10:00 am

Tour of 24 Guildhall Road

NN Contemporary Art’s CEO and Artistic Director Emer Grant will lead a tour of the building to begin the day. The tour will provide context for the day’s discussions.

11:00 am

Sean Griffiths

Architect, Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster, Artist and Writer Sean Griffiths will share his expertise in designing public spaces as an independent artist and the founder of FAT Architecture. 

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Professor Sean Griffiths is the principle of Modern Architecture at the University of Westminster, and a practising architect, artist and writer. Alongside teaching, he designs architecture, makes gallery-based installations and writes extensively. Sean was the founding director of the art-architecture collaborative FAT, whose design work and art projects have been widely published and discussed. Sean's work -as an individual and as a director of FAT- has been exhibited at major national and international institutions, including the RIBA, the V&A, the ICA, the Royal Academy, and Tate Modern in London, and the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Stroom in Den Haag, Arc en Réve in Bourdeaux, the Secession Haus in Vienna, amongst many others. FAT represented the UK at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.

12:00 pm

Panel on Community Building & Public Realm.

Moira Lascelles (Deputy Director of Up Projects) Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf (Artistic Director of Peckham Platform) & Akil Scafe-Smith (Founding Artist of Resolve Collective).

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Moira Lascelles is Deputy Director at UP Projects.  As well as overseeing the organisation's strategic direction, Moira leads UP Projects partnerships, working to develop progressive public art strategies and commissions that foreground the needs of communities in their conception and development. She also directs UP Projects' digital commissioning programme, ‘This is Public Space’, which explores the online world as a site for public art. She is also the editor of ‘What’s the Point? A Case for Art in the Public

Domain’, published by UP Projects in 2020. 

Nephertiti Oboshie Schandorf is a producer of site-responsive performance, audio and moving image works. Her practice is one that actively seeks collaboration and is informed by the formation of protective networks and cultural archives. Nephertiti has worked on large-scale and high-profile projects with leading arts organisations, including the Manchester and Whitworth Galleries, Art on the Underground, Somerset House, the Singapore Biennale and the City of London. She is the Artistic Director of Peckham Platform, a creative and educational charity founded in South London, and a newly appointed trustee for Artichoke.

RESOLVE is an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges. They have delivered numerous projects, workshops, publications, and talks in the UK and across Europe, with the aim of creating just and equitable visions of change in our built environments. Much of their work aims to provide platforms for producing new knowledge and ideas, whilst collaborating and organising to help build resilience in communities. An integral part of their methodology involves designing with and for young people and under-represented groups in society. For them, ‘design’ encompasses both physical and systemic intervention, exploring ways of using a project’s site as a resource and working with different communities as stakeholders in the short and long-term management of projects. For RESOLVE, design carries more than aesthetic value; it is also a mechanism for political and socio-economic change.

1:30 pm

Lunch & Screening of Considerant by PEROU Collective / Sébastien Thiéry. Generously loaned by FRAC Franche-Comté.

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Shop Area, Ground Floor)

PERU – Pole for the Exploration of Urban Resources – defines itself as “a research-action laboratory on the hostile city designed to bring together political action and architectural action in response to the surrounding danger”. The association chaired by the landscaper Gilles Clément wants to renew knowledge and know-how on crisis situations, outlining the program for overcoming them through acts of creation

2:30 pm

Marie Bak Mortensen (Director of Create London)

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Marie Bak Mortensen is Director of Create London, an arts organisation that commissions socially-engaged art, generous architecture and bold infrastructure that respond to civic needs and local contexts. From 2014-21, she was Head of Exhibitions at RIBA, responsible for exhibitions, commissions, and public programming. Prior to this, she spent six years at Tate devising and delivering large-scale partnership projects in collaboration with UK museums and galleries. Before relocating to the UK, she undertook research into the regeneration of modernist social housing estates on behalf of the Danish government and worked as Assistant Curator at the Danish Design Centre.

3:30 pm

Panel on Food, Soil, Sustainability & Art Organisations

Emilio Hernandez Martinez (Artist from Colaboratory Kitchen) & Cheryl Jones (Director of Grand Union) & Harriet Matzdorf (from the organic farm and research organisation Pollinaria).

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Colaboratory Kitchen. The roving Biocultural Living Archive exchanging seeds and stories in Xochimilco, CDMX, 2022 Photo by Ruben Garay.

Cocina CoLaboratorio (CoLaboratory Kitchen) (Mexico) is a transdisciplinary collective that gathers creatives (artists, designers, architects), farmer communities, scientists and chefs around the kitchen table to exchange knowledge, design and take action towards sustainable food futures. Cocina Colaboratorio regards the kitchen as a co-creative space where people are connected through growing, cooking, tasting, sharing and experimenting. Aspirations and actions are shared and undertaken around the kitchen, mixing world views, knowledge, practices and products through different activities and programmes catered to specific sites and cultures.

