Symposium: In Place of Architecture

Friday 6 November 2015

Bonington Gallery at Nottingham Trent University

Friday 6 November 2015 

Symposium: In Place of Architecture

My colleagues and I had the chance to visit the Symposium in the Bonington Gallery at Nottingham Trent University. The Bonington Gallery is a contemporary gallery space. Artists are invited to spend a period of time in the Gallery to create lines, marks and tones that explore and respond to the space through different processes (Bonington Gallery, 2016). 

After my BA, it was the first combine teacher/ student exhibition I visited and I was curious about what I was going to see. At the beginning, we saw the exhibition in the Main Hall of the Gallery and then the Photography Dialogue: Constructing a space for remembrance. The presented work was very meaningful as it was ‘touching’ sensitive events of our era. The BA Architecture students, as part of their research visited the National Memorial Arboretum. Most of the images in the exhibition responded to commemorative architecture.

                                                                           Fig1

The images where very meaningful giving a powerful massage to the viewers. I a map of Nottingham very interesting as it showed, key buildings and locations as memory points, some of them invisible now as have rebuild and other points with statues as remembrances.  The poster with map of Nottingham navigated me through my own memory of buildings and I was able to see how these buildings have been transformed throughout the history and into the present. I wondered about the extent to which these buildings influence people and how their existence always reminds people of events in history. There was a comment on the black wall which attracted my attention that stated ‘Always remember’, and personally, I do believe that people do remember the past, whatever happens.

                                                                  Fig. 2, 3 and 4

The idea of exhibiting the work above a black wall was very inspirational and meaningful. At the black wall everybody was invited to write their thoughts and feelings. This gave visitors the opportunity to interact and express themselves along with the artists in the exhibition.

Figures:

Fig. 1  Michael S, 2015 
Fig 2,3 and 4 Michael S, 2015