About

NTU Festival: Arcadia
18th – 28th March 2020
Opening Nights: Tuesday 17th and Tuesday 24th March, 6-8pm

This March sees the return of Surface Gallery’s annual collaboration with Nottingham Trent University with the ninth NTU Festival: Arcadia. Following the success of last year’s NTU Festival: Let There Be Light, this year’s selected Fine Art students will be using a critical and reflective approach to curate group exhibitions in response to the festival’s title by exploring concepts such as a lost paradise; an idealised harmony with nature; an unspoiled wilderness; an unattainable utopia.

The NTU Festival offers selected Fine Art students the opportunity to curate a group exhibition that establishes their practice outside of the university. Surface Gallery provides a supportive and professional environment for the students to plan and show their work. Two exhibitions will run concurrently in each week of the festival.

Week One
Tenuous Oasis
Adam Ahmad / Jenna Harris / Katie Hillier / Diana Kassim / Alex Lennox-Warbuton / Amy Mathews / Sharon Maycock /
Exhibition: 18th – 21st March, Main Gallery
Opening Night: Tuesday 17th March, 6-8pm

Tenuous Oasis poses the question: is it possible for nature and technology to work in harmony? In the same way that a bird’s nest is a technology employed by birds to protect their young, our own technologies can become naturalised once they are perceived as a normal part of everyday life. Enter into an immersive and unfamiliar museum exhibit where artefacts from an alternative multiverse represent timelines of lost civilisations and environments, all attempting to reach an Arcadia of their own design.

Huhl-uh-buh-loo
Rebecca Clement / Becky Greensides / Louise Rice-Roberts
Exhibition: 18th – 21st March, Project Space
Opening Night: Tuesday 17th March, 6-8pm
Huhl-uh-buh-loo will be defying the concept of Arcadia by inviting the audience into a mind-altering experience which will challenge their expectations of reality and overcome the social construct of thought. The dystopian exhibition will contain an array of objects and paintings curated around a soil pathway, leading to a tent of utopian dreams.
Week Two
Xanadu
Francesca Bleay / Alice Clarke / Francesca Head / Rosie Marples / Georgina Saunderson / Sophie Triner
Exhibition: 25th – 28th March, Main Gallery
Opening Night: Tuesday 24th March, 6-8pm
The term Xanadu describes a place of great beauty, luxury and contentment. It originates from the poem “Kubla Khan” written by the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. All participating artists will respond to the poem; bringing together an expanded notion of painting and soundwork by transforming the gallery into an immersive alternative reality.
Failed States
Thom Pether / Sarah Tutt
Exhibition: 25th – 28th March, Project Space
Opening Night: Tuesday 24th March, 6-8pm

Sculptor Thom Pether and interdisciplinary artist Sarah Tutt both make work that embraces the fallible and the imperfect, and that lives and dies in a space. Failed States is the culmination of a series of conversations between the two artists, exploring the theme of ‘Arcadia’ from the different perspectives of gender, generation and artistic practice. The exhibition will show work directly developed in response to these conversations, played out into the space over a period of two days.

Artist Talks: Saturday 28th March, 2pm.
An opportunity to meet the artists and learn about the ideas behind the work. This is an informal event, and each talk will be followed by a short Q&A.

Free Entry: Everyone Welcome

Opening Hours:
Opening Nights: Tuesday 17th and Tuesday 24th March, 6-8pm
Tuesday to Friday: 12:00-18:00
Saturday: 11:00-17:00

Surface Gallery
16 Southwell Road, Nottingham, NG1 1DL
0115 947 0793
Email: info@surfacegallery.org
Website: www.surfacegallery.org

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