adam – One Thoresby Street

Release Room

NMG R&D Bursary recipients Seema Mattu, Tom Harris and Sean Roy Parker will meet in person for the first time for an improvised audio-visual performance, collating elements of their independent work made over the winter. This informal affair will marry Seema’s rendered animations of fanciful landscapes (which are set inside her developing narrative), with Tom’s generative approach to music-making, and a selection of excerpts from Sean Roy’s journal. Herbal drinks will be provided.

Informal welcome and herbal drinks from 6 – 6.30pm. Performance to begin at 6.30pm.

Release Room has been developed with the support of an NMG Development Programme R&D Bursary scheme, looking to support Midlands-based artists to be ambitious in developing their practice. Event supported by One Thoresby Street.

Event

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Sticking Ground

‘Sticking Ground’ is a trio exhibition with Hannah Dinsdale, Sophie Giller and Sophie Goodchild at One Thoresby Street. The artists have collaborated to create a show which brings together their individual research into sensory awareness, embodiment, craft and processes of making. The exhibition will feature a commemorative quilt of One Thoresby Street and its members from the last fourteen years. A large bean bag will invite audiences to lie or sit within its malleable soft cushion. Felted works signal to the ritualistic methods of making and construct imagery through the process of layering.

Through sculpture, sound, textiles, and installation, these works are grounded in systems of connectivity and circadian rhythms: circuits, sounds, pathways, structures, circles, loops that move between, interlock and weave through textures, materials and forms. Fibres are dyed, felted, and hand- and machine-sewn to create new soft combinations of materials and networks.

‘We touch things to assure ourselves of reality. We touch the objects of our love. We touch the things we form. Our tactile experiences are elemental. If we reduce their range, as we do when we reduce the necessity to form things ourselves, we grow lopsided.’

Anni Albers, On Weaving

Exhibition

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Rebecca Jarman – Bias Cut

One Thoresby Street and New Midland Group (NMG) are pleased to present Bias Cut, an exhibition of new work by Rebecca Jarman. Jarman is the recipient of NMG’s UoL Production Bursary, given in partnership with University of Lincoln. Offered exclusively to undergraduates from University of Lincoln’s BA (Hons) Fine Art who graduated in 2020/21, this opportunity was for an emerging artist affected by the Covid-19 pandemic providing them with the tools and resources to produce and exhibit work within a NMG partner venue.

Working in a variety of media including drawing, installation, and sound, Jarman’s practice centers on how art can act as a conduit for social change.

Jarman often takes an analytic and research based approach and has taken Caroline Criado-Perez’s ‘One-Size-Fits-Men’* discussion as a starting point for this project. Perez notes that ‘women have, on average, smaller hands than men’ but very few manufacturers cater to this. Similarly, women’s clothes often have significantly smaller pockets or lack pockets completely. Women are often encumbered more than men and thus have to change their behaviour to fit their surroundings, rather than the design of their surroundings adapting to them. This is highlighted in Jarman’s denim-tapestry work, where we are able to see the significant difference in size of a man’s jean pocket to a woman’s. Often, design marginalises women’s bodies, meaning that both literally and figuratively, women don’t fit in.The unconscious biases that lie behind these misogynistic designs, and the effect they have on the everyday experience of women are further emphasised by the abject, grotesque sculptures in the exhibition.

“I met Criado-Perez in October 2021 and asked her how she imagined her work would translate into art, her response was ‘I don’t know you’re the artist, you tell me’. This exhibition is my personal response to not only her ideas, but my experience living as a woman in the modern, man-made world.” -Rebecca Jarman.

*Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men 2019.

Supported by the NMG Development Programme, an Arts Council England Funded project delivered through New Midland Group, a consortium of three artist-led organisations located in Nottingham: Backlit, One Thoresby Street and Primary. We work together to foster the profile and sustainability of contemporary visual arts in the Midlands.

Exhibition, Residency

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New Midland Group Associate Residencies

From January 3rd – 16th One Thoresby Street hosted a series of short residencies by New Midland Group associates Millie Quick, Miffy Ryan and Melanie Wheeler.

Millie Quick worked on her project ‘Egregorial: a testament engine’, described as ‘ritual, reflection and revelation in her memory shrine. One Thoresby Street in Sneinton is the perfect place to pause, look back and reach forward.’ Audiences were invited to discuss the power of memory for community building, and take part in the shaping of the egregore: a reflection of people and power.

Miffy Ryan activated the space with the Lone Ones Collective, exploring Art Activism, questioning if society can self organise, and thinking about Palle Nielsen’s ‘The Model – A Model for a Qualitative Society’ (In 1968 Palle Nielsen approached the Moderna Museet in Stockholm with a proposal for turning the museum into an adventure playground).

