The Formations programme is led by the Postcolonial Studies Centre at Nottingham Trent University in collaboration with Bonington Gallery. The series foregrounds the work of underrepresented writers, academics, artists, intellectuals and activists worldwide who address inequalities of all kinds, often bringing people from different places and working practices together for important conversations.
The first segment of our 2021-22 Formations programme pays attention to the concept of indigeneity, and to indigenous people, communities, landscapes, artists, writers, and groups. Often considered controversial and closely associated with activism and protest related to rights and land access, indigenous artists and writers are creating some of the most innovative work and asking important questions about sustainability of all forms in New Zealand, Australia, Pacific Islands, Northern Europe, and North and South America. This segment brings together creative work by indigenous writers and artists from separate locations, to forge conversations about the ways in which indigenous scholarship, activism, and creativity is central to global questions of inequality.
Formations events in this segment include a special online screening of In My Blood it Runs, an award-winning collaborative documentary that illustrates what it means to grow up as an Indigenous person in Australia through the story of Dujuan Hoosan, a ten-year-old Arrernte healer living in Alice Springs. Two special events are inspired by this film: a conversation between three researchers undertaking work on indigeneity and indigenous art, writing, and film worldwide: Ngahuia Harrison (University of Auckland), Valentina De Riso (NTU) and Dani-Louise Olver (NTU), and a Creative Writing workshop led by novelist Eve Makis.
Eve Makis also leads two connected events with award-winning writer and poet André Naffis-Sahely, who is in conversation and reading from his work with Eve Makis and Rory Waterman, and then leads a Creative Writing workshop with Eve Makis.
Finally, in this segment Formations hosts students from Nottingham Trent University’s second year English and Creative Writing module, Literary Cultures, led by Jenni Ramone. This year, students deliver a conference with contributors from NTU and their collaborative partners, students from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia, Canada. The conference is titled ‘Land of Hope and Toil’, and through guest speaker sessions, talks, and workshops, addresses the diversity of Canadian Literature, considering migrant and indigenous Canadian literature as well as literature written by English and French language settler communities.
Tuesday 30 November 2021, 6 – 7 pm. Followed by a bookable workshop.
While half the world swept west,
we trickled eastward, one by one,
single-file, like fugitives. Next stop:
Abu Dhabi, where my father had a job,and money, for the first time in years . . .
Andre Naffis-Sahely
Raised in Abu Dhabi, by an Iranian father and Italian mother, André’s work is informed by his travels and his cultural inheritance. His work described as clear-eyed, emotionally charged and infused with an acute sense of justice. The Los Angeles-based poet will be talking to us about his life, travels, world view and writing practice. He will be in conversation with the poet, Rory Waterman, and the writer, Eve Makis.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
The talk will be followed by an hour-long writing workshop at 7.15pm led by André on cultural recipe poems. Attendees will be encouraged to write about a dish that is culturally significant to them under André’s expert guidance. Information and booking link below.
Following the conversation event this evening, you are invited to participate in an hour-long writing workshop at 7.15pm led by André on cultural recipe poems. Attendees will be encouraged to write about a dish that is culturally significant to them under André’s expert guidance.
Places on the workshop will be limited so please book early.
All levels welcome.
Wednesday 1 December 2021
Formations hosts students from Nottingham Trent University’s second year English and Creative Writing module, Literary Cultures, led by Jenni Ramone. This year, students deliver a conference with contributors from NTU and their collaborative partners, students from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia, Canada. The conference is titled Land of Hope and Toil, and through guest speaker sessions, talks, and workshops, addresses the diversity of Canadian Literature, considering migrant and indigenous Canadian literature as well as literature written by English and French language settler communities.
A full programme can be found here.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Monday 22 November – Friday 31 December
Formations invites you to watch In My Blood it Runs and to take part in the related Conversation event and Creative Writing workshop inspired by the film.
