THE EXCHANGE ON SUNDAY ! ARTIST PROFILE P. 2 • MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL P.4 A TONIC OF TRAILS P.8 • POETRY P.10 • RECIPE P.11
Looking out, and as the rains begin to fall, heavy on my head… my gaze shifts to the other side of the sun - hotter, deeper, further away. Expectant smiles in waiting, only days, hours, minutes, seconds till we will spread our wings and leave behind the pulse of the every day. Our imaginings of the exotic take us high above the clouds, floating , soon to touch down, soon to breathe – at least for a while. As we snatch bags, lock doors, pack up cars, or run for a train, up and down stairs, children on piggyback, shades half off, napping in the lounge, late departures, arrivals, night journeys into the new… As we step out, feasting on the sensation of discovery, our shores become distant, immediacy stealing the fore. So is the eternal inquisitive nature of human kind. The ability to adapt and learn, the child inside will never die, but may be and sometimes too easily is forgotten… ? Sooree Pillay
ng ill Mi a Join B k a m e as we aic s o m tic gigan 13 August, y a d s Tue , free! 2-4pm
Submissions to Sooree@nae.org.uk Deadline every Monday! This issue of ‘The Exchange on Sunday!’ has been put together by: Bethan Davis, Maria Rosaria Digregorio, Skinder Hundal, Sooree Pillay. Set in Merriweather, printed at NAE on Office Depote Lilac 80 g/m².
4.08.2013 / #5
To be forgotten is to die a little Aung San Suu Kyi
THE WEEK AHEAD AT NAE CAFÉ / BAR: SOUNDBITES Let food be the music of love… eat on! Summer tapas and world tunes at the NAE café, enjoy our extended hours! Monday to Friday, 4-7pm SCREENING: YOUR CARNIVAL Showcase of community-based film screening and a display of costumes from leading mas bands of Nottingham. Friday 9 August, 7-9pm, free! LAUNCH + GALLERY TOUR: MICHELLE WALSH East Midlands based photographer launches in the Mezzanine Gallery a portrait series taken immediately after contemplative practices. Saturday 10 August, 12-3:30pm, free! EXHIBITHION: HYSON GREEN PROJECT A series of polaroid photographs of Hyson Green’s small businesses and their owners, by young artist Ben Kay. From Saturday 10 August to 12 October, free! WORKSHOP: CURTAIN OF UNITY Exhibiting in the Main Gallery, Bill Ming leads this textile workshop. Tuesday 13 August, free!
2 • ARTIST PROFILE
re Explo ood’ a fD W the ‘Out o ibition in h x an e p w u our ne allery. Pick the G from Main r Pack rea, e r o l p Ex rces a resou e! fre
FIONA malena
Flamenco dancer brings her show Puertas to New Art Exchange by SOOREE PILLAY
Welcoming Fiona Malena as part of The Exchange on Sunday programme, I am reminded of the newness of it all. As one of the artists we first booked to perform on Sunday, I am excited to meet her, and more so because she holds with her a part of my past. She arrives from Spain, and she brings Flamenco! A part of Spanish culture and tradition for so long, I am fascinated by the art form, and want to learn about her journey towards it.
Fiona was born and brought up in Canada. I ask her first, how she encountered the dance. With a gentle Canadian lilt, she begins to share with me one of her first experiences of flamenco. Whilst growing up in an artistic environment, constantly surrounded by music and dance, and having tried various forms, she cites one of the initial encounters with flamenco as when she went to see it at the University Theatre, Calgary: “There I saw how everything worked together, how the dance, music and singing, everything had a very circular way of responding and interacting and I saw how a dancer also needed to be a performer, needed to be a musician, was a percussionist because of all of these elements uniting”. So she “travelled to the heart of it” – Spain. Fiona’s manner is bright, light, her smile broad and welcoming. And though I have always associated flamenco with simply the deep, stirring power of the dancer, particularly struck by the female performer, I now understand the unique and personal interpretation that she brings to it. Fresh from her performance last night, my head instead is filled with moments of humour, cheeky interactions, with a stamp and a flick of the bata de cola (train of one of the flamenco costumes), she won us with light charm, elegance and a flirtatious invitation to play. The richness of her performance and the depth of her practise is clear, and she speaks of her relationship with flamenco: “I believe that it does reach a beautiful powerful expression when it becomes personal. When you can master the understanding and the techniques of what you are doing be it singing, dance or music. I think the dance really speaks to one when you don’t see any barriers between complete personal expression and actually
3 • THE EXCHANGE ON SUNDAY!