The collective looked at themes of Queer Reproduction and the connections between supernatural, folklore and liminal land in a queer context.

Melanie Wheeler focused on creating costumes, votive objects and rituals and inviting the public into the space to participate in reenactments / reenlivenings of ancient water rituals that were practiced by Pre-Christian Water Cults.

This work in progress explored; rituals of care, participation, animism and an experiment in thinking about folklore, connections with land and watery bodies, environmental cultures and ‘A new mode of post-human feminist phenomenology that understands our bodies as being fundamentally part of the natural world and not separate from or privileged to it’ developed in – Bodies of Water by Astrida Neimanis 2017

Images by Ismail Khokon, Sophie Mackfall, Miffy Ryan

Residency

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FEAST

As SOBJECTS drew to a close and the earth’s shadow eclipsed the full moon, to conclude the exhibition esteemed-possible-dinner-guests came to party with us at One Thoresby Street from sundown.

‘Crawl through the hole, erase the exhibition, get a special treat. Don’t come hungry don’t come gorgeous!’

VIPs were flown in from Hamburg, to deliver rousing speeches. The monster munch was crunched. The adrenochrome flowed. Grey liquid poured forth like rivers.

Exhibition

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SOBJECTS

Just get rid of everything and crawl through the hole. “SOBJECTS” shows three collectively installed videoworks that share distinct director/performer relationships, and slippages between performance and video. The exhibition will culminate in a Feast with performers from the videos beginning at sundown on Friday 19th November.

Opening November 5th, 11am-7pm.
Continues Thursday, Friday & Saturday, 11am-5pm, until November 19th.
Feast November 19th, Sundown-Onwards

–

Daniel Hopp, ADRENOCHROM, Film HD, 20’, 2020

Everyone pursues their own interests. Who makes up the plot here? The protagonists, the filmmaker, the audience? The film takes place during the first lockdown and tells of the relationship between a social worker, a conspiracy believer and a filmmaker. Almost like Big Brother.

Daniel Hopp’s practice gathers friends, actors, relatives, and experts in staged performative situations, which are documented, extended, and condensed in his video works. The protagonists of these constellations are equally bodies, subjects, relationships and social dynamics.
@daniel_h.o.p.p

Shinhoo Yhi, baby, dog, and Dog, 4K, 35’05”, 2021

In ‘baby, dog, and Dog’, Yhi invites the videographers and the handheld camera into the performance to shoot the performer. The performers are trapped to follow directions and play the role of a baby, baggage handler, stray dog, and administrator. On a rainy day comes hypothermia, from a burning asphalt cones dehydration. For who could ever deliver them from the danger of drama?

Shinhoo Yhi works with performance and video in collaboration with musicians. In her recent work, she directs the performers to visualize a state that is impossible to reach with a human body such as animal, speed of a machine, or death. In scrutinising a body which faces power, control, exclusion, or passivity, Yhi creates a dramatic stage in the middle of the city for each character to hit a peculiar condition.
#shinhooyhi

Chloe Langlois, The Magic Sign, 19’38”, 2021

The Magic Sign is a self help spell based on my time working in a betting shop in Shepherd’s Bush. Told through a combination of narration, karaoke, and a re-enactment, in 8 episodes structured around the pagan Wheel of the Year, a cycle of repeated rituals and revivalism. Destructive and problematic in multiple ways, it was also a riotously joyful place. I made this work with the 30 people I’ve been living with since last September, re-visiting ghosts of previous social dynamics, in a psychedelic loop with the new ones.

Working predominantly with live performance and video, my current interests lie in reconstruction as time travel, channelling, and collective euphoria. Making my own props and costumes, I use mostly friends and non-actors in pre-planned but unrehearsed scenes, in order to build chaos within a closed, esoteric world that I drag the audience into.
@clolanglois

Exhibition

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Wigflex City Festival

‘This October, Wigflex turn 15 and to celebrate we’re putting on our biggest multi-venue, day to night dance to date.

We’re taking over our favourite city in the world and filling 20+ venues with all the weird and wonderful Art and visuals we’ve become synonymous for since 2006.

Think never before danced in outdoor spaces, warehouses, basements, churches and more. All filled to the brim with some of the heaviest hitters in the game, including old Flex family favourites and debut performances a plenty.

We can’t wait to see you down the front..’

Images by Frankie Casillo, Giulia Spadafora & Matt Woodham

Event, Festival

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Late Harvest Party

Following our afternoon of talks, and activities we opened up our newly expanded project space and brought back the OTS tradition of partying.

DJs Feminem & Jonathan P. Watts were joined by some our own community including Marika, Ellen Angus & Naomi Nakazato and laid down the tracks until the early hours of the morning.