Ten-year-old Dujuan is a child-healer, a good hunter and speaks three languages. As he shares his wisdom of history and the complex world around him we see his spark and intelligence. Yet Dujuan is ‘failing’ in school and facing increasing scrutiny from welfare and the police. As he travels perilously close to incarceration, his family fight to give him a strong Arrernte education alongside his western education lest he becomes another statistic. We walk with him as he grapples with these pressures, shares his truths and somewhere in-between finds space to dream, imagine and hope for his future self.
For more information, resources, and interviews with the cast, see the film’s official website: www.inmyblooditruns.com
Read a review of the film written by Rebecca Rees, BA (Hons) Creative Writing (year 1), Nottingham Trent University here.
Thursday 9 December 7-8pm
In My Blood It Runs is a collaborative documentary that illustrates what it means to grow up as an Indigenous person in Australia through the story of Dujuan Hoosan, a ten-year-old Arrernte healer living in Alice Springs. Dujuan’s wisdom is cherished by his family and tribe, but he struggles in school and faces increasing surveillance from the child welfare and the police. Doctoral researchers Dani Louise Olver (Nottingham Trent University), Ngahuia Harrison (University of Auckland), and Valentina de Riso (Nottingham Trent University) discuss the film in the broader context of Indigenous studies with attention paid to topics of education, justice, history, memory, language, and Indigenous resistance.
For more information, resources, and interviews with the cast, see the film’s official website: www.inmyblooditruns.com
Click here to watch via our YouTube
Thursday 16 December 6 – 7 pm
Writing for young people is a constant exploration of the points where a character’s ordinary world and the reader’s ordinary world intersects. Candy Gourlay will briefly discuss the concept of the “ordinary world” in fiction and break down how she built her indigenous characters from historical readings and contemporary insight.
This reading and conversation event is followed by a creative writing workshop with Candy Gourlay and Eve Makis, limited to 20 participants.
Click here to watch via our YouTube
Thursday 16 December 7:15 – 8:15 pm
Eve Makis invites you to join Candy Gourlay and take part in a Creative Writing workshop inspired by the film that we are screening as part of the Formations segment which pays attention to indigeneity and to Indigenous artists and writers worldwide.
Writing for young people is a constant exploration of the points where a character’s ordinary world and the reader’s ordinary world intersects. Candy Gourlay will briefly discuss the concept of the “ordinary world” in fiction and break down how she built her indigenous characters from historical readings and contemporary insight. Using some research Candy is doing on her current novel, participants will write a short scene under time pressure, share, and discuss.
For more information, resources, and interviews with the cast, see the film’s official website: www.inmyblooditruns.com
We’re delighted to welcome artist Andrew Logan and designer Dame Zandra Rhodes for the first public in-conversation event of our new ‘Foundations’ series, delivered in partnership by Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham Contemporary.
Self-proclaimed maximalists Andrew and Zandra met in 1972 at Andrew’s inaugural Alternative Miss World contest, the alternative beauty pageant that him and his team still run to this day. The two soon became close friends and have since travelled the world together, collaborated with each other, and share many of the friends that were so influential in early 70s and 80s British culture and sub-culture.
Join us for the rare opportunity to hear these two iconic figures of art and design talk openly and candidly about the early and influential moments in each of their careers.
This event coincides with our current exhibition Andrew Logan’s The Joy of Sculpture.
Watch Foundations: Andrew Logan and Zandra Rhodes on YouTube.
Register for your free place to watch this event in person at Nottingham Trent University’s City Campus, or to tune into the livestream if you can’t make it to Nottingham.
Foundations explores the formative moments in practitioners’ careers. It’s about the relationship between artists, art schools and the wider world.
A new collaboration between Nottingham Contemporary and Nottingham Trent University, this series hosts conversations between acclaimed artists, designers, musicians, filmmakers and architects. Intended to both inform and inspire, Foundations will pose questions such as: Can art be taught? What next for cultural education? What do we mean by experimentation? What and how can we learn from artists? And vice-versa?
Building on the art-school tradition of open-ended dialogue and experimentation, these free events are open to practitioners, students and the public. We plan for all events to take place in person, and to be livestreamed and live captioned; audience contributions will play a central role.
