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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: humhyphenhumLorraine Young, Catherine Bertola, Joe Graham, Andrew PepperMartin 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.

Artist residency date and discussion events

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:

WEEK ONE

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

WEEK TWO

Lorraine Young, Monday 25 – Tuesday 26 January (inclusive)
Summary discussion: Tuesday 26 January, 3 pm – 4 pm

WEEK THREE

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

WEEK FOUR

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

Closing event

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.

Drawing on the inspiration of others…

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.

Exhibition resources:

From Our Blog


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 NewthEmily Richardson.

A programme of events and activities was also curated to compliment the themes highlighted by the exhibition.

#NTUIPOA

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.

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?

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.


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.

Read more about the project.

The project was supported by Arts Council England and Nottingham Community Housing Association.


Bonington Gallery is very pleased to present QAI/GB-NGM by Warsaw (Poland) based artist Karol Radziszewski. This exhibition will present archival materials from Radziszewski’s Queer Archives Institute (QAI) that focusses on Central and Eastern European queer history and culture.

Consistent with previous QAI presentations, this exhibition will connect to its locality by featuring materials related to Nottingham’s own queer history and culture. This site specificity is reflected in the title of the exhibition that utilises Nottingham’s International Organization for Standardization (ISO) location code ‘GB–NGM’.

Alongside archival materials from the QAI, the exhibition will feature artworks and ongoing bodies of work by Radziszewski.

The QAI

Established by Radziszewski in November 2015, the QAI is a non-profit artist-run organization dedicated to the research, collection, digitalisation, presentation, exhibition, analysis and artistic interpretation of queer archives, with a special focus on the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. The QAI is a long-term project open to transnational collaboration with artists, activists and academic researchers. The Institute carries out a variety of activities and projects – from exhibitions, publications, lectures and installations to performances.

Artist Biography

Karol Radziszewski (b. 1980) lives and works in Warsaw (Poland), where he received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. He works with film, photography, installations and creates interdisciplinary projects. His archive-based methodology crosses multiple cultural, historical, religious, social and gender references. Since 2005 he has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of DIK Fagazine. He is the founder of the Queer Archives Institute (2015). His work has been presented in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; New Museum, New York; VideoBrasil, São Paulo; TOP Museum, Tokyo; Kunsthaus Graz, Austria; Cobra Museum, Amsterdam; Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow and Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz. He has participated in several international biennales including PERFORMA 13, New York; 7th Göteborg Biennial; 4th Prague Biennial; 15th WRO Media Art Biennale and recently The Baltic Triennial 14.

In 2021, The Power of Secrets dedicated to Radziszewski’s archival practice was published by Sternberg Press.

Header image credit: Karol Radziszewski, Afterimages, film still, 2018.

Exhibition Resources:

The exhibition has been curated by Tom Godfrey, Director of Bonington Gallery.
Supported by Joshua Lockwood-Moran, Tamsin Greaves (NTU Placement) and Rachael Mackerness (NTU Placement).
Technicians: Harry Freestone, James E Smith, Claire Davies, Emily Stollery.
Thanks to The Sparrows Nest for the generous support, advice and loan of the publications.


It is happening again.
Here, the Gold Ones were.
We’ve heard that before.
But this time it was flatter.

So, as we were saying.
It’s an original story.
No, this is an origin story.
Everyone already knows this.

Everywhen, here and there.
This is what we always said.
Mis-shaped and not in proportion.
As though seen for the first time.

This is an explainer: Following on from Reactor’s residency in 2021, they return with a new video installation that describes what came before. Digital animation, mobile sculpture and choreographed performance combine to please the ears and eyes. Gather round for the reveal, succumb to each and every tall tale told, even when this belief is unfounded.

Special thanks to Adam Sinclair (Animation), Lotti V Closs (Additional Modeling Support), Jim Brouwer (AV Consultant), Rebecca Lee, Alison Lloyd and NTU Fine Art students (Voices) for collaborating on Here, the Gold Ones flatter.

About Reactor

Reactor is an art collective, comprising Susie Henderson, Niki Russell and an undisclosed number of secret members. Recent and forthcoming projects include: ‘Ivan Poe’, online, Kunstraum (London), Southwark Park Galleries (London), Quad (Derby) and Hexham Arts Centre, ‘The Gold Ones’, Radar (Loughborough), Plymouth Art Weekender, Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo), Gallery North (Newcastle) and xero, kline & coma (London), ‘Log!c ?stem’, Flux Factory (New York), ‘Dummy Button’, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin). 



Celebrating five pioneers of the poster

This exhibition celebrated the collaboration between two typographic forces: Alan Kitching, a leading practitioner in letterpress, typography and design; and Monotype, global trailblazers in type and home to some of the world’s most popular typefaces.

The exhibition featured the Alan Kitching Collection which celebrated the lives of five very influential graphic designers: Tom Eckersley, Abram Games, FHK Henrion, Josef Müller-Brockmann, and Paul Rand.

The show revealed the process behind the making of the Collection; following Alan’s journey from research and sketches, through the Monotype archive, to Alan’s workshop and the finished printed pieces.

