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Join us for a screening of Lonesome Ghosts (2025) by Oxford based artist Daniel Ward, a film exploring the ramifications of undercover policing in the UK, featuring Bonington Gallery exhibitor Alan Lodge.

Organised into four chapters, the work moves between filmed and found footage, official police documents, evidence and personal testimony, and offers an examination of the complex affinities between personal commitment, state violence and visual culture.

Each chapter centres a different voice or material: a meeting with an exhausted and lonely political organiser; silent footage of a funeral filmed by an undercover policing unit in 1979; an interview with a photographer who discovered he was the target of police surveillance; and a filmmaker grappling with the dreams and failures of collective filmmaking. Threaded throughout the work is a mutual consideration of politics and visual depiction. Ward focuses on the camera as a central device and, in turn, the purpose of both documents and documentary, as well as collective and group work.

Produced by Ward over a three year period using an iPhone and an inexpensive digital camera, the footage and its treatment is, at times, intentionally out of focus or underexposed: subjects are kept slightly out of shot, or at the edge of the frame, encased in shadows. Ward’s use of sound, from undefined field recordings to abstract audio samples, further emphasise the work’s interest in representation and depiction, contributing to the film’s underlying atmosphere of paranoia and fear.

The screening will feature written contributions from writers Hannah Proctor and Sam Dolbear. These are based upon spoken responses they gave as part of an event at Pelican House entitled Making Sense of Spycops, that included a screening a Lonesome Ghosts.

Lonesome Ghosts is 52 minutes long and will be followed by a Q+A with Daniel Ward & Alan Lodge, convened by Tom Godfrey (Bonington Gallery Curator & Director).

The gallery will remain open until 6.30pm to allow people to visit Alan’s exhibition prior to the event.

Lonesome Ghosts was first shown at Peer, London in Autumn 2025, as part of a solo exhibition by Daniel Ward of the same title. 

They wanted the freedom to party, the state saw them as the enemy within. The untold story of the free party movement, Castlemorton and the Criminal Justice Act, and how its impact sparked a revolution around the world, from raves and festivals, to politics and protest.

Free Party: A Folk History is a major new, independently made, feature documentary following the birth of the free party movement in the late 80s and early 90s and the impact it’s had on our present times. The film follows the inception of the movement, a meeting between ravers and the new age travellers during Thatcher’s last days in power, and the explosive years that followed, leading up the infamous Castlemorton free festival in 1992 – the largest ever illegal rave, which provoked the drastic change of the laws of trespass with the notorious introduction of the Criminal Justice Act in 1994.

The screening (1hr 44mins) will be followed by a Q+A with Director Aaron Trinder and contributor Alan Lodge, convened by Bonington Gallery Curator & Director Tom Godfrey.

The gallery will remain open 5-6pm for those wishing to visit Alan Lodge’s exhibition prior to the screening.

Content Warning: Film contains nudity, violence, substance use, smoking, foul language, Flashing lights and strobing patterns might affect photosensitive viewers. Viewers must be aged 16+.

Bonington Gallery is delighted to present Flash and Blur, an exhibition of photography, video and archival material by the critically acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Andy Earl (b. 1955). Spanning four decades, the exhibition traces Earl’s remarkable career, from his time as a photography student at Nottingham Trent University (1974-1977) to the present day.

In 1978, Earl exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery in London as part of an exhibition exploring contemporary European photography. The painterly quality in Earl’s photographs attracted the attention of music impresario Malcolm McLaren, who subsequently commissioned Earl to create the cover for Bow Wow Wow’s debut album – a re-enactment of Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. In 1979, Earl was invited to participate in Venice 79, a major international survey of contemporary photography presented as an extension to Venice Biennale series. These early opportunities and exhibitions helped establish Earl’s reputation on the international stage and marked important milestones in his burgeoning career.

