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
A special evening of screenings by artists featured in the Mould Map 6 — Terraformers exhibition and previous Mould Map editions.
Ophiux gives a glimpse into a near future that whilst fictional, is not far from reality and is founded on current scientific research. The work imagines a future in which synthetic biology has been fully realized and applied to both advance human evolution and increase life expectancy, and where human biology has been computer programmed. It not only simulates the collection of data from our own bodies but also the sampling of data from other organisms by a speculative pharmaceutical company: ‘Ophiux’.
To conceive the film, Holder has worked in close collaboration with scientists that she met during her residency at Wysing in 2015 – Dr Marco Galardini, a Computational Biologist at the European Bioinformatics Institute at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Cambridge, and Dr Katrin Linse, Senior Biodiversity Biologist at the British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge.
Ophiux has been co-commissioned by Deptford X where it is set to premiere at their festival in September 2016. It is also being shown as part of a larger project at Wysing Arts Centre from 24 September – 20 November 2016. A tour to other arts and science venues across the UK will be announced at a later date.
The exhibition and film has been made possible with a generous grant from the Arts Council England and in partnership with AND/OR Gallery.
Eschaton is the name of the spaceship that is taking human consciousness to the far reaches of a dying universe. Knowledge and memory are expressed as information from the future. The purpose of this voyage is to deconstruct the fear of infinity. Eschaton’s mission is to survive within death.
Eschaton is the latest film by Copenhagen-based Greek artist and publisher, Stathis Tsemberlidis of cult small press Decadence. Soundtracked by music composed for the film on a modular synth by Panos Alexiadis.
Commissioned by CCA Derry, Bridge Over Troubled Water includes new material filmed across Finland and Lapland that utilises the motif of folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel to explore queer time and climate change anxiety.
This Film Night is in association with the exhibition Mould Map 6 – Terraformers
Delivered by Jonathan Chandler and Joseph P Kelly
How do artists and writers create the worlds their characters and stories exist in?
This workshop will introduce you to the creative process behind creating stories and world building. Looking at the representation of ideas through symbols, signifiers and visual storytelling, this workshop will include idea generation, with a focus on using small ideas and starting points to build working, believable environments and situations with examples and reference from relevant comics, art & film. Through writing and drawing you will explore the representation of ideas through style, composition, visual clues and colour.
Participants will work with each other and as individuals to create or develop their ideas, incorporating the structure and clichés of traditional comics and story telling, before developing their own unique take on narrative illustration – perhaps an entire story in one illustration or a tale that unfolds over a twenty panel comic page.
Jonathan has been described by innovative micro-publishers Breakdown Press as the most isolated cartoonist working in the UK today. Catch this rare opportunity to work with the author of small-press gems ‘Johns Worth’ (Landfill Editions) and Another Blue World (Breakdown Press).
Joseph is a multi-talented graphic artist and educator currently working on PayWall – a full-length graphic story set in a detailed post-flood future, the first instalment of which will be published by Landfill Editions Autumn 2016.
Materials: please bring your preferred writing and drawing tools and materials.
Suitable for people aged 14+
Click here to see more from Joseph P Kelly
Click here to see more from Jonathan Chandler
This workshop is in association with the exhibition Mould Map 6 – Terraformers.
Delivered by James Langdon and Peter Nencini
This workshop will introduce you to the mysterious science of pataphysics, as a resource for designers.
Pataphysics is the invention of a nineteenth-century French author, Alfred Jarry, defined by him as the “science of imaginary solutions.”
Pataphysics continues today as an International College dedicated to Jarry’s idea that every event in the world is a unique happening, not subject to any general or repeatable laws.
Drawing on the College’s ideology and publications, this workshop will explore exceptions and discontinuities in simple design exercises.
Materials: please bring your preferred writing and drawing tools and materials.
Suitable for people aged 18+
Click here to see more from James Langdon
Click here to see more from Peter Nencini
This workshop is in association with the exhibition Mould Map 6 – Terraformers.
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.
Visit the Facebook event page.
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.