Sculptor, painter and jewellery artist Andrew Logan is one of Britain’s most iconic artists, known for challenging convention, mixing media and playing with our artistic values. Andrew founded the Alternative Miss World contest in 1972, that soon became a meeting place for the leading cultural provocateurs of that time and subsequent years. Judges over the years included David Hockney, Ruby Wax, Leigh Bowery, Grayson Perry, and Zandra Rhodes.
Andrew has always maintained a prolific and dedicated artistic practice, reflecting his unrelenting, and infectious, passion, joy and energy. His established aesthetic utilises the transformation of smashed glass and found objects into flamboyant, colourful and glittering objects, of all shapes and sizes. Andrew has exhibited his work the world over, with several pieces now residing in major collections including the National Portrait Gallery and the Arts Council Collection.
Dame Zandra Rhodes has been a notorious figurehead of the UK fashion industry for five decades, celebrating her 50th year in fashion in September 2019 with a retrospective exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum – founded by Zandra – entitled Zandra Rhodes: 50 Years of Fabulous and a retrospective book published by Yale. Her notoriety as a print designer combined with an affinity for fine fabrics and colour has resulted in a signature aesthetic that is undeniably unique and continues to stand the test of time. A pioneer of the British and international fashion scene since the late 60’s, Zandra’s career has seen her collaborate with brands such as Valentino, Topshop and Mac Cosmetics. Continuing to collaborate with brands that inspire her, 2021 will see the launch of Zandra Rhodes x IKEA amongst many other exciting partnerships and projects
Image credit: Andrew Logan and Zandra Rhodes at Penny Stamp Lectures, photo by Chrisstina Hamilton
This free online talk is part of our ongoing public events programme Formations, led in partnership with the Postcolonial Studies Centre (PSC) at Nottingham Trent University (NTU).
Bonington Gallery and the PSC are very pleased to welcome back Dr Leila Kamali, following the talk she gave on John Edgar Wideman in October 2020. This event will be introduced by PSC co-director, Dr Jenni Ramone.
This talk will give a brief history of Black people’s presence in Britain which stretches all the way back to Roman times, and will offer education and resources for understanding the relationship between Britain and its populations of colour as a kind of continual historical pendulum. From Renaissance times, to the 18th century, to the post-Second World War period, Britain has again and again ‘invited’ people of colour to build the nation’s economic and cultural wealth, and simultaneously created conditions which exclude and dehumanise people of colour, and which foster and encourage racism. Whether in the time of Margaret Thatcher, the New Cross Fire and the repressive SUS laws, or in the wake of Brexit and the Black Lives Matter protests, Britain has a track-record of racial repression which supports and also precedes the racial violence more often popularly associated with the United States.
In 2020, the public murder of George Floyd caused the spotlight to be turned with a new sensitivity upon anti-Black racism. Now, in 2021, mixed conditions exist – the return of apathy at some level, the brief release again of racial hatred following the UEFA European Football Championship, and a right-wing politics which remains ascendant. This talk will ask questions about where we are situated historically in terms of anti-racist struggle, and in relation to what can be observed from the pendulum of history. Key suggestions will be thought through in terms of the kinds of anti-racist work which are most appropriate, and most likely to foster real inclusivity in Britain today, amidst the many social challenges currently facing us.
Watch on the Bonington Gallery YouTube channel.
Dr Leila Kamali is a literary scholar with specialisms in African American and Black British literature, diaspora, cultural memory and aesthetics. She has held research and lecturing roles at the African American Policy Forum, at the University of Liverpool, Goldsmiths University of London, and King’s College London. Her book The Cultural Memory of Africa in African American and Black British Fiction, 1970-2000 (Palgrave 2016) was named “boldly progressive” and “entirely original and provocative” by Professor Michelle M. Wright and Professor Paul Gilroy respectively. Her articles have been published in Callaloo, Obsidian, Kalfou, and Atlantic Studies, and she has chapters on ‘Diaspora’ in the volume Twenty-First Century Literary Fiction (Routledge 2019), and on Black Queer Poetry in With Fists Raised (Liverpool UP 2021). She is currently working on two monographs, one on the work of John Edgar Wideman, the other on the “inner life of Blackness”.