what the genre of flamenco is. So the closer you get to it being personal, in my mind, the more powerful and effective it is”.
Fiona Malena wearing the famous flamenco ‘bata de cola’ (photo by Ivan Karabobaliev)
Moving on to where flamenco sits in the world of dance, Fiona sees it as very much an evolving and changing art form. She works heavily with fusion and world music, and says that she does see Arabic, northern African, African, Greek, Latin American and Asian influences within flamenco. This said, she states that flamenco: “has its own distinctive path, so, because it has some of these origins, I think it has an ability to fuse very readily with new music or with traditional music of many different types”. She speaks of her close working relationship with Liron, the musician that has accompanied her on her current tour. Having met him playing the hang drum, an instrument invented in 2000 in Switzerland, (it is now a highly sought-after instrument), Liron’s work is now an integral part of Fiona’s practise: “I needed someone who understood flamenco rhythms. We have a very connected dialogue. It is only because we understand and read each other so well that we can actually properly perform without a singer and hand clapper. What we are doing is very unique in Seville”. As we close, pick up suitcases and bags, hang drums and guitars, flamenco costumes put to rest, but only for a few hours before they greet the stage lights in York, we reflect on Fiona’s next steps: “Life is a great mystery… things unfold, especially in the artistic world…there are a lot of coincidences and people that cross your path. It’s important to walk through life open-minded. Just a connection, the intent, makes things happen when the time is right. Ideas that have been planted can flourish”.
Fiona is on tour for the next three months, and continues her work bringing the Calgary International Flamenco Festival to life for a third year. With this project she brings international artists to the city, supporting the interchange and development of new work. She will also explore her practise further. As she disappears from sight with a wave and that wide smile, I look up to her eyes, they themselves dancing. Behind the twinkle I note a will of iron, assuring me and reassuring me. She will be back, stronger and still reminding me of the Spain I left, but Sooree Pillay insisting kindly that there is an exciting is, was, and will be path ahead. for a while longer...
4 • MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
MIF 2013
Sound installation at Albert Square, MIF 2013
Manchester International Festival 4th-21st July 2013 by SKINDER HUNDAL
Manchester International Festival (MIF), launched in 2007, is a biennial event. All the works presented are new commissions by MIF. Executive Producer and Artistic Director, Alex Poot, puts together a high profile programme in 2013 bringing in the artistic gravitas of Abida Praveen, Hans Ulrich Orbrist, Massive Attack and Kenneth Branagh to name a few of the biggies! There is a lot more than just the household names though… My brief visit starts perfectly, where I am encouraged to partake in one of my favourite past times… dreaming! I arrive alone in Manchester, although I was planning to bring my son who is at a loose end after finishing college. He decides to snore the morning off however! So, I enter Albert Square, the heart of the MIF, enter a shipping container, as you do, where a sound installation, a bed and my two buddies, Alnoor and Armani, join me. We climb into the installation in an intimate space, lie down on a soft bed draped with see-through curtains. The lights go off and the sounds start, our imaginations wander and unravel new possibilities, unexpected for that time of the day. We awaken, then exit from whence we came. We are welcomed by the burning
heat, replicating the tropical sounds and places imagined in our dreams whilst in the container. We all agree that the power of dreaming realises a happy future. We then enter Manchester Art Gallery, a show curated by Hans Ulrich Orbrist. The exhibition is busy. The title of the show Doit is exactly what it implies. It encourages audiences to actively participate with the art. We try several activities and realise that this is probably not for us. I say goodbye to my friends and move on to the Mayfield Depot. Now disused, this is an immense building, stunning in size, scale and history. Featuring here are a range of art installations. The one that totally mesmerizes me is Evaporating Landscapes by choreographer Mette Ingvartsen. This is both a conceptually and technically brilliant installation connecting sound, light and some audience participation. The movement of steam, dry ice and bubbles engulf five miniature mountains of foam. Mette plays with our perceptions, creating waves of clouds that replicate the stormy sea Skinder Hundal crashing into mountains is CEO of NAE and of ice, then uses threeis interested in the dimensional bubbles ‘emergence’ and and two coloured spot ‘dream’
5 • THE EXCHANGE ON SUNDAY!
