This exhibition brought together a unique group of artists and designers who are members of a research group based at Cardiff School of Art & Design.
Led by Robert Pepperell, the participants were each interested in the way art and design can contribute to questions about human nature and experience, of the kind often asked by scientists and philosophers. How, for example, are we able to have visual knowledge of the world, and what does it look like? What is a body, and how does having one change the way we make and experience art? Are aesthetics properties features of an object, a person, a brain, a mobile body, a social context – or some combination of these?
Professor Robert Pepperell, Alise Piebalga, Robin Hawes, James Green, Craig Thomas, Theo Humphries, Chris de Selincourt
An exhibition of over 100 selected works from Nottingham Trent University alumni, held across the University’s City site. The work detailed the impact that our alumni have had internationally on the visual arts and creative industries.
Just a few of the alumni who were involved with the exhibition:
Urban artist Jon Burgerman, Turner prize winner Simon Starling, Artist duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Photographer Andy Earl, Film director Jonathan Glazer, Knitwear designer Motohiro Tanji, Actor and comedian Paul Kaye, Sculptor Wolfgang Buttress, Landscape designer Sarah Price, Paper cut artist Rob Ryan, Visual artist Lucy Orta, Furniture designer Alexander Taylor
Plus many more; some of the exhibits on show were newly commissioned work special for the NTU Alumni Show.
For more details about In The Making and all events and activities surrounding Since 1843, please visit the Since 1843 webpage.
Click here to download the exhibition audio guide.
A catalogue featuring the profiles of all the exhibitors is available to buy online, or directly from the Bonington Art shop.
Drawing is said to have the ability to record both its own making and the movement of the thoughts and body of the drawer.
Bringing together the work of several artists with differing practices Drawology aimed to consider whether this premise is applicable to a specific process or genre of drawing or whether it is applicable to drawing generally.
The works in the exhibition represented an expanded field of contemporary drawing in a Fine Art context to include: works on paper, performance, moving image, installation, projections and three-dimensional drawings. The exhibition was part of a larger research project being undertaken by Deborah Harty entitled ‘Drawing is phenomenology’.
Shaun Belcher, Sian Bowen, Rachael Colley, David Connearn, Paul Fieldsend-Danks, Maryclare Foa, Paul Gough, Joe Graham, Deborah Harty, Claude Heath, humhyphenhum, Juliet MacDonald, Jordan McKenzie, Lucy O’Donnell, Bill Prosser, Karen Wallis, Martin Lewis, Patricia Cain, Simón Granell, humhyphenhumha, David Connearn, Andrew Pepper
During the exhibition, the gallery hosted several “in residence” sessions, based on Traci Kelly’s model for interactive research for From Where I Stand I Can See You.
Wednesday 27 November 10.30 am – 1.30 pm:
Professor Marsha Meskimmon, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History and Theory at Loughborough University
Wednesday 27 November 1 pm – 5 pm:
Danica Maier, Senior Lecturer Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University
Thursday 5 December 11 am – 2 pm & 3 pm – 5 pm:
Dr Kevin Love, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Social Theory at Nottingham Trent University
Alongside Drawology the Gallery also hosted a student-led exhibition challenging the notion of drawing in contemporary art.
In collaboration with artist Goran Ohldieck, M.K Ciurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas, Lithuania and Bonington Gallery presented the UK premier of Don’t Shoot the Waiter Before Lunch.
The early years of Dogu Bankov’s life are very hazy, in the few remaining manuscripts in existence that he submitted to the Bulgarian National Art Academy during his time there in the early 1900’s, Bankov provides two different years of birth 1884 and 1885. The disclosure of his country of birth is also a mystery it is said that he was born in Bulgaria, or possibly Macadonia, but his family connections with Bulgaria suggest that he is more likely to be of Bulgarian origin.
During the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a Communist government in Bulgaria during the War many intellectuals and cultural workers left the harsh conditions in Bulgaria mostly settling in Paris.
Later a decree was sanctioned by the Minister of Culture in Bulgaria ordering that those who left were to be regarded as traitors. Following this sanction in 1989 the Bulgarian State Art Institutions tried to buy works by these artists, including the work of Dogu Bankov, only to be told that they had been destroyed.
