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Bonington Gallery is delighted to present To Farse All Things, a two-person exhibition by William English and Sandra Cross, bringing together film, photography, sculpture, sound, and archival material formed independently and collaboratively over several decades.

To Farse All Things offers a rare opportunity to explore the intertwined lives and practices of two artists whose work resists categorisation. Through a shared and uncompromising commitment to experimentation, hospitality, and social engagement, English and Cross have cultivated a body of work that is as generous as it is radical. Their ten-year project, The Dining Room, can be seen as a living piece of performance art—emblematic of their broader practice which questions the boundaries between roles and purpose of cultural space. The lines between cast & audience, host & guest, artist & participant are constantly shifting and being shifted.

William English (b. Leicester) moved to London in the early 1970s to study filmmaking. In 1975, he produced a now-iconic series of photographs of Vivienne Westwood in her and Malcolm McLaren’s seminal punk boutique, SEX. The series, Venus with a Severed Leg, has become synonymous with the era, with writer Paul Gorman describing it as “the holy grail of punk photographs.”

William English, Venus with a Severed Leg: A Portrait of Vivienne Westwood in 1975, 1975

Sandra Cross (b. Northamptonshire) began her career as a copywriter before relocating to London in the mid-1970s, where she worked for a number of prominent literary agencies and publishers. Her professional life introduced her to a network of West End eateries, sparking a deep and lasting interest in food as both a social and cultural medium. She began hosting suppers at home for friends and acquaintances, laying the foundation for a lifelong exploration of food as an intersection for connection, memory, and artistic expression.

Left: Sandra seen through hole in wall. Dining Room construction early 1980 photograph by William English. Right: William working on Dining Room construction early 1980 photograph by Sandra Cross.

The pair met in the late 1970s and soon embarked on a shared project that would channel their shared interests and become a defining period in their collaborative practice. Motivated by a shared excitement for hosting and an interest in organic and whole foods (progressive for that period), they pooled their limited resources to renovate the basement of a Victorian building near London’s Borough Market. The result was The Dining Room—a groundbreaking vegetarian restaurant (though they resisted the label) that operated for a decade. Serving dishes such as Kasha Knish amongst a programme of exhibitions, screenings, book launches, and gigs, The Dining Room was more than a restaurant. Its ethos was radically inclusive: customers ranged from Shakespeare’s Globe founder Sam Wanamaker and underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger to nurses finishing late shifts at nearby Guy’s Hospital. Staff were often friends who may have struggled to find work elsewhere, and leftover food was regularly shared with those in need.

Sandra Cross, Limbo (Film still), 2019, HD Video, 69mins

Following the closure of The Dining Room in 1990, Sandra continued to explore food as a subject through works such as What Did You Eat Today?, a series of filmed interviews examining personal relationships with food. Other notable works include MMs Bar (Trunk Records, 2011), a vinyl record composed of train catering announcements recorded during weekly journeys between London and Leicester, and Limbo (2019), a film narrated from journals written during this period whilst Sandra’s mother’s health was in decline, layered over footage of those same train journeys.

William English, Heated Gloves (Film still), 2015, Film transferred to video, 118 mins

William continued to make films and work as a rare book dealer. His film Heated Gloves (2019) documents his friend and Dining Room regular Maurice Seddon, an eccentric inventor known for creating electrically heated clothing. The film features both intimate footage and clips from Seddon’s appearances on international talk shows, including David Letterman and Johnny Carson. After Seddon’s death, William discovered a trove of recorded phone calls spanning 30 years, which he compiled into the vinyl release The Seddon Tapes, Volume 1 (2018). These recordings—such as the surreal and humorous “Chest Freezer” exchange—formed the basis of William’s approach to his long-running Resonance 104.4 FM radio show Wavelength, which he has hosted for 15 years.

In 2020, William published Perfect Binding, a psychographic & counter-historical portrait of Leicester and changing attitudes towards fashion, music and art of the 1960’s and beyond, told and reflected through the lives of his family and childhood friends, including BOY boutique co-founder Stephane Raynor, artist and eccentric Jim Mellors (aka Victoria Ashley), and the late fashion photographer David Parkinson.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a follow-up to Perfect Binding entitled To Farse All Things (Designed by Daniel R. Wilson) will be published and made available from the gallery. This will be an anthology of work, interviews, and articles and is intended as a companion piece to the exhibition.

A broad selection of films by William & Sandra have been archived by LUX, an arts organisation that supports and promotes visual artists working with the moving image.

About William English

William English is a Leicester-born filmmaker, broadcaster, bookseller and co-founder with Sandra Cross of the organic vegetarian restaurant, The Dining Room (1980-1990). He is curator of the Captain Maurice Seddon (Royal Signals) archive, audio selections from which have been released as The Seddon Tapes (Paradigm Discs).

