Event: 2nd March
Riot and Refrain: Toni Morrison, Nottingham Contemporary
This study session opens out the ideas and themes of our exhibitions and research strand Sonic Continuum and explores how black feminist authors and thinkers reconceptualise voice, performativity and community against patriarchal and racial oppression.
By discussing their radical aspirations and concurrent approaches to gender, race and class, our study sessions explore the global critiques, poetic tactics, and relational political projects of black women writers, and ask: how might we articulate alternative social and political formations?
This session is led by literary scholar Portia Owusu and dwells on the work of American novelist and essayist, Toni Morrison.
Workshop: 4th March
Yoga & Art #2, New Art Exchange, Nottingham
Similar to yoga, visual art encourages us to pause, slow down and be in the present moment. During this Yoga & Art experience, you’ll have time to mindfully explore Phoebe Boswell’s Here exhibition through a short film and calming soundscape we’ve created especially for these sessions.
We’ll begin with yoga to awaken our body and senses, followed by our short film featuring the exhibition. The film and accompanying soundtrack will immerse you in a calm and slow wander through Phoebe’s Boswell work. The session ends with a deep guided relaxation, leaving you feeling rested and relaxed.
Exhibition: 4th March
‘Hold Up’ by Lulu Senft, MPND, Loughborough
This exhibition livestream offers the chance to experience a unique, intimate and up-close insight into Lulu’s ceramics and artistic practice. Lovingly produced by film makers Homespun Projects, the livestream will give you exclusive footage of the project, guide you through the exhibition, and share Lulu’s own perspective of the work.
Hold Up explores ideas of support, grief and narrative, focusing on one of Lulu’s primary materials – clay. Lulu’s work is often made up of figures, busts, and faces created using tactile, expressive materials. Alongside behind the, scenes footage, stop-motion animation, music and creative writing, the livestream will unpack the exhibition through numerous creative narratives; inviting you to join us from the comforts of your own home.
Workshop: 6th March
Bodies of Knowledge: Transgender-Run Photography Workshops, Radar, Loughborough
Trans bodies are trans-formed into sites of visual narrative through social and mainstream media. While this can create a space for the positive reflection and construction of trans experience, it can also (re)produce oppressive norms regarding how trans people should look, feel and act. These workshops begin from the understanding that trans bodies are their own sites of production, and that they may be rebellious, celebratory, elusive, chaotic or something else entirely.
Led by the artist Raju Rage and co-facilitator Isaac Scott Briggs, with the support of Nat Thorne (both of Notts Trans Hub), the workshops will generate discussion about the visual narratives of our bodies with questions about representation, and facilitate the use of analogue photography so participants can generate their own trans visual narratives on bodies, being seen/not-seen, and lived experience. The politics of this process will be interrogated at each step.