From Paul Hughes:

‘The day is coming to an end. The ground-floor space has been cleared. Matt Woodham has rigged some lights and DJ FEMINEM has started to play. It’s cold – we’re now definitely past summer – but as I dance I begin to strip off layers of clothes. After months of lockdown, I’ve yearned for this. I’m grinning, sweating, weaving through the space, bouncing between friends and strangers. I imagine a flow of energy vibrating from the bodies in the room, into the walls and floor, back into the people, past and present and future.’

Late Harvest Review – Paul Hughes

Late Harvest was co-produced alongside Effy Harle, and featured the design work of Saria Digregorio

Event

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Late Harvest

‘Late Harvest’ was an afternoon of talks, activities and food to celebrate the studios 13 year long tenure in the building! The event took place in our newly refurbished project space and outdoors with gazebos for shelter displaying artist and alumna Sophie Giller’s colourful patchwork designs. This was followed by a party with DJs Feminem & Jonathan P. Watts and drinks as befits OTS tradition.

Since 2008 OTS has hosted hundreds of creatives through residencies and studio membership, with many artist-run initiatives tracing their origins to OTS. During Late Harvest we invited attendees to celebrate the events, relationships and projects that may not have taken form without OTS as a host. We reflected together on the building itself – as a body that has sustained us – while its future is increasingly uncertain. Through this event we hope that we can initiate a future vision where the OTS community may inhabit new spaces, harnessing the potential of this change to sow the seed of new relationships.

Reviews and writing about Late Harvest:

Late Harvest Review – Paul Paschal

Turning the Soil Blog Post – DARP

Daytime Activities:

‘Alternative Well Dressing’
For this family friendly activity we adapted the Derbyshire tradition of well dressing. Creating vibrant patterns using autumn blooms to adorn the OTS yard bar for the party in the evening.

‘Turning the Soil’
Roundtable discussion with local artist-leds, facilitated by Sean Cummins and Effy Harle. Participating guests include members of Chaos Magic, DARP, Four/Four, Gasleak Mountain, Kühle Wampe and Mansions of the Future.

Artist-led initiatives have long been part of the fibre of OTS. Following this tradition, in Turning the soil we reflected on the dynamic ways cultural institutions, however big or small, have to shapeshift and adapt while navigating the changing nature of our cities. Hibernating, resetting, even dissolving are part of cultural composting. Turning the soil gave all of us a moment to take stock and to jumpstart the conversation about our shared future in Nottingham and beyond.

‘Historic Building Tour’
Here we joined artist Kathryn Cooper to learn about the area and the OTS building, which over its hundred year history has hosted several of Nottingham’s iconic industries. Initially playing a part in the city’s textile production, it later became part of the Boots Island Site before being converted to artist studios in 2008.

‘Leomi Sadler’s Publication Fair and OTS Artists’ Stall’

Studio holder Leomi Sadler hosted a wide spanning publication fair ‘Famicon Express / Mould Map and Global Colleagues’ featuring: Landfill Editions, Decadence Comics, Bonehouse Books, Les Lilas (Blessure Magazine), Megapress, Han Teng / Aushan, Russell Maurice, Coco Palluck, Noel Freibert, Hardeep Pandhal, Horfee and many more…

This ran alongside a sale of print editions, original works, homeware and more from OTS Studio Holders

‘Open Studios’

To shift into our night time events the community opened up their studios to the public, allowing people to get a glimpse at the variety of practices taking place in the building. Visitors were encouraged to explore the building, where artists were on hand to talk about their work, or just say hello.

Late Harvest was co-produced alongside Effy Harle, and featured the design work of Saria Digregorio

Event, Festival, Talk

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Arit Etukudo Residency

During July and August OTS hosted Arit Etukudo for a production bursary, in the run up to her first solo UK exhibition ‘The Christening’ at New Art Exchange

Whilst in residence Arit developed a series of resin casts with the assistance of studio holder & art technician. These formed the basis of a mixed media video installation which was ‘inspired by a moment where the artist nearly drowned in a swimming pool and experienced an extreme state of solitude which was confirmed as she reached the surface of the water, as her family did not notice her drowning. The work is a metaphor to existential questions, specifically from the experience of a queer black woman. Consequently, her work overemphasises her presence and stamp on this world through the overrepresentation of her body.’.

Arit Emmanuela Etukudo is a Nigerian-American experimental storyteller whose practice focuses on the ideas of identity and life experience. She recreates the human body in various sculptural forms to symbolize the complexity of identity and tell the stories of the ways in which the black woman’s body is allowed to exist. She has a background in filmmaking, theatre, creative writing, and photography which she combines to create image heavy installation pieces.

The Production Residency was awarded as part of New Art Exchange’s NAE Open 2019, and ran with the support of New Art Exchange.