Exhibitions and Online Content
Exhibition Exploration: FORMAT Open Call/FORMAT 19
For this QUAD/ FORMAT Exhibition Exploration, Senior Curator Peter Bonnell hosts his colleague and QUAD/ FORMAT Assistant Curator Laura O’Leary. Laura gives a behind-the-scenes and highly insightful tour – using a 3D virtual exhibition tour produced by V21 Artspace – of the FORMAT Open Call Artists exhibition that was throughout QUAD’s Extra Gallery Spaces during FORMAT19 in 2019.
https://www.derbyquad.co.uk/about/news/exhibition-explorations-format-open-callformat19
Podcast Provocations: Ibrahim Ahmed, 7:15pm,12 August
Nottingham Arts Mela, online
The Sun Rises from the East (audio) + Amidst the Absence, My Presence is Felt (video)
Edited by Phoebe Boswell, special thanks to Phoebe Boswell.
https://www.nottinghamartsmela.org/programme/podcast-provocations-ibrahim-ahmed
Film Night: Sites of Rupture
Nottingham Arts Mela, online
8pm, 13 – 15 August
All films will be released at the specified time (BST) and be available for 48 hours:
Fahim Irshad: Aani Maani
The ‘sufi darvesh’ inspired twirling around and around is known as Aani Maani in the UP; it is a very popular game among children.
Vishwendra Singh: Hauah
An ancient mythical dread of the Hauah is upon the village of Nagla Nannu. The elders have chosen Bhoora as their saviour. Or is he their sacrifice? Bhoora has 7 days to save himself and his farm from the ensuing misfortune. Meanwhile, others find an opportunity to benefit from this supposed curse.
Samya Mandal: Drifter – Kolkata, India
A girl is a ‘home’s pride’ as if she’s a commodity that can be exchanged from one person to another. She’s a silent watcher. She doesn’t speak because her voice is always unheard of in a middle-class household of a small town, India.
Garima Kaul: Desire? – Mumbai, India
In a country where expression of sexuality is regimentalised to an extent that it is seen as profane and immoral, it could be assumed that asexuals lead an easier life, but sex remains as much a taboo as the lack of interest in it.
Nishat Jahan Nafiza: Ocean Beneath the Door – Dhaka, Bangladesh
My project is intended to explore the chronicle of survival; during a time when life is still and contained. Lockdown, Social distancing, Quarantine; these were all unfamiliar words to us with respect to living our daily lives during the earlier times of the pandemic.
Shona Sharma: Searching For Father & Finding Mother
Searching for Father and Finding Mother is a film that captures a deep introspection into the origins of my family, as a device to explore issues of colonialism, cultural identity, territorial struggles, and dispossession.
https://www.nottinghamartsmela.org/programme/film-night-iii-sites-of-rupture
Nottingham Contemporary Re-opening
Denzil Forrester: Itchin & Scratchin
Spanning more than 40 years, Itchin & Scratchin is Denzil Forrester’s most significant institutional show to date, bringing together a wide range of paintings and drawings by the Grenada-born British artist.
Diane Simpson: Sculpture, Drawing, Prints 1976–2014.
There is a carefully considered balance in the work of the Chicago-based artist Diane Simpson, where fluidity meets rigidity, and minimal flat forms create a complex sense of depth.
https://nottinghamcontemporary.org/whats-on
Acitivites & Workshops
BARDO: Deep Listening Walk, 2pm 15 Aug
Chaos Magic
A meditative listening and collaborative sound-making workshop inspired by the work of Pauline Oliveros, who devoted her life to ‘Deep Listening’ which aims ‘to create an atmosphere of opening for all to be heard, with the understanding that listening is healing’. This is a way of being that goes beyond the divide between self and other as well as hierarchies of power. It can enable a ‘re-tuning’ of body and mind, and a radical acceptance of all that we are.
We will start at The Curious Tower, Victoria Park Nnottingham and then make our way to Colwick Woods. Led by Harry Martin.
https://www.facebook.com/events/324211698622111/
Isolated Moments: Slow Stitching
Fermynwoods Contemporary Art
The final activity in our current Isolated Moments series, aiming to keep spirits buoyed and creativity alive during COVID-19 social distancing and quarantining measures, comes from Ruth Singer. Ruth is an explorer and investigator of objects, stories, places, materials and memories; collecting fragments of narratives, textures and feelings, turning them into precious things, bound, wrapped, adorned, stitched and embellished.
http://fermynwoods.org/isolated-moments-slow-stitching/
Our Haven #2 Photography Exercise
St James’ Square Grimsby x Our Big Picture
St james’ Square is being re-invented as a space for everyone to enjoy that celebrates the stories of Grimsby. Here is one way to get involved.
https://twitter.com/our_big_picture/status/1288129330724446208