Following an accidental kick to a tripod during a photoshoot, Earl embraced the creative possibilities of combining movement, slow shutter speeds and sharp flash photography. The resulting aesthetic became his signature ‘flash and blur’ technique, defining much of his work from the late 1970s through to the 1990s and attracting the admiration of photographers including David Bailey. Accompanying many of Earl’s photographs are stories and anecdotes that reveal the encounters and relationships Earl developed with his subjects, several of which will be shared in the exhibition.

Across a career that includes more than 200 album covers, editorial commissions for Rolling Stone, NME and Q magazine, and projects for Canon, Samsung, Deutsche Bank and the BBC, Earl has photographed some of the most influential cultural figures of the past half-century. His subjects include Annie Lennox, Madonna, Morrissey, Pink Floyd, Oasis, Prince, Mick Jagger, King Charles III, and Sir David Attenborough. In the 1990s, Earl produced the iconic photographs of Johnny Cash used for American Recordings, the first album in Cash’s celebrated collaboration with producer Rick Rubin.

Beyond his photographic practice, Earl has directed and contributed to more than 20 music videos. Among his most pioneering projects was his work on the Michel Gondry-directed video for The Rolling Stones’ Bob Dylan cover Like a Rolling Stone, which combined 12,000 still photographs captured using two handheld cameras and animated in sequence. The resulting visual effect echoed Earl’s flash and blur experiments from the late 1970s and proved highly influential in the development of the technique later known as Bullet Time, most famously employed by The Wachowskis in The Matrix films.

Through photography, film and archive, Flash and Blur celebrates Andy Earl’s enduring contribution to visual culture and reveals the innovative spirit that has defined his work for more than four decades.

Credit for main image: Andy Earl: Duran Duran (Rio), London 1983.

Flash and Blur is a continuation in a series of recent solo exhibitions by Andy Earl that first took place at TheGallery at Arts University Bournemouth – See or be Seen (October 2025) and the follow up Andy Earl X Bankside Yards (May 2026), both curated by AUB TheGallery Curator Violet M McClean.

Book your free ticket for an evening screening with live BSL interpretation of THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY, a new three-channel film by Turner Prize nominated artist Naeem Mohaiemen. The film explores memorialisation, protest, and political violence through the lens of events in May 1970, when American students protesting domestic racism and overseas wars were met by state violence.

Doors: 6.15 pm
Film screening: 6.30 – 8 pm (approx)

Please note this film contains historic content featuring racialised language, images and graphic descriptions of violence, including death and acts of war. It may not be suitable for viewers under 16 years of age. Parental discretion advised.

About the film
As the Vietnam War came to its bloody end, for the American media, the memory of four American students shot dead at Kent State University was sometimes as emotionally charged as the millions of deaths in Vietnam.

In the decades that followed, a memorial community has formed around the ‘four dead in Ohio’. Yet while the deaths of students Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder at Kent State, Ohio, are remembered, not many recall Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two students killed ten days later by police officers at Jackson State College, Mississippi, a Historically Black College.

By choreographing the relationship between archival footage and contemporary ceremonies memorialising the dead, THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY explores the role of memorials as a focal point for individual and collective grief. By comparing Kent and Jackson State, the project underscores blind spots around racialised violence and class tensions, made concrete in the disparity in coverage of these two campus shootings. The inclusion of stage-managed press conferences reveals the political machinations of the Nixon administration who fuelled a backlash to anti-war protests.

Mohaiemen deftly presents these intersecting strands, weaving together the voices of key political players, student leaders, and the fabled ‘man on the street’ alongside Vietnam veterans, to propose new interpretations of the events of May 1970 and their lasting impact.

About Naeem Mohaiemen
Naeem Mohaiemen was born in London, UK, grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh and currently lives and works in New York, USA. He combines films, photography, drawings, and essays to explore forms of utopia-dystopia within families, borders, architecture, and uprisings – beginning in South Asia and then radiating outward to transnational collisions in the Muslim world after 1945.

