Nottingham connected
Community
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MAKING PLACE EXHIBITION By Rebecca Beinart Primary, 33 Seely Road, NG7 1NU “Join us as we celebrate and share the Making Place project, and take part in events to generate ideas for the future.” Primary is an arts space based in Radford, Nottingham. We have recently reopened with an expansive and celebratory exhibition that marks three years of Making Place, our long-term community programme looking at how we learn from the city and use public space.
collaborated with local residents to generate everchanging definitions of a neighbourhood that will be on display at Crocus Café. This multiplicity of voices is important, ensuring that diverse experiences are not erased, and offering an alternative narrative to developer-led ‘place making’. We are currently working with Mojatu to deliver ‘Sounds of the Lockdown’: an audio project with young people.
Throughout the programme, we’ve invited residents in Radford and Lenton to take part in a series of collaborative projects, working with artists and designers to explore issues that shape our local neighbourhoods. The exhibition gathers together a collection of images, objects, sound, and video from across the programme. The Making Place programme continues to evolve, and does not attempt to offer a complete ‘survey’ of the local area. Each project has explored a specific place or question through a collaborative process, which has in turn generated new relationships and ideas that have informed other projects. The Making Place projects have generated research, maps, workshops, meals, photography, storytelling, walks, play, design, and public artworks. We’ve explored three central questions: What do places inherit, and whose histories are preserved? Who imagines the city? And how can communities activate and reclaim public space? Alongside long-term projects, an ongoing series of events have created space for sharing knowledge and explored themes of memory, migration, inequality, imagination, and commons in the city.
We want to build on this collaborative approach, so the exhibition opens up space for your feedback and ideas. As we continue to contend with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, questions about how we imagine shared spaces and who can shape the future of neighbourhoods take on even more significance. The Making Place programme is supported by Arts Council England and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation with projects and events supported by Castle Cavendish, National Lottery Community Fund, Near Now, Near Neighbours, Nottingham City Council, Nottingham City Homes, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Windrush Day Grant. Photo credits: Reece Straw
How to get involved: Visit the exhibition – we are open Fridays and Saturdays, 11am-6pm until 12 December. Attend an online event. Each of the projects uncovers or amplifies a different perspective on local places. For example, we worked with children to create a public artwork exploring the city from the perspective of plants; worked with Nottingham Black Archive to research the Black history of the local Raleigh factory; and
Get involved in our Skillshare programme For more information: www.weareprimary.org Social media: @weareprimary Contact: rebecca@weareprimary.org