The sixth segment of Formations, our year-long programme delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s (NTU) Postcolonial Studies Centre, includes events in July & August under the thematic banner – Formation: Lace.
Lace is a prominent part of Nottingham’s industrial and cultural heritage, but its history is a global one, and its popularity in the UK in the nineteenth century was connected with its relative affordability since the cotton used to produce it was imported from slave plantations in the Caribbean and the American South. This segment draws attention to moments and materials in the histories of lace-making in Nottingham and in Cyprus, and invites participation in creative writing and Empowerment doll-making workshops, in a series of creative and conversation events focused on lace and other textiles.
Wednesday 21 July 2021 6.30 pm – 8 pm.
In this writing workshop, Angela Costi will thread the story of her Cypriot grandmother’s lace and embroidery making, called Lefkarathika, which imbues her poetry making. Through visual poems, photos and a display of the actual embroidery itself, you are invited to make word sequences, patterns and designs, stitch by stitch across the page. The kinaesthetic skills of creating ‘fairy windows’ with thread and linen are reimagined through a writing exercise – what do you see? Write it down before it disappears. In this way, we are honouring this traditional craft making that will not be with us for much longer.
Participants wishing to purchase or access a copy of Angela’s poetry book and creative documentation, as reference for the workshop, can do so on the following link, An Embroidery of Old Maps and New (Spinifex, 2021).
All levels welcome.
Click here to watch via our YouTube
Saturday 24 July 2021 10.30 am – 12:00 pm
In this workshop, you can make your own Empowerment Doll using a range of common materials. Advance registration is required and a free package of the materials you will need to make your doll will be sent to you. The workshop is open to all, and may be of particular interest to young people age 8-12, families, younger children supported by an adult, or adults and older children with an interest in dollmaking, textiles, fabrics, lace, or art. The session will be delivered live by Zoom and you will be supported by Rita to create your own doll.
Open to all but limited to 20 participants (advance registration). Aimed at young people age 8-12 and to families but all participants welcome to register.
Rita Kappia is an artist dollmaker from Nottingham. Rita Kappia’s Empowerment Dolls have become synonymous with exploring artistic expression and self-identity – an exploration of one’s sense-of-self. Her collectables have served as a reminder and representation of new empowering thoughts, feelings and expressions to explore and cultivate.
Wednesday 18 August 2021, 5 pm – 6 pm
Following her Zoom workshop in July, we are delighted to launch a video where Rita Kappia will introduce her Empowerment Doll project and provide instruction to create your own doll.
We join her in her workshop to hear about the significance of the art of doll making, what she hopes to achieve with her work, and the importance of making and owning a doll for people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities.
Rita Kappia is an artist dollmaker from Derby. Rita Kappia’s Empowerment Dolls have become synonymous with exploring artistic expression and self-identity – an exploration of one’s sense-of-self. Her collectables have served as a reminder and representation of new empowering thoughts, feelings and expressions to explore and cultivate.
Tune into the Bonington Gallery YouTube channel from 5pm on Wednesday 18 August to watch the video and follow Rita’s tutorial.
Thursday 5 August 2021, 6 – 7 pm
Lace, a fabric composed of thread surrounding holes, it is simultaneously both ubiquitous and symbolically ritualised. Its visual and tactile delights dominate our perceptions of this beautiful and complex fabric. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University have been considering ways to look beneath the surface and the connotations of lace to reveal new perspectives on this unique fabric. This event will present two ongoing projects which are interrogating lace to reveal new stories to enrich our understanding of its relationship with global trade and networks.
The first project is focused on samples of coloured lace found in the archive at NTU, which by using both established and novel scientific methods is aimed at discovering the composition of both the dyes used and the yarn types found in Nottingham lace in the late 19th and early 20th century. The aim being to identify the origins of the raw materials and place this evocative fabric into the matrix of the supply chain of this period.