Several conversations around ‘nonalignment’ as a concept container in contemporary art pivoted after the premiere of his film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017) at Documenta 14, which was nominated for the Turner Prize (2018).

Mohaiemen’s museum projects are represented by Experimenter Gallery (India) and film screenings are represented by LUX (UK); his work is in major international collections including British Museum and Tate Modern (London), Museum of Modern Art (New York), MACBA (Barcelona), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Kiran Nadar Museum (Delhi), National Gallery of Singapore, Art Institute of Chicago, Samdani Art Foundation and Sharjah Art Foundation.

Mohaiemen is co-editor with Eszter Szakacs of Solidarity Must Be Defended (Budapest, 2023) and with Lorenzo Fusi of System Error: War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Siena, 2007). He is the author of Bengal Photography’s Reality Quest (Dhaka, 2025), Baksho Rohoshyo (Umea, 2024), Midnight’s Third Child (Dhaka, 2023) and Prisoners of Shothik Itihash (Basel, 2014).  He is a faculty member at the Visual Arts Department, Columbia University.

Acknowledgments
Following the inaugural London presentation of the work by Artangel at Albany House (September – December 2025), the UK tour has been convened by Film and Video Umbrella and will travel to Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (2026), The Hunterian, University of Glasgow (2026), and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2026). The work will also be shown at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, in Spring 2026.

Commissioned and produced by Artangel. Commissioned in partnership with Film and Video Umbrella and Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University. Supported by Experimenter.

Exhibition Partners: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton and Bonington Gallery, Nottingham.

Artangel, FVU and John Hansard Gallery are generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Join us for the first academic walkthrough of our exhibition programme as we welcome Marco Bohr, Associate Professor in Design and Digital Art at Nottingham School of Art & Design.

This event marks the beginning of a series of short, informal, academic-led talks and tours of the Bonington Gallery exhibition programme. These sessions provide our academic colleagues with an opportunity to share insights, spark discussion, and share research that resonates with the themes of our exhibitions.

Marco’s research is concerned with the role that images play in the shaping of a variety of discourses related to politics, gender, identity, sexuality, censorship, ethics and disasters. Drawing on his background as an exhibiting photographer, Marco’s research interest is principally focused on the photographic image — not only as a medium of visual expression but also as a research methodology and a tool for political activism.

Marco’s research interest also extends to visual propaganda, cinema, documentary and essay film. His book “Visual Counterculture in Japan” was recently published by Bloomsbury.

For our eighth display from the Bonington Archive, we are looking at an exhibition in our more recent history: House of Wisdom (September 27th – October 27th 2018). This exhibition was staged in the areas outside of the gallery and showcased hundreds of objects, books, articles, research and furniture which looked into the political power of books and libraries over the past century.

The central focus of the cabinet display is an A4 folio which contained over 100 newspaper articles around the closure of libraries, censorship of texts, new discoveries of ancient texts and political actions around libraries and freedom of speech. This is displayed alongside photo documentation, the original exhibition text, and a flyer listing the artists involved in the original project.

As part of the original project, there was a full public programme which took place across the city. All the recorded content from those talks, film screenings, and performances can be found by following this link

Archive cabinet was curated by Alex Jovčić-Sas, the original exhibition by Cüneyt Çakırlar

Please note, this is an archive presentation of a historical exhibition which occurred in 2018.

Original exhibition text:

Throughout centuries, libraries have been perceived as places where knowledge on life and space is organised, read, and interpreted, yet at certain times, their political significance are underestimated. Public libraries have been important symbols of political power and formation of cultural identity. They play a significant role in the political struggle for independence, as centres of democratic ideals, such as free access to cultural heritage and information. As public spaces, they are essential for bringing people together to share information, and they become even more important during times of collective resistance and protests for freedom.

