotte Fox, Fergus Heron, Esther Johnson, Andy Lock, Fiona Maclaren (view in IE), Guy Moreton, Martin Newth, Emily Richardson.
A programme of events and activities was also curated to compliment the themes highlighted by the exhibition.
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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.
Visit the website to view the student project.
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?
Responses are invited in any format – it’s up to you.
The project was led by Dr. Ana Souto, Senior Lecturer in Architecture and supported by Prof. Duncan Higgins, Professor of Visual Arts at NTU.