English’s long-running radio series – Wavelength – is a programme of multiple agendas, showcasing under-the-radar experimental music, poetry and art, broadcasting on Resonance 104.4 FM. His films include: Ex Library (2009), Heated Gloves (2015), It’s My Own Invention (2017) and City (1985). English is also the author of Perfect Binding: Made in Leicester (2019) – an experimental genre-defying documentary/counter-history/artist’s book, loosely themed around vanity/inertia and celebrity/obscurity in 1960s Leicester.

About Sandra Cross

Sandra Cross worked as a features editor and deputy editor for IPC Magazines, before developing The Dining Room (active between 1980-1990), a vegetarian organic restaurant in London’s Borough Market, with partner and co-founder William English. This early experience of collaboration on projects where life and art intersect, guides her joint and solo actions whether in written work, film or sound. There is a focus on the lived experience documented and memorialised to celebrate and preserve what might otherwise have been lost. The founding of the restaurant initiated a quest to explore identity through the series What Did You Eat Today? leading to an association with the Mass Observation Archive, and the activity of recording announcements on the London-Leicester train in the MMs Bar (2011). These were described by one reviewer in Mojo as “destined for intense cultdom”.

Contemporary with this project was Limbo – a ten year study of her mother’s “probable Alzheimer’s” in words, sound, images, collages, and film, the substantial parts of which are a 2,000 page journal, 96-hours’ worth of recordings, and an hour-long film. Limbo (2019), the film, was presented at the British Library, and the recordings archived by Stephen Cleary, The British Library’s Lead Curator for Literary and Creative Recordings, whose enthusiasm was expressed via a suggestion that the readings over the film in particular were reminiscent of the ethos and articulation of Mark E. Smith, lead singer in the post-punk band The Fall. Cross has suggested that a quote from La-Bas by Joris-Karl Huysmans best identifies her approach to life:

“It is foolish to let my thoughts wander this way (…) but daydream is the only good thing in life. Everything else is uglier and empty”.

Image at top of page: Left – William English in Dining Room kitchen circa 1982 photograph by Sandra Cross / Right – Sandra Cross in Dining Room kitchen circa 1982 photograph by William English.


Exhibition curated by Tom Godfrey, Curator & Director of Bonington Gallery.

A photograph taken underwater of a whale.
Photo by Karim Iilya

In this series of events, which are part of Jenni Ramone’s project on breastfeeding narratives and representations, Jenni is joined by photographer Karim Iliya, writer ‘Pemi Aguda, and nurse educator Meg Moorman. These conversation events invite us to think about how the arts and humanities can transform the way we practice and understand breastfeeding, health, and our interactions with other animals and the planet.


Reading and Conversation: Karim Iliya

Join Karim Iliya discussing the hidden underwater worlds and other natural places he has portrayed in photography and films, with NTU’s Jenni Ramone.

Karim Iliya is a photographer, filmmaker, whale swimming guide, and former dearMoon crew member based in Iceland. He also co-founded Kogia, a nature conservation non-profit. Karim grew up in the Middle East and Asia and developed an insatiable curiosity for the natural world which has taken him into the midst of exploding volcanoes, battling whales, ice worlds of the Arctic, and many of the incredible places where humans and animals make their homes. Through his photography and films, Karim takes his audiences to hidden underwater worlds and documents other natural places in an effort to protect Earth’s delicate ecosystems. Karim has worked in over 50 countries, won multiple awards, and his work has been featured in numerous distinguished magazines, documentaries, and publications.

For more on Karim’s work, check out his website and for more of his photos follow this link to his Instagram.


Reading and Conversation: ‘Pemi Aguda

Join fiction writer ‘Pemi Aguda reading from and discussing her recently published collection of short stories, Ghost Roots, with NTU’s Jenni Ramone.

‘Pemi Aguda is from Lagos, Nigeria. She has an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. Her writing has been published in Granta, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, and One Story, among others, and won O. Henry Prizes. Her novel-in-progress won the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and she is the current Hortense Spillers Assistant Editor at Transition MagazineGhostroots, a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award in Fiction, is her first book.

For more information about Pemi’s work, please visit her website, webstore, and Instagram


Reading and Conversation: Meg Moorman

Join nurse educator Meg Moorman discussing her project on using visual thinking strategies to enrich nursing education and patient care, and considering how the strategies might be applied to breastfeeding support, with NTU’s Jenni Ramone.