The second project aims are to tell the story of lace from raw materials to disposal, reuse, or archiving, focusing upon the mechanisation of lacemaking which enabled the use of cotton thread, setting the city on course to become the centre of an international network through which raw materials, design ideas, technological advances, and finished goods were exchanged. Nottingham was thus connected to the cotton plantations of the US South, upon which Britain remained heavily reliant for raw cotton throughout the nineteenth century, but it also relied heavily on US and colonial connections for the export of finished lace. This talk highlights some of the questions raised in this project about the meanings of lace at these various points in its lifecycle, and the ways in which it could express, resist, or reinforce different aspects of the identities of those who worked with or used it.
The fifth segment of Formations, our year-long programme delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s (NTU) Postcolonial Studies Centre, includes events in May under the thematic banner – Formation: Milk.
In this segment, we consider the representations and meanings of breastfeeding and the breastfeeding body, to consider how this highly emotive topic is encountered in writing and art, and in public spaces. Join us for conversations and workshops about global representations of breastfeeding in art, literature, and research, from personal stories to public encounters with art.
Thursday 6 May, 7 pm – 8 pm
Breastfeeding is central to the human experience. It is also a highly emotive topic, debated in public and researched from clinical perspectives, yet in art and literature the topic remains under-emphasised, particularly as a symbolic or representational image. This conversation asks whether artists and writers tell different or similar stories about breastfeeding; engage different or similar audiences; and whether their works might have different or similar impacts on individuals, families, communities, scholarly debates, and frameworks. It will engage with breastfeeding in creative, academic, and personal ways through a discussion with writer and academic Dionne Irving Bremyer (University of West Georgia, ‘My Black Breast Friend’, 2017); academic Ann Marie Short (Saint Mary’s College, Illinois, Breastfeeding and Culture, 2018), and visual artist Lynn Lu (Adagio 2013; On Mother’s Milk And Kisses Fed 2013). Anyone is welcome to attend.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Monday 17 May, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Breastfeeding is traditionally associated with the female body and the body of the mother. Breastfeeding provides nourishment and protection. In addition, feminists have explored how the act of breastfeeding stimulates pleasure, pain and desire but little is known of breastfeeding as an act of resistance, both within and beyond biology. We want to hear about your breastfeeding experiences: the joys, struggles and feelings of ambivalence, your family stories, experiences unique to your gender identity, your culture, heritage or personal circumstances. Come and share your stories and hear others’ that might surprise you, about breastfeeding as resistant practice and breastfeeding beyond the conventional. We welcome all stories, across diverse communities, marginalised experiences and across different generations. We hope you can join us.
The workshop will be co-hosted by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre writer-in-residence Eve Makis and Maud Lannen. All levels welcome.
All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included on a spoken word album bringing their written work to life.
Thursday 3 June, 7 – 8pm
In this conversation event, Rebecca Randle, Learning and Engagement Coordinator, and Helen Cobby, Assistant Curator, both from The Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham, talk to Jenni Ramone about gallery text, the labels or other information which accompanies exhibited artwork, and about how galleries use gallery text and other methods to enhance public engagement with art, to support the generating of ideas, and to elicit emotion. The event will include discussion of contemporary and historical works of art which represent breastfeeding. Following the event, participants will be invited to write their own ‘gallery text’ for one of the works of art discussed, and selected texts will be published on Bonington Gallery’s Formations website. Anyone is welcome to attend.
Click here to watch via our YouTube
Friday 25 June, 5.00 pm- 6.30 pm
Lecturer in Media Production at Nottingham Trent University, Su Ansell, made the film Breast’work as a single screen video(wall) installation Moving Image Artist and Senior. This work, made in collaboration with women from the East Midlands, aims to challenge the depiction of the female body in art and media.
In this event, the artist and filmmaker talks to Jenni Ramone about the film, the making process, and the public response to the film’s first installations at galleries and conferences across Europe and the US. Ticketed attendees will also receive a link and password to watch the film which will be available until Monday 28 June.
Click here to watch via our YouTube
The fourth segment of Formations, our year-long programme delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre, includes events in March and April under the thematic banner – Formation: DNA. The title ‘DNA’ signals identity, including scientific cataloguing practices, and medical inequalities in postcolonial contexts. Global medical history is replete with controversies over unequal medical practices, and currently, coronavirus death and illness adversely affects non-white and non-wealthy populations. Join us for conversations and workshops about identity, care, inequality, disease, and vaccination.
