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The burgeoning artistic and cultural scene in
Nottingham is to be showcased and celebrated in a big public festival this
autumn led by a local ‘ambassador’ for the arts, photographer David Sillitoe.
‘Being Human 2015 – Nottingham’s Creative City’ is
being organised by The University of Nottingham and will run for 10 days from 12th
November 2015. The festival builds on the success of last year’s inaugural Being
Human Festival which brought Nottingham’s history and culture to life with many
engaging public events.
This year the focus will be on the city’s
contemporary arts like writing, photography and performance as well as
retrospective events on Nottingham’s rich artistic heritage. The festival is
designed to create excitement about the city and county both inside and outside
the region, as well as promoting the value of Arts and Humanities scholarship to
society. Being Human 2015 also supports Nottingham’s bid to become a UNESCO
City of Literature.
Festival Ambassador, David Sillitoe, son of
Nottingham’s famous writer Alan Sillitoe, said: “'Nottingham has always been a
fascinating city, and right now there's a huge amount happening in the creative
industries. Arts and culture are going from strength to strength, with great
venues for writing, performance, photography, film making and new media, where
practitioners can collaborate, produce and exhibit their work. With the student
population adding to the mix, and a cultural history dating back centuries, now
is a great time to get creative in Nottingham!”
Among the events this year will be:
- Telling Tales of Nottingham – a photographic
project led by David Sillitoe ending in an exhibition of works.
- A poetry ‘treasure hunt’ in Nottingham’s Creative
Quarter with poems encrypted into Art Codes and hidden around the city centre.
- Pop-up language labs in the Creative Quarter.
- Digital story telling at the Theatre Royal.
- Community theatre by eXcaVate, ‘But I know this city’.
- Rare film screenings at the Broadway Media Centre
- Writers’ Day at D.H. Lawrence Heritage Centre and
evening lecture.
- Art in the City talks covering the establishment of
the Castle Collections to the contemporary arts scene.
‘Creative City’ Festival coordinator and Research Manager in theUniversity’s Centre for Advanced Studies, Sally Bowden said: “Nottingham was
recently described in The Guardian’s Insider’s cultural guide as ‘cinematic,
collaborative and creative’ and our festival will further bang the drum for the
incredibly diverse and high quality artistic culture in our city, as well as
that of its famous and historic past. We are delighted to have been chosen as a
regional hub of the national Being Human Festival 2015 after the success of our
events in Nottingham last autumn which also attracted a large number of
international visitors to the city.“
The University’s partners in Nottingham involved in
the festival include Nottingham Contemporary, Galleries of Justice, Nottingham
Castle, Nottingham Writers’ Studio, Mouthy Poets, eXcaVate community theatre,
Alliance Boots Archive, Creative Quarter Partnership, Theatre Royal, Primary,
Malt Cross, Broadway Media Centre and the D.H. Lawrence Heritage Centre.
Being Human is organised nationally by the
University of London’s School of Advanced Studies and is largely funded the
Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and the British Academy (BA)
with support from the Wellcome Trust.
Being Human 2015 – Creative City www.nottingham.ac.uk/go/being-human
More information on the national programme of
events is available here: beinghuman@sas.ac.uk
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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with campuses in China and Malaysia modelled on a headquarters that is among the most attractive in Britain’ (Times Good University Guide 2014). It is also one of the most popular universities in the UK among graduate employers and the winner of ‘Research Project of the Year’ at the THE Awards 2014. It is ranked in the world’s top one per cent of universities by the QS World University Rankings, and 8th in the UK by research power according to REF 2014.
The University of Nottingham in Malaysia (UNMC) is holding events throughout 2015 to celebrate 15 years as a pioneer of transnational education. Based in Semenyih, UNMC was established as the UK's first overseas campus in Malaysia and one of the first world-wide.
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