lights to create a shower of synchronised lights, where the reflections of the lamps are trapped, like twins in an embryo, descending to their death, into the depths of the ocean black never to be seen, swallowed by the depths of the unknown. The whole experience is so memorable that it features now in my top ten artistic encounters. It must be seen. At the end of the show I meet Mette and Alex Poots and congratulate them in stunned awe. ‘The Machine’ at Campfield Market Hall and ‘Doit’ at Manchester Art Gallery, MIF 2013
After this totally immersive moment I am content with the idea of returning to the Midlands, but not before heading to the Campfield Market Hall to see The Machine, a true story about a man who takes on the challenge to defeat a machine. This clever theatre piece, directed by Josie Rourke and written by Matt Charman, captures the moment in 1997 when Gary Kasparov, the world number one chess player, takes on IBM’s Deep Blue, a computer designed by Dr Feng-Hsiung Hsu. Both Kasparav and Hsu are geniuses in their own right. The show is presented in the round and explores the history and psychologies of both protagonists. It is well worth seeing as it explores the making of these characters and how the art and science of robotics is encroaching into the territory of human consciousness. MIF 2013 has now finished but you will be able to catch some of the works as they tour the UK over the coming year. For more information visit www.mif.co.uk.
See page 9 for ‘A Tonic of Trails’ and read more about MIF and other experiences.
6 • HOME AND AWAY
‘Wonderland’ launch, a largescale community project that embraces learning and participation through the creative arts. This will lead to a major NAE exhibition in 2014 (17 July, photo provided by Chromatic Cultures)
The ‘Out of Da Wood’ install with Bill Ming (25 July, photo by Skinder Hundal)
Charles Washington and his blues jazz band performing during the Bill Ming exhibition launch (26 July, photo by Muhammed El Nahas)
‘Changing Dynamics’ in conversation with critic, broadcaster and writer Bidisha (18 July, photo by Skinder Hundal)
7 • THE EXCHANGE ON SUNDAY! YARD performances: ‘Coming Home’ (left) and ‘stRuck!’ (below) (20 July, photo by Muhammed El Nahas)
Katrin Binder after her performance of Yakshagana dance (28 July, photo by Sooree Pillay) NAE championing the self-expression of artists and staff members alike – with Emma our marketing manager, and the lovely Rich! (26 July, photo by Sooree Pillay)
Fiona Malena performs ‘Puertas’ at NAE (21 July, photo by Muhammed El Nahas)
Artist Frank Abbott experiments and shares the history and migration of fruit to the UK (20 July, photo by Skinder Hundal)
8 • A TONIC OF TRAILS The team at New Art Exchange is constantly out and about searching for great art and inspiration. In this section we are creating a trail and connection to places we visit and artists or instigators. We are keen on sharing with you because they inspire us or touch us deeply. We call it ‘A Tonic of Trails’. The term tonic is musical in its tone and rhythm and certainly intoxicating in its mix.
Hatch: Scratched Hatch’s trail Last Sunday seven artists shared their work at NAE, inviting people to partake in experiments, to try fruit salad, to take tea in bed together, to go back in time to a party in the 1960s, to sit and remember, to make noise, to see the conjuror make the cat disappear, to watch, to question, Hatch is a theatre to be there with without a building us and to create that exists to bring something that has performers and no use for walls audiences together. between the work, the artists and the audience. Thank you all for coming. And thank you to NAE for an enthusiastic and generous welcome and support all along the way.