Thursday 18 March 2021, 5 pm – 6 pm
In this conversation event, Sophie Fuggle (NTU) talks to Aro Velmet (University of Southern California) about the impact and meaning of disease and vaccination in the French colonies of the early twentieth century.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, bacteriologists working French colonies reimagined both the epidemiology and treatment of colonial tuberculosis. What once was seen as an ancient disease now became a European import. And treatment, which in the metropole was oriented around social hygienist practices, such as education, aeration of housing, handwashing, dispensaries and sanatoria visits, became in the colonies focused on one magic bullet: The BCG vaccine, first developed by the Pasteur Institute in 1924. This reimagining of the French “disease of civilization” had profound political consequences for colonial rule – mobilising colonial administrators to rethink their policies and anti-colonial activists from West Africa and Indochina to push for reform and call into question the fundamental tenets of the French “civilising mission”. This talk explores how bacteriological science shaped politics in a globally interconnected empire – from the hospitals of Saigon to colonial exhibitions and anti-colonial protests in 1930s Paris.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Wednesday 31 March 2021, 6.30 pm – 8.30 pm & Wednesday 21 April 2021, 6.30 pm – 8.30 pm
Hero’s Journey Creative Writing Workshop (with free bespoke writing book) with Postcolonial Studies Centre writer-in-residence Eve Makis and scriptwriter Anthony Cropper.
The Hero’s Journey is a storytelling template developed by the academic Joseph Campbell and influenced by myths and legends. Taking inspiration from heroes in film, the environmental activist Erin Brockovich and Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman, we’ll take a look at how it’s pinned together and how you can use the model to structure your own creative works. We’ll show you how to use your own life experiences to inform your work and make your characters as real and complex as you are.
All participants will receive a free copy of Odyssey – Finding Your Way Through Writing. ‘A roadmap for writing great stories – using your life as inspiration.’
All levels welcome. All participants will have the chance to get their work edited and included on a spoken word album, bringing their written work to life.
Wednesday 28 April 2021, 5 pm – 6 pm
Who is caring for the carers?
The ONS have reported that over 60% of COVID-related deaths on the frontline have come from ethnic minority backgrounds, yet ethnic minorities only make up about 17% of the NHS – with Black people being only 6.1% of that. This disproportion generates a lot of questions that desperately need answers.
Working closely with five Black frontline workers and NHS staff, Kwanzaa Collective UK explored the question: “How do you do a job that involves caring for others, when you are working within a system that doesn’t care about you?”
They wanted to hear what Black frontline workers have experienced during the pandemic and over the course of their career, and to answer the question: “Who is caring for our carers?”
Using the words of the frontline workers and stories from several personal interviews, they compiled spoken word poetry, personalised ‘care packages’ for them, and captured a series of intimate, anonymised portraits.
Behind the line was funded as part of a B-arts (North Staffordshire) CARE R&D. The conversation is hosted by KARVAN: ‘together we travel’ of worldlits.com.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
The third segment of Formations, our year-long programme delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre, includes events in January and February under the thematic banner – Formation: Memorials, focusing on the memorialisation of people, places, and histories, through statues and monuments and through writing. We will consider memorialisation in locations including the UK, US, and Pakistan, consider renowned figures and the politics of the statues and other public monuments commemorating them, and invite you to join us for conversations, poetry readings, and writing workshops.
Wednesday 20 January 2021, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Join a writing session with Eve Makis exploring identity and the meaning of resilience, taking inspiration from seminal works by Maya Angelou. All levels welcome.
All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included on a spoken word album bringing their written work to life.
Eve Makis is the author of four novels, a life-writing guide and an award-winning screenplay. She’s recipient of the Young Booksellers International Book of the Year Award and the Aurora Mardiganian Gold Medal, her works shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She teaches fiction on the MA in creative writing at Nottingham Trent University where she is writer in residence for the Postcolonial Studies Centre.