Emilio Hernández Martínez, is a design activist and creative researcher, exploring the role of art as a catalyst for peacebuilding. He works on the conceptualization and application of Art + Education projects in different community contexts, exploring the construction of horizontal learning processes and communal spaces for social action. He is the founder of the Imagination Center, a school of artivism in southern Mexico that empowers youngsters to question, imagine and cooperate to build alternative narratives for their communities. He is also part of Cocina Colaboratorio, where he coordinates the creative processes at Santo Domingo Tomaltepec, Oaxaca. Currently he is part of the politics of food art residency at Delfina Foundation, London.

Harriet Matzdorf is an American artist and creative practitioner working in regenerative agriculture, collectives, and transdisciplinary art networks. She is the Artistic Research and Programmes Specialist at Pollinaria, based in Abruzzo, It. Her research interests include multispecies entanglements, Spatio-temporal dynamics between rural and urban settings, and biodiversity explored through embodied practices. Pollinaria is an organic farm and contemporary art project positioned in the region of Abruzzo, Italy. Founded in 2007, Pollinaria works under a dedicated mission of using the complex ecological and social structure of a farm to promote dynamic interdisciplinary research, cultural production, and biodiversity connecting cultivated and wild contexts globally.

Cheryl Jones is Director and one of the founding members of Grand Union, a gallery and artist studios complex in Digbeth, a welcoming organisation, bringing the public closer to art and artists. It hosts a free programme of public exhibitions and events, with many opportunities for discussion and the sharing of ideas. Grand Union supports learning, creating numerous contexts for art and life to intersect. Its work places an emphasis on the importance of collaboration and artistic research. Many of these projects take place outside of the gallery, across the city.

4:45 pm

Closing Remarks

Civic Reading Room Commission

Simon Wright

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Pooleyville is a multidisciplinary creative agency. Based in Milton Keynes, Pooleyville draws together our shared passion and expertise in art, design, technology, socially engaged practice and creative place-making. We work collaboratively with community, cultural and commercial partners to embed creativity into the everyday. Simon Wright Simon is the current Artistic Director of MK Festival Fringe CIC and former Curator, Public Programmes at MK Gallery. With over 15 years’ experience designing and delivering multi-disciplinary arts programmes, projects and commissions; fundraising; cultural strategy and partnership development. He is currency working with NN to Curate Sensing Place and our Civc Reading Room Programmes.

17:30 pm

Food & Wine Tasting Event at V & B Northampton

Location: 10 St Giles' Square, Northampton, NN1 1DA

Local Wine Sommeliers Harriet and Florian Poupinel have moved back from a life in Bordeaux to bring V and B which is an existing brand from France, to the UK. They have opened a space with the sole aim of ‘commoning wine’ and invite participants to a special tasting event of some of their favourite wines curated for their space in Northampton.

10:00 am

Tour of 24 Guildhall Road

NN Contemporary Art’s CEO and Artistic Director Emer Grant will lead a tour of the building to begin the day. The tour will provide context for the day’s discussions.

11:00 am

Cecily Chua (Director of Theatrum Mundi)

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Cecily Chua is Director at Theatrum Mundi leading on design, research, and editorial. As an urban researcher, Cecily has worked on a number of commissioned studies focusing on cultural infrastructure, amplifying the voices of the artists, makers, writers, performers, and communities who are vital to the cultural life of our towns and cities. She has taught on the MA Cities and Spatial Practices programmes at Central Saint Martins exploring how the crafts of the stage can influence architecture and city-making. She holds an MA (Architecture) from the Royal College of Art, and a BA (Architecture) from the University of Sheffield. Cecily previously worked as an urban designer at Publica where she was responsible for delivering area strategies and public realm design for several key sites in the West End of London. She has experience as visiting tutor, lecturer, and critic at the AA, UCL, RCA, and the University of Westminster.

12:00 am

Claire Louise Staunton

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Claire Louise Staunton is an academic researcher, community organiser and curator. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art where she worked as an Associate Lecturer. Her expanded research practice addresses the intersection between art, politics and housing development. Staunton is currently co-editing a book on Artist Placement Group (Koenig/Raven Row), curating a long-term project on housing associations for Three Rivers in Bexley and lecturing in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. She was formerly Research Curator at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, Curator with Inheritance Projects and Curator/Director at Flat Time House. She has (co-)curated a number of significant group and solo exhibitions including Lie of the Land (MK Gallery, Milton Keynes), Jane Drew 1911-1996 (Institute of Contemporary Art, London), Dr Sinclair’s Drawer, Katrina Palmer (Flat Time House, London), The Wanderer (Heritage), Laure Prouvost (The Hepworth Wakefield).