Launch of ‘Wonderland’ Saira Lloyd’s trail Wednesday 17th July 2013 saw the launch of Wonderland at New Art Exchange by Chromatic Cultures. The organisation has been working with communities from across the city of Nottingham to participate in a series of workshops to create artworks that symbolise their hopes and aspirations for themselves and their city. Groups included the Refugee Forum, young persons, offenders, schools, police, resident’s groups, local galleries, musicians and artists and their voices were brought together as a symbolic interpretation of culture, identity and relationships. This project is borne from a personal philosophy that embraces equality and cultural diversity and a belief that working with like-minded individuals and organisations can bring about real change. It seeks to disrupt entrenched cultural ideologies that prevent a tolerant and equitable society. The partnership with New Art Exchange Saira Lloyd is an artist, brings together two organisations curator, scientist and that are committed cultural entrepreneur towards working for based in Nottingham. a world that is free She is the co-creative from oppression, director of Chromatic inequality and Cultures with Rhiannon political injustice Slade. through the ubiquitous power of Art to change lives. Watch out for more Wonderland events: 3 December 2013, 18 February 2014 and 11 September 2014.
9 • THE EXCHANGE ON SUNDAY!
Manchester International Festival 2013 Alnoor Mitha’s trail The sun was at its peak, and both I and my daughter Amani were walking towards Manchester Town Hall to meet the infamous Skins (CEO at NAE), as known to his dear friends. When we arrived at our destination, we stood for a second and were guided to go into a container to experience an unusual sound installation. There were four of us, myself, Amani, Skins and this other woman. We entered the container and were asked to remove our shoes. We then had to lie down on Alnoor Mitha, this bed, and simply affectionately known relax for ten minutes (by very close friends) letting our bodies as the ‘sweet lord and thoughts go of the North’ in to another world. contemporary Asian The sound was arts, is the director turned on, I felt as of Asian Triennial though I was in a Manchester. magic roundabout swinging memories, entering new sites, reminding myself of my childhood days in East Africa. At first site, I though I was in a zoo perhaps transformed as an animal, meandering my thoughts, just wanting to lose myself. But the sound got louder and intense, a real fantastic moment in time of wonderment. The mind and body were at one pace, I felt good and anxious simultaneously. As I was getting more relaxed, the experience was over, the ten minutes were up and we had to leave the “magic roundabout”!
Bo Olawoye’s trail Doit 2013 is a continuous group exhibition of written artists’ instructions for visitors to re-enact in the gallery, in public or at home. This was originally created by Curator Hans Ulrich Obtrist with artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier in 1993 and has been shown in 50 different places. As a visitor you have the opportunity to take part, engage and Bo Olawoye is an re-enact activities independent learning from international curator currently based artists including in Nottingham. Yoko Ono, Tracey Emin, Ai Weiwei and Richard Wentworth. I really enjoyed the interactive element of the show and you always have the option to just take instructions home and try them out. However, I wonder how many people will actually complete some of the instructions when they leave the gallery? MIF have set up a separate website for Doit2013 at home so you can join in and upload content from anywhere.
YARD e p for r Sign u ple’s Theat o e y P r e Young tember. Ev ow, in Sep create a sh ! n we seaso 8, free 11 to 1 Sooree to Speak
10 • POETRY
The Scream, an interpretation by SARAN HUNDAL Nobody knows me… Nobody knows my name. I hate my life I am depressed. I’m a pessimist of life. I dont care if I die. Nobody wants to talk to me. I hate this world. I don’t have a family and I don’t want one either. My family were killed in the house explosion, but its strange I was the only person surviving, not one scratch or mark on me. Little do you know I am a mental patient in the worst ever asylum, but I escaped from it. I was the worst patient ever. They could not deal with me. Now let me tell you how I escaped from the asylum. The leader of the asylum commanded all of those horrible back stabbing people to do a very important job. So when they were doing their “important job” I escaped from the asylum by opening a window with a knife. I got out the little hole in the asylum. The closest place I could run to was the bridge near the sea… I was screaming. Nobody knows who I am… Nobody knows my name. Nobody knows why I was screaming. Nobody kows who I work for. You will never know that I am dead.