Tuesday 26 January 2021, 4 pm – 5 pm
Annum Salman is a spoken word poet from Pakistan, who has undertaken her Creative Writing MA in Surrey and is currently residing in Karachi. Her book shares her experiences as Pakistani Muslim woman and a foreigner tackling mental health issues, sexism and racism. In line with the theme of memorials, Annum will be joining us live from Pakistan to read from her collection Sense Me and discuss identity, tackling racism and sexism, and her relationship with the UK and Pakistan as a Muslim woman. She will be introduced and in conversation with Ramisha Rafique, postgraduate research student at NTU.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Wednesday 3 February 2021, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Slavery and Public History in the UK and US – A Conversation with Dr Jessica Moody and Professor Stephen Small. Chaired by Dr Jenny Woodley, with Purnachandra Naik.
The histories of both the UK and the USA are inextricably bound up with histories of enslavement and of the enslaved. And yet, both countries have failed to fully recognise or interrogate these pasts. Over recent months activists and campaigners have forced a reckoning with the symbols of this history, from the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, to the fall of numerous Confederate statutes in the United States. They have made headline news and provoked debate about what should be done with monuments to enslavers and what should fill the gaps in our public history.
This online event will bring together two leading scholars of public history and collective memories of slavery. Jessica Moody and Stephen Small will join us for a conversation about histories of slavery and their place in contemporary Britain and the USA.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Wednesday 17 February 2021, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Creative writing workshop inspired by controversial statues. What would a statue say if it could talk? Would it be indignant about its removal? Curse its creator? What stories could it tell you? What late night assignations has it witnessed? Come along and make things up. Express yourself about public art in a creative way.
All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included on a spoken word album bringing their written work to life.
In the second instalment of our year-long Formations programme, delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre, we are pleased to announce our November and December events, under the thematic banner – Formation: Land, focusing on land, agriculture, landscape, and place. We will consider dispossession, migration, and ways the human and land interact, and we invite you to think about recent innovative writing about how humans are connected with the living environment and our heritage.
Wednesday 18 November 2020, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Focusing on the context of Indigenous-settler relations in Canada, this talk considers the ways in which settler-colonialism damages the land and peoples’ relationships to it through exploitation and policies of assimilation, dispossession, and forced relocation aimed at erasing Indigenous identity. Drawing from Lee Maracle’s novel, Celia’s Song, and from Indigenous philosophies of relationality that posit a complex system of relations between peoples and more-than-human beings (animal, plants, ecosystems), Valentina explores how restoring sustainable relationships to the Earth is crucial for establishing and maintaining peaceful relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers in Canada.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Tuesday 8 December 2020, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Interviewed by Bethan Evans, AHRC Midlands 4 Cities funded doctoral candidate at NTU.
In this event, Jenni discusses the significance of reading for understanding place (Cuba, Nigeria, the UK, and India), and some of the fascinating publishing and reading locations explored in the book. You can purchase a copy of the book here.
Click here to watch via out Youtube
Wednesday 25 November 2020, 6.30 pm – 8pm
Join a session with Eve Makis exploring urban and rural landscape writing. Learn how to evoke a landscape using your senses, taking inspiration from the works of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Elif Shafak. All levels welcome.
Eve Makis is the author of four novels, a life-writing guide, and an award-winning screenplay. She teaches fiction on the MA Creative Writing course at Nottingham Trent University, where she is writer in residence for the Postcolonial Studies Centre.
All participants will get the chance to have their work edited and included in a planned NTU anthology.
Wednesday 9 December, 9.30 am – 4.30 pm
Join us for a conference curated by a collective of second year NTU English students, centred around Elizabeth-Jane Burnett’s The Grassling.
The title of the conference, ‘Longing to Belong’, raises questions surrounding our relationship with the term ‘belonging’. It focuses on writers from the diaspora, as we believe that their relationship with belonging is a unique and under-represented experience. Featuring three guest speakers; Eve Makis, Panya Banjoko and Helen Cousins.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Thursday 10 December 2020, 6.30 pm – 7.30 pm
Eve Makis will be interviewing Alex Wheatle about his recently published YA fiction book, The Cane Warriors.