Meg Moorman is a pioneering nurse educator whose innovative integration of the arts into nursing education has significantly influenced the development of clinical judgment and holistic care practices. As a Clinical Associate Professor at Indiana University School of Nursing, she also serves as the Coordinator of the MSN in Nursing Education Program and directs the Faculty Innovating for Nursing Education (FINE) Research Center. Dr. Moorman’s contributions have been recognized nationally; in 2022, she was inducted as a Fellow into the National League for Nursing’s Academy of Nurse Educators, honouring her innovative approaches to nursing education. She has presented her research internationally and consulted with various universities and healthcare workers throughout the world. Her ongoing efforts continue to inspire educators to incorporate humanities-based methodologies, like visual thinking strategies (VTS), to enrich nursing curricula and ultimately enhance patient care outcomes. Through her research and practice, Dr. Moorman has demonstrated that VTS can foster a safe learning environment, encourage diverse perspectives, and improve medical professionals’ ability to interpret complex clinical situations. Her work has shown that engaging with art through VTS not only sharpens visual literacy but also cultivates empathy and reflective thinking among nursing students. She was recently accepted into the Harvard Macy’s Art- Museum-based Health Professions Education Fellowship.

Form more information about Meg’s work, please follow this link to their website, and a feature written about this project can be found here.

Wednesday 4th December, 1-2pm. Book here (only open to NTU students)

Bonington Connect is a new series of get-togethers at Bonington Gallery where themes within our exhibitions can be discussed and explored in a friendly and informal setting. Led by MFA student Vidhi Jangra, this session will explore photography from a working-class perspective, drawing upon ideas from Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes.  

By students and for students, Bonington Connect invites the NTU student community to engage in thought-provoking conversations in response to Bonington Gallery’s exhibition programme. Aimed at creating an accessible atmosphere, this series encourages students at all levels of study to connect with each other and explore themes & ideas in an informal, open and engaging setting.

Each event in this series will explore specific themes and highlight influential thinkers in the arts. The inaugural session, led by MFA student Vidhi Jangra, will focus on working-class perspectives in the arts, drawing on the current exhibition After the End of History: British Working-Class Photography 1989-2024. Referencing theories from Susan Sontag’s On Photography and Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, the session will examine the layered dynamics between photographer, subject, and viewer. Engaging directly with the exhibited works and theoretical insights, the talks promise to be both informative and conversational.

A 30-minute talk in the gallery will be followed by refreshments in the Bonington Atrium, where you’re invited to continue the conversation in a friendly and informal atmosphere.

Representing Lives was a conference that took place in July 1997. The theme explored the multiplicity of women’s identities through the medium of writing biographies and autobiographies, and was funded by the English and Media Studies department at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). 

Alongside the conference was an exhibition at Bonington Gallery titled Representing Lives, curated by Pauline Lucas. The exhibition showed four artists, who responded to an open-call which mirrored the themes of the conference, and showcased a mixture of sculpture, painting, photography, and fashion works. The motivation was to examine different perceptions of women in fact and fiction to create a female space within the gallery. To explore this idea, the exhibition featured Hilary Cartmel, Lubaina Himid, Sonia Lawson, and Denise Weston – a mixture of established artists and NTU graduates. Denise Weston studied alongside Donald Rodney, who is the focus of our Bonington Vitrines #25 exhibition.

In addition to the exhibition, Representing Lives was one of the first exhibitions to be documented on Bonington Gallery’s new website. The show lasted for a month in the physical space, but its legacy remained for much longer due to its online presence. In the words of exhibition organiser, Stella Couloutbanis, it was a show “enjoyed by visitors, and computer buffs!”.

On display in the Bonington Archive Cabinet (which can be found in the foyer space outside our main gallery) is the original exhibition proposal by Pauline Lucas, a call for papers for the conference, a memorandum from Stella Couloutbanis to Nick Freestone, a postcard from Pauline Lucas, and images from the original exhibition.

Curated by Alex Jovčić-Sas

about the artists

Bonington Archive is a revolving display of material drawn from the Bonington Gallery Archive. If you have any materials relating to the programme, especially before 1989, please email boningtongallery@ntu.ac.uk

This event is now fully booked. Those without a ticket may not be admitted.

Join us for the launch of a new exhibition featuring over 120 works by contemporary working-class artists and photographers.

Curated by photographer, writer and broadcaster Johny Pitts, After the End of History emphasises the perspectives of practitioners who turn their gaze towards both their communities and outwards to the wider world. Find out more.

‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition curated by Johny Pitts with Hayward Gallery Touring.

Presenting over 120 works across a 35-year period, After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024 brings together contemporary working class artists who use photography to explore the nuances of working class life in all its diversity.

The exhibition, curated by Johny Pitts, emphasises the perspectives of practitioners who turn their gaze towards both their communities and outwards to the wider world.

Instead of looking at working-class people, the exhibition will explore life through the lenses of working-class practitioners, who have not only turned their gaze towards their own communities but also out towards the world.

Eddie Otchere, Junglists, Roast (The Final Chapter) Stratford Rex Theatre, Stratford, 1997, © Eddie Otchere

The year 2024 will mark 35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the symbolic end of Communism. The weakening of the Soviet Union in the 1980s prompted economist Francis Fukuyama to announce the triumph of Western Liberal Democracy as the only viable future for global politics.

