Book your free ticket and join us at Bonington Gallery for the Critical Hits Zine Fair.
Marking the launch of our next exhibition Weird Hope Engines (22 March – 10 May) this event celebrates DIY publishing and tabletop gaming with vendors from Nottingham and around the UK including Melsonian Arts Council, Copy/Paste Co-op, Warp Miniatures, Ramshackle Games and others. Critical Hits Zine Fair brings together independent publishers, artists, and writers exploring themes of critical worlding, resistance, and alternative futures.
Alongside a diverse range of zines and collectables to purchase, the Fair also features a programme of talks and conversations with artists from the exhibition including Zedeck Siew and Angela Washko, and panel discussions on fantasy illustration, game design and miniature fabrication with Andrew Walter, Amanda Lee Franck, Scrap World, and Alex Huntley.
Critical Hits Zine Fair also features gaming sessions with David Blandy, Angela Washko and Andrew Walter, as well as a film screening programme delving further into the narratives, aesthetics, and communities that shape these immersive worlds, including the documentaries World of Darkness (2017) and Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons (2019).
Talks:
12:00 – 12:45
Drawing Down The Moon: The Art of TTRPG Illustration
Amanda Lee Franck and Scrap Princess
Chaired by Andrew Walter
13:00 – 13:45
Warped Worlds and Ramshackle Realms: Worlds In Miniature
Curtis Fell (Ramshackle Games) and Alex Huntley (Warp Miniatures)
Chaired by Chris MacDowell
14:00 – 14:45
Art Can Never Be Games!: What Is An Art Game?
Tom Kemp and Angela Washko
Chaired by Jamie Sutcliffe and Rebecca Edwards
15:00 – 15:45
Games Design For Planetary Survival
Chris Bissette, Laurie O’Connell and Zedeck Siew
Chaired by David Blandy
Game play sessions:
11.30am: David Blandy, Eco Mofos
2pm: Andrew Walter, Swyvers
3.30pm: Angela Washko, The Council is in Session
Image: Still from the film World of Darkness, 2017
Please join us for a celebratory launch of two new publications:
Traci Kelly‘s ‘Seers-in-Residence’, with contributions from Emma Cocker, Simon Cross, Ben Judd and Joanne Lee (a Nottingham Trent University/Bonington Gallery publication)
‘This publication emerges from an invitation for four researchers to spend time as Seers-in-Residence with Traci Kelly’s monoprint installation ‘Feeling It For You (Perspective)’, which was part of From Where I Stand I Can See You in January 2013. The resulting book documents the creative and critical ideas explored by participants, and reflects upon the possibilities for this innovative model for research.’
Designed by Joff + Ollie
Joanne Lee‘s ‘Gumming up the Works’, Issue #3 from the Pam Flett Press independent serial
‘This third issue fantasizes about luminous constellations of dropped chewing gum on the street, confronts a horrible compulsion to seek out the hard stuff glued under desks or in the recesses of train carriages, before finding itself fixated upon various species of lumps, heaps and piles; ultimately the writing explores creative work as a sort of digestion or composting, and suggests we have quite a lot to learn from worms’
Designed by Dust
There will be drinks and nibbles in the Atrium, followed by a live vocal performance by Denise Boyd as we relocate to Bonington Lecture Theatre for introductions to the publications, and a series of short readings. Click here to join the events page on Facebook.
Discover the changing face of magazine design over the years with this exhibition from the Raw Print Archive. The wide range of publications on display offers an insight into the diverse Archive, as well as the evolution of magazine over time.
Bonington Vitrines are a series of micro exhibitions, which take place within the Bonington Gallery Foyer. They comprise of three display cases which present a variety of objects, artworks and printed material.
The Raw Print Archive was initiated five years ago as a research and teaching resource by Matt Gill, Senior Lecturer in Fashion Marketing, Management and Communication at Nottingham Trent University.
The Archive brings together a wide range of periodicals; including local publications such as Forest Forever and LeftLion; seminal publications such as i-D, Colors, Toilet Paper, The Face; and slightly more obscure and surprising additions such as the short-lived Virgin inflight magazine Carlos.
If you would like to find out more about these publications or any of the other publications that make up the Archive, email Matt Gill at matthew.gill@ntu.ac.uk.
Please visit the Raw Print website for further information about the Archive and associated events.
As part of Icons of Rhetoric there is a segregated space within the Gallery which reveals more about the photographs and the theory employed behind the idea of reading North Korea through its own discourse. Including a range of publications on issues surrounding North Korea and photojournalism:
One of these publications is Visual Politics and North Korea: Seeing is Believing by David Shim. In a similar way to the main exhibition, his book questions what we know about North Korea and how much of this is based on what we see. You can preview the book online here.
“David Shim’s Visual Politics and North Korea has arrived and will be on show in the exhibition” @Rout_PoliticsIRpic.twitter.com/p360bhANDi
— IOR 북한의수사학아이콘 (@iconsofrhetoric) June 12, 2015
Another featured publication is Pyongyang, a graphic novel by cartoonist and animator Guy Delisle, which documents his two-month visit to the North Korean capital – giving the reader “an informative, personal, and accessible look at a dangerous and enigmatic country.”
You can find out more about Pyongyang here, and preview the book here.