A prolific writer, Alex has had success in many forms including lyrics, poetry, short stories, plays and novel writing for adults and children. His work has been influenced by Brixton, where he grew up, his Jamaican heritage, and his experiences of living in the Shirley Oaks Children’s Home. He developed a hearty reading habit during his time in prison after the Brixton riots and has never looked back. Alex’s latest Young Adult novel, The Cane Warriors, published to critical acclaim in October, is based on the true story of a slave uprising on a sugar cane plantation in Jamaica in the 1700s. In 2008, Alex was awarded an MBE for services to literature and later won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for his book, Crongton Knights.
Alex’s life story was filmed as part of the mini-series, Small Axe, created and directed by Steve McQueen (director of Twelve Years a Slave) and shown on BBC One last Sunday.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
To launch our year-long Formations programme, delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre, we are pleased to announce our October events, under the thematic banner – Formation: History, Critical Responses to Black History Month.
Thursday 15 October 2020, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Join us for an interview with Sharon Monteith, Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Cultural History at NTU, as she tells us more about SNCC’s Stories: The African American Freedom Movement in the Civil Rights South (University of Georgia Press, October 2020).
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee would have commemorated 60 years since its founding in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. This book coincides with that anniversary and uncovers the organisation’s narrative culture and activist literary history. Join Sharon Monteith in conversation about SNCC and her book with Panya Banjoko, poet, director of Nottingham Black Archive and NTU doctoral researcher.
Click here to Watch via our YouTube
Tuesday 20 October 2020, 6.30 pm – 8pm
Join a writing session with Eve Makis exploring identity and the meaning of resilience, taking inspiration from seminal works by Maya Angelou. All levels welcome.
Eve Makis is the author of four novels, a life-writing guide, and an award-winning screenplay. She teaches fiction on the MA Creative Writing course at Nottingham Trent University, where she is writer in residence for the Postcolonial Studies Centre.
All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included in a planned NTU anthology.
Find out more and book your place here.
Wednesday 28 October 2020, 7 pm
Dr Leila Kamali invites audiences to learn about her major film and education project relating to the work of the great African American writer John Edgar Wideman. In this event, Leila discusses Wideman’s work in relation to decolonisation, exploring the ways that the visual images in his writing signal his construction of a decolonising gaze.
Dr Leila Kamali is a literary scholar with specialisms in African American literature, Black British literature, diaspora, transnationalism and cultural memory. Her research investigates the relationship between memory, trauma, language, and tradition, in order to discover ways in which literature resists contemporary forms of racism and builds new forms of citizenship.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
With the launch of the CAMPUS Independent Study Programme, we will be hosting a series of talks by the CAMPUS faculty exploring alternative modes of education, decolonial practices, Black studies, and anti-fascist movements.
Elvira Dyangani Ose’s internationally acclaimed curatorial work is committed to the histories and legacies of colonialism in contemporary African art.
Elvira Dyangani Ose was recently appointed Director of The Showroom. Dyangani Ose was Senior Curator at Creative Time, a New York-based non-profit public arts organisation. Currently a lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, Dyangani Ose is a member of the Thought Council at the Fondazione Prada and is an independent curator. She was Curator of the eighth edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary art (GIBCA 2015) and Curator, International Art at Tate Modern (2011 – 2014). She also recently joined Tate Modern’s Advisory Council.
If you would like to attend this event please RSVP to confirm your attendance.
CAMPUS is a year-long and city-wide independent study programme in curatorial, visual and cultural studies, based on collaborative knowledge production and innovative research practices. It is a free-to-attend programme of monthly closed-door gatherings and free public talks. Taking place in different locations in Nottingham (Nottingham Contemporary, Primary, Bonington Gallery, Backlit), CAMPUS welcomes participants from different backgrounds who wish to engage in conversations about contemporary debates and further explore interdisciplinary practices. CAMPUS is a space of encounter between researchers, practitioners, activists, scholars, institutions and organisations.