Norwegian artist Goran Ohldieck investigating the work of Bankov contacted the Bulgarian National Art Academy, only to be told that all records and documents had been destroyed.
Today Bankov’s art creates curiosity concerning concurrent events in greater Europe; questions of individual and national identity, artistic authorship and historical certainty seem to become somewhat creatively unstable in the face of Bankov’s work. Whether these are the ‘real ones’ remains unknown, nor does it really matter apart from the fact that Bankov seems to be becoming increasingly relevant.
The publication that accompanied the exhibition refers to a manuscript by Agnes Shaunegger, a one-time chef in the café L’Ane Rouge in Paris where the artists from Bulgaria used to meet. She was later asked by the art collector Amchiel Goldstein to write down her memories of that time.
This inaugural exhibition marked the launch of Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Architecture and Cultural Heritage of India, Arabia and the Maghreb.
ArCHIAM undertakes architectural, urban history and heritage related research and impact work for Architecture, Heritage and Global Difference, AHGD based at NTU – the umbrella centre for the humanities-based study of architecture, material culture and the built environment within a globalizing context.
ArCHIAM is an interdisciplinary forum which brings together a wide range of researchers interested in the study of the architecture of three interconnected global spheres. Cutting across traditional disciplinary boundaries, the Centre provides an exciting opportunity for the study of both historical and contemporary phenomena with an aim of developing theoretical positions but also though practice-based research.
The exhibition was designed and set up by the ArCHIAM Centre, and led by prof Bandyopadhyay.
This touring exhibition created by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in collaboration with the Society of British Theatre Designers celebrated the work of over 30 of the most pioneering British theatre designers, architects and artists.
Transformation & Revelation featured drawings, photographs, scale models and costumes, as well as sound, lighting and multi-media installations.
Highlights included Rae Smith’s digital projections in the National Theatre’s West End production of War Horse (2007); Antony Gormley’s creative process for the dance work Sutra produced by Sadler’s Wells (2008) and photographs and models of Es Devlin’s designs for Lady Gaga’s Monsterball tour (2009–2010).
For details of exhibitors please visit the Transformation & Revelation webpages.
Delivered by Dance4, Nottdance Festival returned once more with its internationally renowned innovative and entertaining perspective that continues to question ‘What can dance be?
Bonington Gallery was proud to host a number of performances in our Waverley theatre and a photography exhibition A Dance4 Story by David Severn.
This series of photographs were commissioned by Dance4 to take a look behind the scenes and create a visual narrative about the work the organisation does with artists, communities, young people and venues. The project also explored Dance4 in the context of Nottingham and demonstrates its dedication to the city and wider region.
A DANCE4 STORY by DAVID SEVERN (UK)
This series of photographs was commissioned by Dance4 to take a look behind the scenes and create a visual narrative about the work the organisation does with artists, communities, young people and venues. The project also explores Dance4 in the context of Nottingham and demonstrates its dedication to the city and the wider region.
David Severn is a social documentary and fine art photographer, based in Nottingham. His photographs have been exhibited at QUAD (Derby), Light House (Wolverhampton), Guernsey Photography Festival, London Film Museum and Nottingham Castle. Photographs from his project Thanks Maggie (2012) are currently on exhibition at the FORMAT International Photography Festival (Derby). He is a finalist in the Magnum Photos/Ideas Tap award and won Grand Prize at the Nottingham Castle Annual Open last year.
“I have a strong relationship with Dance4 and have been photographing performances for them as a commercial photographer for several years. After knowing the organisation for so long and feeling part of the team, I wanted to make a series of photographs that looked more contemplatively at the great work they do with international artists, young talented dancers and local community groups. My work is typically concerned with the connection between people land place. I’m particularly interested in photographing my home city of Nottingham and the surrounding county, so this project was a way of bringing my own curiosities as a photographer to a commission I could develop over a sustained period of time. It’s been a privilege to once again work closely with Dance4 to make this work and l’d like to extend a warm thanks to the whole team for allowing me such creative freedom.”
David Severn
Opening up a space for the ear and the voice, Ear to Ear offered an invitation to its audience to become immersed in sonic space. It challenged the dominance of the visual in both the world of contemporary art and the modern day art and design school.