Curated by the Istanbul-based Collective Çukurcuma, House of Wisdom explores the political power of books and libraries in our century, and is presented as a travelling exhibition/library that explores the increasing levels of censorship on information and the current sociopolitical situation in and around Turkey. It started its journey in the non-profit art space, Dzialdov, Berlin. The show moved to Istanbul as part of the 15th Istanbul Biennial’s public program, and then to the art space Framer Framed in Amsterdam, as part of the Amsterdam Art Weekend 2017 programme.

The exhibition and public programme of events now reside in Nottingham, with a panel discussion at Primary, in June 2018, followed by the exhibition here at Bonington Gallery and across the city, see public programme events (curated by Cüneyt Çakırlar) below for full details.

Artists include: Mohamed Abdelkarim, Burak Arıkan, Mahmoud Bakhshi, Yael Bartana, Mehtap Baydu, Kürşat Bayhan, Ruth Beale, Ekin Bernay, Burçak Bingöl, Nicky Broekhuysen, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Cansu Çakar, Ramesch Daha, Işıl Eğrikavuk, Didem Erk, Foundland Collective, Deniz Gül, Beril Gür, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, İstanbul Queer Art Collective (Tuna Erdem and Seda Ergül), Ali Kazma, Yazan Khalili, Göksu Kunak, Mona Kriegler, Fehras Publishing Practices, Elham Rokni, Natascha Sadr Haghighian & Ashkan Sepahvand, Sümer Sayın, Erinç Seymen, Bahia Shehab, Walid Siti, Ali Taptık, Erdem Taşdelen, Özge Topçu, Viron Erol Vert, Ali Yass, Eşref Yıldırım, Ala Younis

CURATED BY COLLECTIVE ÇUKURCUMA

House Of Wisdom was in collaboration with Queer Art Projects (London, UK), Bonington Gallery, Primary, Bromley House Library, Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, and Five Leaves Bookshop.

Join us for the launch of our final exhibitions of the season: THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY – a film commission from Turner-Prize nominated artist Naeem Mohaiemen and the 30th instalment of our Vitrines featuring a collection of photography from Baltimore-based photographer John Dean.

THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY is a new three-channel film by Turner Prize nominated artist Naeem Mohaiemen. It explores memorialisation, protest, and political violence through the lens of events in May 1970, when American students protesting domestic racism and overseas wars were met by state violence.

As part of the 30th instalment of our Bonington Vitrines series, we’re delighted to present A Semester in Nottingham, 1976, an exhibition of photographs by Baltimore-based John Dean. Captured during his time as a visiting student to NTU in 1976, these photographs offer a powerful glimpse into Nottingham life during a transformative era.

Enjoy a free welcome drink, delicious food (first come, first served!) and music.

• Free, all welcome
• Photography will be taking place (please let our photographer know if you don’t wish to have your photo taken)
• Refreshments and music
• There is a lift and stair access to the Gallery, and an accessible toilet

Bonington Gallery presents A Semester in Nottingham, 1976, an exhibition of photographs by Baltimore-based John Dean. Captured during his time as a visiting student to Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in 1976, these photographs offer a powerful glimpse into Nottingham life during a transformative era.

This exhibition marks a poignant return to the institution — formerly Trent Polytechnic — where John studied as a visiting student nearly fifty years ago.

Armed with a camera and a quiet curiosity, John immersed himself in the rhythms of Nottingham life. Over the course of a single semester, he wandered the city’s streets and parks — Hyson Green, Market Square, the Arboretum — capturing striking black-and-white portraits of residents going about their daily lives. The resulting images are both documentary and deeply personal, offering a rare and intimate glimpse into the everyday lives of Nottingham’s people during a transformative era.

First developed in Trent’s own darkrooms (situated next door to the gallery), these photographs have remained largely unseen for decades. Now, they return to the place of their origin, standing as a testament to the power of observational storytelling, told through the eyes of a visitor to the city.

