CVAN EM celebrates and supports visual arts and culture in the region, fostering an inclusive long-term future for the sector, emphasising equity and access for all arts workers.
Updates, features, and insights from the visual arts community.
The photographic studio is often understood as a neutral space, stripped of the cultural and social elements that shape identity. In this workshop, Marley Starsky Butler and Euripides Altintzoglou propose alternative approaches to portraiture, foregrounding conversation and collaboration as creative tools.
This free, hands-on workshop introduces artists to the creative potential of Augmented Reality (AR).
CVAN EM and QUAD are delighted to announce that Rita Pena has been selected as the recipient of CVAN EM's Bigger Bursary, delivered in partnership with QUAD, supporting emerging lens-based artists living in the East Midlands.
Discover exhibitions, workshops, talks, performances events and creative activity across the region.
An exhibition of artworks by Christy Burdock, an RCA artist, created in response to Bassetlaw Museum's collection and the communities it serves. Burdock draws on the stories held within collections and the ways ideas move across time and place. Her deeply researched, immersive process was enriched by local voices and memories. Displayed throughout the museum near the objects that inspired them, the beechwood-panel works respond to history, offering new perspectives rather than direct illustration. https://www.christyburdock.com/
Leicester Print Workshop are delighted to offer a real exploration of type in all its formats across a huge range of projects that come together to create a comprehensive toolkit for any artist interested in beginning or developing their Letterpress practice. The course is designed to build understanding of the detailed nature of Letterpress through monthly sessions which will work best if extended by using the free membership that goes with this course.
The NAE Open returns for its sixth iteration in 2026, with a presentation of works that includes paintings, print, video, installation, photography, textiles and sculpture. This exhibition was created through a competitive open application for Nottinghamshire based artists and Global Ethnic majority* artists living anywhere in the UK. A panel of advocates including neighbours, artists and curators chose from a substantive number of submissions. The result is an eclectic and compelling selection of artists at different stages of their careers.
Funding opportunties, residencies, creative roles, commissions, open calls, and professional or creative development.
Working closely with the Arts & Culture Manager, you will lead the creation and delivery of Story Tellers' social media activity, ensuring our content is engaging, inspiring and reaches a wide range of audiences. You will play a key role in capturing the energy and impact of our programme, bringing our projects, artists and communities to life through creative storytelling across our social media platforms. This is an exciting opportunity for someone who understands the arts and cultural sector and is passionate about using social media to connect people with creative opportunities. This contract is for 2 days per week on flexible working arrangements. Please email: • A CV. • A short covering statement (maximum two pages) explaining your relevant experience and why you are interested in working with Story Tellers. • Examples of previous social media campaigns, content creation or creative communications work you have delivered.
Applications are now open for a refreshed edition of Surface’s annual residency and exhibition project. We invite early- and mid-career creatives (with the exclusion of students) to take part in a free 4-week residency and 2-week exhibition. This opportunity in an independent contemporary art space aims to support the generation of new visual artwork. Eight artists will be selected to produce a new body of work for the subsequent exhibition. The residency will take place in our open-plan Project Space, enabling the artists to interact and develop their practice in a stimulating and mutually supportive environment. There will be in-house critical feedback, and opportunities for formal critique sessions with established artists and curators. Please note: this is an unpaid opportunity, providing access to space and resources for development in Nottingham.
In an age of scarcity and excess, what forms of art making remain relevant? zero material recognises that each material, whether tangible or intangible, carries its own agency that awaits to be exercised creatively — informed by diasporic experience, it proposes unorthodox approaches like hacking, smuggling and piggybacking as artistic practice. The artwork may take the form of a gesture, a situation, an infrastructure, a digital trace, a collective action or even an administrative process — the materiality that already penetrates and accumulates in our everyday lives. We are looking for an artist with ESEA heritage whose practice engages with materials, systems, or processes — someone curious about working with what already exists, and interested in how diasporic experience shapes the way things are made. For more information about zero material, please visit our application brief here: https://www.kakilang.org.uk/2026-open-call-zero-material
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