1:00 pm

Lunch & Screening of Considerant by PEROU Collective / Sébastien Thiéry. Generously loaned by FRAC Franche-Comté.

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Shop Area, Ground Floor)

PERU – Pole for the Exploration of Urban Resources – defines itself as “a research-action laboratory on the hostile city designed to bring together political action and architectural action in response to the surrounding danger”. The association chaired by the landscaper Gilles Clément wants to renew knowledge and know-how on crisis situations, outlining the program for overcoming them through acts of creation

2:00 pm

ground / break / ing by artist Rachel Pimm

Creative writing workshop to explore the ways and reasons we extract from and modify the ground around us.

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Second Floor)

Rachel Pimm Allotment. Photo by Ruth Bridget Brennan.

Rachel Pimm works with words, objects and photography to research material stories with a focus on the animal, vegetable and mineral as they transform. They draw on de-colonial, feminist, sick and queer theories to unearth the politics of materials. Recent UK-based work, most of which is collaborative, has been in programmes including The Serpentine Galleries, and Whitechapel Gallery. Residencies include Loughborough University Chemical Engineering, Gurdon Institute of Genetics at Cambridge University, Rabbit Island, Michigan, USA, and as Whitechapel Gallery Writer in Residence 2019-20. Rachel is an Associate Lecturer at Camberwell College of Art and has a forthcoming solo exhibition with Arts Catalyst in Sheffield, UK.

4:30 pm

Art Studios, Education & Place

Matthew Chesney (Director of BACKLIT) & Dr Silvie Jacobi (Director of London School of Mosaic)

Location: Online & 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Matthew Chesney is founder and director of BACKLIT. He is responsible for the visual arts exhibition programming and the creative ethos which underpins the gallery. He founded BACKLIT immediately after graduating from Nottingham Trent University’s BA Fine Art course in 2008. His work as an artist is based on performance, video and sculpture with experimental configurations of people and technologies. He has worked internationally on projects and residencies in Japan, Germany and UK. As an LGBTQ+ filmmaker, he is the Director of Dead Sweet Tv and the creator, writer, and director of the comedy series Charity Shop Sue.

Dr Silvie Jacobi has a background in Fine Art and Geography. She has recently completed a PhD at King's College London on the topic of art schools and their relationship with place. Silvie has been collaborating with the London School of Mosaic since 2007 when it was known as Southbank Mosaics, working on commission, teaching mosaic short courses and fundraising. She has developed the London School of Mosaics’ award-winning diploma course and has overseen the running of their education programmes as Head of Education until she became the Director of the school in 2021.

6:00 pm

Opening Event, Model Village, by Joe Moss

Model Village is a 2-week participatory installation that explores the role of culture in the development of new towns. Over the programme, participants are asked to make houses out of any material to be placed on tabletop-gaming landscapes to create an imagined Model Village.

Location: G22, Vulcan Works

11:00 am

Spatial Practices in Art & Architecture for Empathetic Exchange

Alex Parry & Ryan Hughes: Space X

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Alex Parry is an artist-researcher currently part of the Space X Project alongside researchers and institutions across Europe and the UK, who are exploring spatial practices and how they might promote empathetic ways of living together in urban space. She is doing a practice-based PhD at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University. Her research explores how art workshops act as a form of world-building and speculative fiction –in terms of ideas, social relationships and materials produced. Recent work includes a residency with Eastside Projects exploring coaching skills and speculating on how they could be part of post-capitalist futures. Alex has an MA in Contemporary Art Practice: Public Sphere course from the Royal College of Art, and a BA in Social Anthropology and Media from Goldsmiths University.

Ryan Hughes is an artist, curator and independent researcher interested in DIY cultures, collaboration, community and what was briefly called ‘the post-internet’. He is the founder, Artistic Director and CEO of Coventry Biennial –a social, political and critical platform for contemporary art. Prior to this, he made projects working closely with artists, academics, musicians and technologists at places including MK Gallery, ICA London, Leamington Spa Town Hall, the slopes of Cader Idris and the streets of Digbeth. He has spoken nationally and internationally at events organised by the British Council, Kunsthal Gent and Eastside Projects as well as at a wide range of universities and educational institutions.