John has since built a distinguished career as a producer and videographer, creating historical and educational media for museums and non-profit organisations across the United States and beyond. Yet photography remains his first and most enduring creative language — a medium through which he continues to explore the intersections of memory, environment, and human experience.

Join us for the launch of our latest exhibitions — new film and textile work by multi-disciplinary artist Ibiye Camp, exploring the complex interplay between infrastructure, care, and resilience along the coast of West Africa.

layt de kam critically examines the deployment of temporary power ships along West African coasts as a response to energy shortages. The work reflects both hope and uncertainty, emphasising the fragility of these energy solutions while honouring the resilience of coastal communities.

Accompanying layt de kam in our Vitrines is Through Our Eyes, In Our Words, an exhibition presenting stories of ageing, belonging, and inclusion among middle-aged and older-aged LGBT+ people in Britain.

Enjoy a free welcome drink, delicious food (first come, first served!) and music by multidisciplinary artist Fauzia.

All welcome but reserve your free ticket to avoid disappointment.

• Free, all welcome
• Refreshments and a DJ set from multidisciplinary artist Fauzia.
• Photography will be taking place (please let our photographer know if you do not want your picture to be taken)
• There is lift and stair access and an accessible toilet

THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY is approximately 90mins long and will be screened:
Mon-Fri: 10.30am, 12pm, 1.30pm, 3pm
Saturday: 11am, 12.30pm, 2pm

Bonington Gallery is pleased to present THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY, a new three-channel film by Turner Prize nominated artist Naeem Mohaiemen. The film explores memorialisation, protest, and political violence through the lens of events in May 1970, when American students protesting domestic racism and overseas wars were met by state violence.

As the Vietnam War came to its bloody end, for the American media, the memory of four American students shot dead at Kent State University was sometimes as emotionally charged as the millions of deaths in Vietnam.

In the decades that followed, a memorial community has formed around the ‘four dead in Ohio’. Yet while the deaths of students Alison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder at Kent State, Ohio, are remembered, not many recall Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two students killed ten days later by police officers at Jackson State College, Mississippi, a Historically Black College.

By choreographing the relationship between archival footage and contemporary ceremonies memorialising the dead, THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY explores the role of memorials as a focal point for individual and collective grief. By comparing Kent and Jackson State, the project underscores blind spots around racialised violence and class tensions, made concrete in the disparity in coverage of these two campus shootings. The inclusion of stage-managed press conferences reveals the political machinations of the Nixon administration who fuelled a backlash to anti-war protests.

Mohaiemen deftly presents these intersecting strands, weaving together the voices of key political players, student leaders, and the fabled ‘man on the street’ alongside Vietnam veterans, to propose new interpretations of the events of May 1970 and their lasting impact.

“In Corinthians 13:12, ‘through a glass, darkly’ meant the impossibility of viewing the full scope of divine plans. In a more earthly, secular context, I consider the memorialization of the Vietnam War era, and how the farther away we get in years, the hazier the many meanings of events in the mirror of memory become.”
– Naeem Mohaiemen

Please note this film contains historic content featuring racialised language, images and graphic descriptions of violence, including death and acts of war. It may not be suitable for viewers under 16 years of age. Parental discretion advised.

Following the inaugural London presentation of the work by Artangel at Albany House (September – December 2025), the UK tour has been convened by Film and Video Umbrella and will travel to Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (2026), The Hunterian, University of Glasgow (2026), and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2026). The work will also be shown at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, in Spring 2026.

The Albany House presentation of this exhibition has been reviewed by Jonathan Jones for The Guardian, and featured in Art and Design and Art Review.

Commissioned and produced by Artangel.
Commissioned in partnership with Film and Video Umbrella and Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University.
Supported by Experimenter.

Exhibition Partners: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton and Bonington Gallery, Nottingham.

Artangel, FVU and John Hansard Gallery are generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Artangel is generously supported by the private patronage of The Artangel International Circle, Special Angels, The Guardian Angels and The Company of Angels.