This exhibition featured immersive sound works by Robert Squirrell and Thomas Hall as well as a collection of playbacks and screenings curated by Rob Flint, on behalf of the Listening Group*.
Hypnotic and enchanting Sirens is an immersive aural and visual experience, resonating the allure and seductiveness of the mythical sea deities. Enticed into the installation by an ever changing musical arrangement of voices the viewer is surrounded by imposing sculptural forms, evoking impressions of being trapped in the hull of a boat or caught in the clutches of a pair of hands. Each experience is unique to the individual viewer.
An interactive sound installation in the form of a spiral maze exploring ideas related to the Large Hadron Collider – CERN, particle physics, circularity and what it might sound like. Curious about our understanding of the universe, the work sonically explores a physical experience of play in an immersive surround sound environment.
Thomas Hall and Robert Squirrell are both members of Engagement Party, an artist led group working individually and collectively with notions of active engagement, interaction and play.
*Listening Group is an informal meeting of students and staff. It is intended to be a place for focusing attention to art-works that foreground sound and active listening.
This exhibition brought together two artists that investigate their own subjectivity in relation to socio-political economies and corporeal boundaries. Through differing approaches each artist created a shared language through mired and inky surfaces on skin and paper. By exhibiting solo works together Kelly and Marhaug grappled to hold each other in view and create the context to embark on a collaborative project, whilst Kelly was in residency at USF Verftet, Bergen (April-June 2013).
The Seers-in Residence was a programme which engaged four researchers from Nottingham Trent University, drawn from across various departments and schools. The researchers were invited to interact with Traci Kelly’s mono print installation Feeling It For You (Perspective) to evoke their own practice and research interests.
Emma Cocker, School of Art & Design
Thursday 10 January, 10 am – 1 pm
Emma Cocker’s practice interrogates the critical potential of failure, uncertainty, boredom, hesitation, immobility and inconsistency by exploring models of practice and subjectivity that remain wilfully open or unresolved.
Joanne Lee, School of Art & Design
Thursday 17 January, 10 am – 1 pm
Joanne Lee investigates the aesthetics of everyday urban life and explores the possibilities of the essay in textual and visual forms as a creative and critical entity.
Ben Judd, School of Art & Design
Wednesday 23 January, 2 pm – 5 pm
Ben Judd interacts with and creates alternative belief systems based on observations of social groups such as witches and Morris dancers, to which he remains paradoxically both close and distant, connected and disconnected.
Dr Simon Cross, School of Arts and Humanities
Thursday 31 January 10 am – 1 pm
Simon Cross’ research engages with the representation and attending imagery of madness in the social sphere through historical and contemporary trajectories.
On the occasion of our exhibition Waking the Witch: Old Ways, New Rites, please join us for an evening with poet Geraldine Monk. The evening will consist of a reading by Monk, followed by an in-conversation with NTU Research Fellow Linda Kemp and finish with a Q&A session.
First published in the 1970s, Geraldine Monk’s poetry has appeared extensively in the UK and the USA. Monk’s major collections of poetry include Interregnum (1994), Escafeld Hangings (2005), Ghost & Other Sonnets (2008), They Who Saw the Deep (2016), and numerous other books and collaborations. She is an affiliated poet at The Centre for Poetry and Poetics, University of Sheffield.
Geraldine Monk was born in Lancashire close to Pendle Hill, which achieved notoriety in 1612 as the epicentre of witchcraft and the subsequent Lancashire Witch Trials in Lancaster which resulted in 10 people being hanged. Growing up with the legend of the witches laid the foundations for her most celebrated collection of poetry Interregnum (1994) and a subsequent rearrangement of the monologues in Pendle Witch Words (2012). Exploring present-day and historical abuse and misuse of what Monk calls ‘language-magic’, she gifts the witches’ words they could never have owned or uttered in their lifetime.
Linda Kemp is a Research Fellow in the Social Work, Care and Community department at NTU. Their research is interdisciplinary, drawing on creative writing, sound performance and social research. Linda’s writing on Monk’s poetry can be found in On Repetition: Writing, Performance and Art (ed. Kartsaki, 2016). Linda also co-organises event programmes of poetry and sound performance.
The intention will be to make the evening as open as possible, and we will welcome contributions from the audience throughout the event. Light refreshments will be provided.
If you would like to attend this event please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
