Svg patterns

Following an online screening and Q&A with artist Subash Thebe Limbu in 2022, we are delighted to present an in-person screening of Ningwasum (2021) and Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous (2023), followed by a live Q&A. Book your free place.

The screening (55 mins) will be followed by a discussion and Q&A led by Nicole Thiara where Subash will discuss how his work draws on and develops Indigenous Futurism as well as Adivasi Futurism.

Ningwasum (2021) is a Yakthung science fiction documentary film/video-work narrated by Miksam, a time traveller from a future Indigenous Nation. The film follows two time travellers, Miksam and Mingsoma, played by Subin Limbu and Shanta Nepali respectively, in the Himalayas weaving indigenous folk stories, culture, climate change and science fiction. The film explores notions of time, space and memory, and how realities and the sense of now could be different for different communities. Drawing from Adivasi Futurism and inspired by Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism, Ningwasum imagines a future from an Indigenous perspective where they have agency, technology, sovereignty and also their indigenous knowledge, culture, ethics and storytelling still intact.

The plot of Ladhamba Tayem; Future Continuous (2023) depicts a conversation between two indigenous figures from different historical timelines, the first a real 18th century Yakthung warrior called Kangsore fighting the colonial army, and the other an astronaut and time traveler from the distant future. They discuss the space-time continuum from their perspectives, and in doing so, ask the viewers — who exist between the past and future — to investigate their own relationship to the passage of time. The time traveller indicates what the future might look like for us or possibilities we want to strive for, while the warrior reminds us of the fight against colonialism and struggles we shall overcome.

In the future, the Indigenous nationalities will have created a technique called thakthakma – which literally means to ‘weave handloom’, a term inspired by our ancestors’ weaving practice – a technique of entering different timelines or in other words weaving time. So, Subash thinks of his works as weaving stories that are not linear but intricately interwoven. And along the same vein, this work plays with the idea of time as not something rigid but ductile or weavable, which in turn paves the way for questions like how we might want to weave the future.

This event is part of the third series of CADALFEST and organised in collaboration with Formations and the Bonington Gallery. CADALFEST (Celebrating Adivasi and Dalit Arts and Literature Festival) is an international festival series dedicated to the writing and performance arts by writers whose work creatively resists caste discrimination and social exclusion in India: Dalit Adivasi Text.

Happening in Nottingham during the time of this event, we recommend visiting the exhibition Kolam (கோலம்) that has been curated by Raghavi Chinnadurai at Primary, Nottingham. This exhibition explores themes connected to our event, and also features Osheen Siva who exhibited at Bonington Gallery in Spring 2024.

Image: Subash Thebe Limbu, NINGWASUM 2021, video still. Courtesy of the artist.



Join us on the penultimate day of Jason Evans’ curated exhibition You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat for an informal and open discussion between Evans and Bonington Gallery curator, Tom Godfrey.

Hear more about the objects and works on show and the stories and histories that informed their selection.

All welcome – no prior booking required.

Soft drinks and snacks will be provided.

Image: Clark Brothers, Manchester (est. 1934), Selection of promotional materials (background); Jason Evans, Wool and Clay, 2017, Rug and eroded brick (foreground)

Get involved in an afternoon of talks and discussions with leading artists and academics, crossing the boundaries of arts, science, and computing, developed as part of the multidisciplinary exhibition Sensing Systems by Matt Woodham, on view at Bonington Gallery from 15 February to 28 March. Book your free place on this public event, taking placing at Nottingham Contemporary.

Art and science share a common goal: to challenge common views of reality. As a creative crossroad, the contemporary field of ArtScience has been gaining momentum in recent years. Successful ArtScience merges the objective and the subjective with equal voices. It investigates and shapes the intersection between artistic concepts and developments in science and technology; experimenting with new ways of conceiving knowledge.

In this afternoon symposium, a panel of artists, scientists and ArtScientists will share their interdisciplinary research. Experts in systems across scales, from galaxy evolution to molecular nanotechnology, will discuss common dynamics in nature.

Featured Speakers

Meghan Gray is an observational extragalactic astronomer with interests in galaxy evolution and large-scale structure. She employs tools such as gravitational lensing to trace distributions of dark matter on large scales and uses multiwavelength observations to examine the luminous properties of galaxies. These observations are often compared against supercomputer simulations to understand how galaxies are influenced by their environments. Meghan will provide insight into large-scale structures and simulating the universe.

Ulrike Kuchner is an extragalactic astronomer as well as a visual artist based in the UK. In her research, Ulrike studies how mass is assembled in the universe and how galaxies form and evolve over their lifetime – which is just short of the age of the universe itself. As an artist and curator, she challenges the frontiers between art and science, translating between the fields without imposing a hierarchy. Ulrike’s art often deals with the themes of humanity and imperfections in data, something we tend to strip away from science. Ulrike will provide insight into art and science and chair the panel discussions.

Andy Lomas is a computational artist, mathematician, and Emmy award winning supervisor of computer-generated effects. His artwork explores how complex sculptural forms can be created emergently by simulating growth processes. Inspired by the work of Alan Turing, D’Arcy Thompson, and Ernst Haeckel, it exists at the boundary between art and science. Andy will provide insight into simulating nature, emergent phenomena, artificial life and art.

Becky Lyon is an artist/researcher examining how humans are impacting evolution. Her practice combines scientific research, thinking-through-making, fiction, and participatory research to imagine a spectrum of new hybrid species, materialities, systems, and ways of relating. Explorations include exploring future environments through scent; contemplating the entanglement of our matter through sculpture and sound and modelling lively forms at Fieldnotes from a Technobiocology. Lyon runs ‘Elastic Nature’, an interdisciplinary art research club exploring the future of nature.

Philip Moriarty is a professor of physics in the School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Nottingham. His research interests lie in a field sometimes referred to as extreme nanotechnology; he and his colleagues prod, poke, push, and pull individual atoms and molecules with scanning probe microscopes. He has published 140 papers to date, given over 100 invited talks. Moriarty also has a keen interest in public engagement, outreach, and the arts-sciences interface having regularly collaborated on the award-winning Sixty Symbols YouTube channel. Philip will provide insight into chaos, quantum mechanics, surface physics, and the emergence of patterns.