The counter-cultural energies of the 1980s, very often powered up by the alternative ideologies embodied by Communism, produced a collective, coherent, politically engaged generation of working-class artists. But after the so-called ‘End of History’, what became of working-class culture? Who identifies as such, and why? What of the working class creative? What kind of images has working-class life produced in the last 35 years?

Serena Brown, Clayponds, 2018, © Serena Brown

After the End of History will offer a counterintuitive picture of working-class life today, from Rene Matić’s portrait of growing up mixed race in a white working-class community in Peterborough, to Elaine Constaintine’s documentation of the Northern Soul scene, to Kavi Pujara’s ode to Leicester’s Hindu community, and JA Mortram’s documentation throughout his life as a caregiver. After the End of History will explore the challenges and beauty of contemporary working-class life, in all its diversity today.

Artists in the exhibition include Richard Billingham, Sam Blackwood, Serena Brown, Antony Cairns, Rob Clayton, Joanne Coates, Josh Cole, Artúr Čonka, Elaine Constantine, Natasha Edgington, Richard Grassick, Anna Magnowska, Rene Matić, J A Mortram, Kelly O’Brien, Eddie Otchere, Kavi Pujara, Khadija Saye, Chris Shaw, Trevor Smith, Ewen Spencer, Hannah Starkey, Igoris Taran, Nathaniel Télémaque, Barbara Wasiak, Tom Wood.

After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition curated by Johny Pitts with Hayward Gallery Touring.

Johny Pitts Interview

Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry: 29 March – 16 June 2024
Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea: 3 July – 14 September 2024
Bonington Gallery, Nottingham: 26 September – 14 December 2024


Press
Art Review
Studio International
Aperture
Creative Review
Tribune
Dazed
Aesthetica
Huck
Fad
British Journal of Photography
BBC

Header image: Eddie Otchere, Goldie, Metalheadz (Blue Note Sessions) Blue Note, Hoxton Square, 1996 ©  Eddie Otchere

For the fifth iteration of our ‘Bonington Archive’ series, we are delighted to present materials from our archive related to Burst, a solo exhibition by artist Tom Hackett that took place in the gallery from 8 May – 9 June 1990. The installation consisted of a large sculpture made from fabric and 80 x 3-8ft wooden cable reels.

These wooden cable reels were sourced by Exhibition Organiser, Stella Couloutbanis, from a British Telecom depot in Arnold, Nottingham. BT agreed to lend these reels for the show, but they would not deliver them to the gallery. So the question was – how do you transport 80 giant cable reels into Bonington Gallery?

The answer? A photoshoot and a press release, obviously!

Curated by Alex Jovčić-Sas

Bonington Archive is a revolving display of material drawn from the Bonington Gallery Archive. If you have any materials relating to the programme, especially before 1989, please contact: joshua.lockwood-moran@ntu.ac.uk

The School For Lovers was an exhibition by Sharon Kivland, which took place in November 1998.

The title of the new photographic installations by Sharon Kivland is taken from Mozart’s opera, Cosi fan Tutte. The work is based around the structure of the opera; its arrangement echoes its staging and characterisation. The opera is a work of masquerades and doublings, of couplings which are uncoupled under direction of a libertine, Don Alfonso, sets out to prove to his young friends, Gugliemo and Ferando, that all women are unfaithful and, more than that, anyone can come to fill the place of the Other if the conditions are right; in effect, that desire is essentially the desire of the Other’s desire. Through her work she creates a space of highly formulised attention, an event within which the viewer is drawn like a detective, both intellectually and through desire into pleasure of the gaze.

The archive cabinet contains a recreation of the exhibition plan, images of Kivland’s previous shows, images used in the show, and some of Kivland’s publications. There are also postcards from the artist, to the then Gallery Manager, Stella Cauloutbanis.

Curated by Alex Jovčić-Sas

An exhibiton of women’s artwork being produced now, and influenced by Feminism in the 1980’s. Exhibiton selected by Sutapa Biswas, Sarah Edge and Claire Slattery. This show toured from Cooper Gallery, Barnsley. Part of Anne Frank in the World Programme.

Curated by Joshua Lockwood-Moran

Please note this is a rescheduled event that is now streaming online only.

Coinciding with The Art Schools of the East Midlands exhibition, join us for a free event that explores the role of British art schools in shaping fashion, music and club culture over the last 40-50 years.

We will be joined by esteemed writer and curator Paul Gorman, who will discuss his work’s engagement with the significant role played by art schools, their educators and attendees in the broader culture.

Join us as we explore this past and consider it against the wider influence of the notion of the ‘art school’ on other forms of cultural and creative production.

Photo of Paul Gorman by Toby Amies.