Saran Hundal is 11 years old, he loves the Beatles, his guitars and being Bill Sykes. This drawing and this poem are inspired by Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’.
11 • RECIPE OF THE WEEK
Teriyaki style tuna/ tofu by ALEX CLARK Teriyaki is a cooking technique used in Japanese cuisine in which foods are broiled or grilled while being basted in a marinade based on soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. Ingredients Serves 2. • 2x 6-8oz tuna steaks (or 1x500g block of firm tofu, sliced in half) • 3 tbsp light soya sauce • 3 tbsp mirin (sweet rice wine vinegar, alternatively use white vinegar with 1 heaped teaspoon of sugar) • 1 inch piece of ginger grated or minced • 1 red chilli sliced thin Preparation • Mix together and marinate tuna/tofu for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight • Remove from marinade and pan fry in hot oil on one side for 1-2 mins (depending on how hot the pan is) • Turn the steaks and after 30 sec add the remaining marinade and cook for another 20-40 sec (the marinade will speed the cooking process) • Serve on a bed of thinly sliced red peppers and mixed leaves and garnished with sesame seeds. Alex Clark is head chef You can replace salad with noodles at NAE, he loves to or rice for a more travetravels and mad filling meal. adventurous journeys.
LET FOOD BE THE MUSIC OF LOVE… EAT ON! UNWIND OR LAUNCH YOUR EVENING IN THE INTIMATE SETTING OF NEW ART EXCHANGE’S CAFÉ. EAT DELICIOUS INTERNATIONAL CUISINE AND LET OUR CHEF’S SPECIALS AWAKEN THE SPIRIT! HEAR CHILLED SOUNDS AND NEW MUSIC SELECTED BY LOCAL MUSIC ENTHUSIASTS FROM ACROSS GENRES AND NATIONS.
ion recept Ask at about our g tails for de s for youn tie i v i t c a e! peopl
12 • COMING UP AT NAE
The Chaiyya Chaiyya Project! PART 1
LEARN THE DANCE!
EVER WANTED TO LEARN THE MOVES FROM A CLASSIC BOLLYWOOD FILM? OR MAKE YOUR OWN FILM TRAILER? THEN NOW IS YOUR CHANCE! AS PART OF A COMMUNITY-WIDE PROJECT, AND INSPIRED BY THE FILM ‘DIL SE…’, WE WILL TEACH YOU THE CHOREOGRAPHY TO OUR ADAPTATION OF THE SONG ‘CHAIYYA CHAIYYA’. DANCE IN FRONT OF THE CAMERAS, AT THE STUDIO OR ON LOCATION.
WEDNESDAY 14 AUGUST, 10AM–12PM, NAE ADMISSION FREE, ALL AGES WELCOME
PART 2
DANCE + STUDIO FILMING!
WEDNESDAY 20 AUGUST, 10AM-4PM, NAE ADMISSION FREE, AGE RANGE 9-14 YEARS
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE MEDIA, UNDER THE EXPERT GUIDANCE OF EIGHT THREE AV PRODUCTION COMPANY, LEARN FILMING AND SOUND TECHNIQUES, OPERATING PROFESSIONAL STANDARD CAMERAS, THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY NOT TO BE MISSED!
PART 3
BE A PART OF A TRAILER THAT WILL BE THE PERFECT TASTER FOR THE MELA FESTIVAL IN SEPTEMBER! GO ON… YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!
THURSDAY 22 AUGUST, 10AM–4PM, NAE ADMISSION FREE, AGE RANGE 11–16 YEARS
DANCE + FILMING ON LOCATION! BOOK NOW! STILL SOME PLACES LEFT
New Art Exchange 39-41 Gregory Boulevard Nottingham NG7 6BE
0115 924 8630 info@nae.org.uk