12:00 am

Panel on Touring Exhibitions, Itinerancy  & The Regions

Roger Malbert (former Head of Hayward Gallery Touring) & Gareth Bell-Jones (Director and Curator of Flat Time House) & Angelica Sule (Director of Programme Site Gallery)

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Roger Malbert was until July 2018 Head of Hayward Gallery Touring, Southbank Centre, London, where he was responsible for a wide-ranging programme of exhibitions touring to galleries and museums across the UK, including an innovative series of artist-curated shows. He has organised and co-curated many exhibitions and is the author of ‘Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art’, published by Thames & Hudson, 2015. He has written for The Art Newspaper, Modern Painters and Times Literary Supplement, and has written catalogue essays on Roberto Matta, Francisco Goya, John Cage, Louise Bourgeois, Richard Wentworth, Tacita Dean, Michael Armitage and Omar Ba. He is a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) and a Trustee of Autograph ABP.  He was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2019. 

Gareth Bell-Jones is the Director and Curator of Flat Time House (FTHo), a gallery, education space and archive in the former South London home of post-war conceptual artist John Latham. At FTHo, Bell-Jones develops the exhibition programme, residencies, alternative learning platforms and manages the library and archive resources. From 2010-14 he was a curator at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, and he continues to curate independent projects in the UK and internationally. Since 2010, Bell-Jones has taught widely, including Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, and as an associate lecturer for the MA in Curating and Collections at Chelsea School of Art. He regularly writes catalogue and exhibition texts for artists and is the chief editor of NOIT, a journal exploring John Latham’s art and ideas.

Angelica Sule is the Programme Director at Site Gallery in Sheffield. Supporting and platforming underrepresented artists is at the core of her practice, which is variously concerned with people, alternative ways of living and working, empathy, community, collaboration, labour, speculative fiction and feminism. She previously worked at Nottingham Contemporary and completed the Young Curators Residency Programme at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in 2015. She graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2014, having formerly worked at the University of the Arts London and Gallery Primo Alonso. Recent events and exhibitions include ‘In-Side-Out-Side-In’ group exhibition, 2022, ‘New Gestures’ performance showcase, 2022; ‘Points of Rupture’, Phoebe Davies solo exhibition, 2020, at Site Gallery, Sheffield; ‘From Ear to Ear to Eye’, 2017; ‘Absolutely Nothing’, Lara Favaretto solo exhibition, 2017, at Nottingham Contemporary; ‘The Man Who Sat On Himself’, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy, 2015.

1:00 pm

Presentation & Conversation: Activism, Performance & Methods of Re-Defining Public Space

Dylan Fox (Artist) & Haley Morris-Cafiero (Artist and Researcher at the University of Northampton)

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)

Dylan Fox is a queer trans visual artist delivering exhibitions, public programs, and workshops. He leads projects tackling isolation, and advocating for accessibility for LGBTQIA+ people across the UK. Through a practice that is dialogical and participatory, Fox explores the physical, medical, emotional, and social aspects of his gender transition. Fox’s visual artworks underpin these activities by highlighting injustices faced by transgender people; for example, inefficient healthcare pathways, bias in media representation and by extension wider societal views.

Fox’s work aims to challenge normative beliefs and narratives by questioning and shifting social constructs. He generates new works through collaboration, comprising expanded printed matter, found objects, advertising, text, moving image, sound, and audience participation.

Part performer, part artist, and part provocateur, Haley Morris-Cafiero uses her photography as an activist voice to fight discrimination and social invisibility. Morris-Cafiero’s work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the world, and has been featured in numerous newspapers, magazines and viral online including Le Monde, New York Times and Salon. Born in Atlanta, she is a graduate of the University of North Florida, where she earned a BA in Photography and a BFA in Ceramics in 1999. Nominated for the Prix Pictet in 2014 and the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (longlist) in 2021 and a 2020 BMW Residency at the GOEBBLINS finalist, Morris-Cafiero holds a MFA from the University of Arizona in Art. The Magenta Foundation published her monograph, The Watchers, in 2015 and Fall Line Press published her second monograph, The Bully Pulpit, in 2019. Her work is included in the 2021 publication Photography – A Feminist History by Emma Lewis published by Tate. Morris-Cafiero is represented by TJ Boulting Gallery in London and is a Senior Lecturer in Photography at the University of Northampton. She is pursuing a PhD from Westminster University.

2:00 pm

Lunch & Screening of Considerant by PEROU Collective / Sébastien Thiéry. Generously loaned by FRAC Franche-Comté.

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Shop Area, Ground Floor)

PERU – Pole for the Exploration of Urban Resources – defines itself as “a research-action laboratory on the hostile city designed to bring together political action and architectural action in response to the surrounding danger”. The association chaired by the landscaper Gilles Clément wants to renew knowledge and know-how on crisis situations, outlining the program for overcoming them through acts of creation

3:00 pm

Closing Remarks

Emer Grant (Artistic Director and CEO of NNCA).

Location: 24 Guildhall Road (Basement)