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Join us for the launch of our final exhibition of the academic year, exploring tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs).

We were delighted to host experimental exhibition Weird Hope Engines, at this first opportunity to come along for a first look around. Attendees enjoyed a free welcome drink, delicious food and music.

The first exhibition of its kind, this exhibition highlights the practices of innovative designers, artists, and writers in the field of independent game design, and brings their work into dialogue with fellow-travellers in the field of critical art practice.

We dedicate the final Vitrines instalment of our 2024/25 season – Nottingham Subcultural Fashion in the 1980s – to archive material, information and clothing that documents the dynamism of the independent fashion scene of Nottingham in the 1980s.

All welcome but reserve your free ticket to avoid disappointment.

• Free, all welcome
• Refreshments and music
• 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

Join us for the launch of a new solo exhibition by Motunrayo Akinola and our Vitrines collaboration with The Aimless Archive.

We’re delighted to be launching two exhibitions in January, and this is your opportunity to come along for a first look around. Enjoy a free welcome drink, delicious food (first come, first served!) and music.

All welcome but reserve your free ticket to avoid disappointment.

Motunrayo Akinola: Knees Kiss Ground
We’re delighted to present Knees Kiss Ground, a solo exhibition by artist Motunrayo Akinola, which explores faith and belonging through everyday objects.

The exhibition was produced during a six-month residency Motunrayo secured at South London Gallery (SLG) as part of their Postgraduate Residency scheme. The scheme provides early-career artists with the rare opportunity to produce a new body of work. Knees Kiss Ground was first exhibited at SLG in 2024 and tours to Bonington Gallery in 2025.

Vitrines #26: The Aimless Archive
Hull based The Aimless Archive delivers the 26th instalment of our Vitrines programme.

The Aimless Archive works across text – conversation – performance – collecting.  It questions what we keep and what we get rid of by investigating the processes used to build archives.  This approach attempts to be as open and collaborative as it can be.  Work often takes the form of a book – a box – a by-product.

• Free, all welcome
• Claude Money DJ-ing throughout the evening
• Free food and drink provided
• 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

Bonington Gallery is pleased to present Knees Kiss Ground by London based artist Motunrayo Akinola (b.1992). 

Motunrayo explores themes related to faith, migration, belonging, colonialism and postcolonialism using everyday materials, domestic imagery, historical imagery and text. His work manifests predominantly through sculpture, installation, performance, sound and drawing. 

As a British-born Nigerian who is comfortable in both spaces, Akinola’s work investigates systems and subtle cultural codings that maintain a sense of othering. He creates environments that question societal positions on contemporary issues by re-contextualising familiar objects and materials – interrupting quick associations and creating points of access into othered perspectives.

Motunrayo’s interest in attitudes towards migration stems from his dual upbringing in London and Lagos, Nigeria. Work created during recent years explores postcolonial power dynamics and the psychology of ownership. By noting subtle gaps in cultural knowledge, his work encourages a new understanding about the possession of space.

Having studied both architecture and art, Motunrayo is interested in the impacts the built environment has on human experience. For this exhibition, Motunrayo will present works including a full-scale replica of a shipping container made from cardboard, a site-specific drawing that documents a private performance in Bonington Gallery, and several works that use light to explore the relationship between light and religious or spiritual rituals, such as the Biblical association of light as a revelatory presence.

This exhibition has been produced in partnership with South London Gallery where Motunrayo spent six months on the Postgraduate Residency programme in 2023/24, culminating in the solo exhibition Knees Kiss Ground. This iteration of the exhibition is an expansion on the works created during that period.

Press
Floorr Magazine
Corridor8 review by Jade Foster

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.

• Free, all welcome
• Performance by legendary Nottingham rapper Cappo
• Claude Money DJ’ing throughout the evening
• Free food and drink provided
• 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

‘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.

We caught up with moving-image artist and researcher Onyeka Igwe ahead of her forthcoming show, history is a living weapon in yr hand which launches on 12 January, and runs until 2 March 2024.

1. Where are you right now?
   Berlin.

2. How would you describe your forthcoming exhibition, history is a living weapon in yr hand to someone who is unfamiliar with your work?
   I’d say it was an exhibition about rehearsing the future through the lens of the history of black radicalism in 1940s London.
   
   
3. How did you first become interested in moving image work?
   I always loved going to the cinema when I was a kid, it was a pleasure and distraction. I made films as a hobby at university but then my friend Thea said, “why not be a filmmaker?” in the last months of my final year of a politics degree. I thought I’d make documentaries but I was disappointed by the documentary world, and then I discovered art when I lived in a project space called Limazulu and that felt like the setting I wanted to explore the moving image in.
   
   
4. What’s been the most rewarding part of creating your film, A Radical Duet?
   Working with all the cast and crew, the feeling I had on the set, and the very fact that my words on a page became real.
   
   
5. What’s your favourite thing about being an artist?
   That my job is to think, follow my curiosities and share that.
   
   
6. Which bands or musicians are on your playlist at the moment?
   I recently got my record player working again and so was listening to something I bought in the pandemic but haven’t spent so much time with, African Acid is the Future.
   
   
7. What do you do when you have a day off?
   Pretend I know how to relax! I’m trying to find a new hobby after roller derby took over my life.
   
   
8. What works or shows do you have in the pipeline?
   Next year I’ll be in the Nigerian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale and touring history is a living weapon in yr hand to other galleries in the UK. I want to make the feature film version of A Radical Duet so trying to rustle up some funding!