#NTUAlanKitching #Monotype

Design Your Own NTU Monogram

During the exhibition, students at Nottingham Trent University and visitors of the exhibition were invited to design their very own personalised monogram to be in with a chance of winning a limited edition print from the Alan Kitching Collection. The rules were simple; the monogram had to:

1) include your own initials
2) use one letter from the typefaces used in the Alan Kitching Collection. The subsequent letters could come from anywhere: another typeface, hand-drawn, a found letter…
3) be rendered in a way that it tells us something about the designer.

Entries were then uploaded with the hashtag #NTUmonogram to Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

The competition ended on Sunday 18 October 2015, and the winner (selected by Alan Kitching himself) was announced on Thursday 22 October.

Read all about the winning entry and the runners-up in this story on our blog.

To find out more, read the full competition details.


From Our Blog


The coronavirus pandemic is still far from over in many parts of the world, including Guatemala where artisanal textile making remains a significant aspect of indigenous Maya cultural heritage and the creative economy. This small collection of artefacts, images and narratives convey findings from recent research into: ‘how Guatemalan artisans diversified their textile practices to sustain their communities during the Covid-19 pandemic’. 

Our ethnographic enquiry, undertaken in 2021, was made possible through collaboration with five socially driven textile organisations working in the Lake Atitlan area; A Rum Fellow, Cojolya, Mercado Global, Multicolores, and Kakaw Designs. Analysis of online interviews, videos and photographs taken in the field, provide insights into the creative resilience of artisans as they continued to practice, communicate and market their crafts, throughout the global crisis.

The title Story Cloth derives from Multicolores, who encouraged the artists they work with to embroider ‘my life during the quarantine’, as a reflection on the personal impact of the pandemic. Examples of these embroidered vignettes are featured alongside dolls, woven and dyed (buy-one-give-one) PPE masks, fashion and interior textiles, and rugs made from recycled paca (second-hand clothing).

The exhibition also features ‘Connecting with Your Roots’, a scholarship programme funded by Ibermuseums for The Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Textiles and Clothing, enabling 30 women and girls from Maya groups in Guatemala City to reconnect with their weaving arts heritage. The project is represented in images and a vintage huipil (blouse) the most prevalent form of traje (traditional clothing) worn by Mayan women. Woven on a backstrap loom, the huipil incorporates colours, patterns and motifs symbolizing nature, religious and community affiliation.

Story Cloth is an outcome of ongoing research into the sustainable potential for integrating digital technology into artisanal business models, supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Quality-Related (QR) funding, Nottingham Trent University.

Header photo: Maria Sacalxot Coti rug hooking. Photo by Joe Coca courtesy of Multicores

Curated by:

Katherine Townsend, Nottingham Trent University
Anna Piper, Sheffield Hallam University
Luciana Jabur, Friends of The Ixchel Museum

Supported by:

Friends of the Ixchel Museum
Museo Ixchel del Traje Indígena (Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Dress)
A Rum Fellow
Cojolya
Kakaw Designs
Mercado Global
Multicolores


North Korea reinterpreted on instant film

A joint exhibition by photographer Chris Barrett and researcher Gianluca Spezza

Under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, North Korea has made a conscious decision to be more proactive in the media world. In 2013 we saw the very first live tweeted image of the North Korean leader, from mainstream Western media.

Icons of Rhetoric (IoR) offered a different approach to documenting North Korea, merging established news media practices with more contemporary ones, drawing particular attention to social media.

“While researching an article about an Instagram account claiming to be the official outlet of North Korean news, I started to think about the visual representation of North Korea.

The idea of the project became a reflection on our engagement with modern media techniques, our consumption of images and our knowledge of this ‘most closed off country in the world’ that is the DPRK, all this interwoven with the notion of democratized propaganda.”

Chris Barrett, photographer and curator

By reinterpreting images that already exist in the public domain, Icons of Rhetoric played on an aesthetic of authenticity.

Read more about the Icons of Rhetoric research project.

Follow #IconsofRhetoric on social media:

@IconsofRhetoric
@KazakhPilot (Gianluca Spezza)
facebook.com/IconsOfRhetoric
instagram.com/iconsofrhetoric

Exhibition Resources

From our blog

The title Soft Painting aims to draw our attention to the actual physical qualities of a painting rather than acting as an introduction to an image or to suggest a narrative.  Simon Callery creates paintings that communicate on a physical level.  A painting can be soft or hard as much as it can be red or green.

From Monday 13 – Wednesday 29 April Simon worked in the gallery space with a selected group of Nottingham Trent BA (Hons) Fine Art students and Nottingham-based artists, to produce three large-scale works.  Rolls of canvas were washed and prepared for saturation in pigmented distempers  – a process where the industrial starch is removed from the canvas and the dense and highly coloured medium is washed into the softened fabric at high temperature.  These worked canvasses were then hung off frames to dry before being cut up, sorted and sewn into the formal configurations of soft paintings.

From Thursday 30 April – Friday 15 May the Gallery took the form of a contemporary gallery space, where the outcomes of the making process were realised in a final staged exhibition.

We caught up with Simon at his London-based studio for a behind the scenes look at his collection and to view his work in progress:

For the duration of this exhibition the Gallery became a space for learning where the connections between the making, installing and exhibition of artwork were exposed.  The public were invited to witness and engage with the entire process.

Participants shared their images on Instagram using the hashtag #SoftPainting, you can read more about how the project evolved on our Latest News page.

Exhibition Resources

From our Blog