International Perspective on Illuminate

Hi everyone,
My name is Lisa and I was part of Illuminate for two months. Yes, you’ve got it – only two months and no they didn’t throw me out.

As you can see from the heading I am not actually British, but German and I was in Nottingham on Erasmus. Some of you may be wondering how the unique Erasmus experience can be connected with a youth group dealing with modern art and museum works – I can tell you that being a part of the group was one of the best things I experienced during my stay abroad.

To be honest- at the beginning I didn’t really want to be part of Illuminate. It just didn’t appeal to me and although I have always been hugely interested in museums and galleries, I found modern art a little uninspiring and boring. But as I really wanted to get involved in the community during my short time in Nottingham and since I always like to volunteer I thought I would give it a go. 

Compared to volunteering back in my home country, everything is really organized and well structured: starting with the volunteer fair on my university’s campus, to a detailed application form including several references and role descriptions and finally leading to a Volunteer Welcome Day and a short interview at the castle. As my remaining time in Nottingham was already quite short and I still wanted to get involved as much as possible, the Volunteer Coordinators recommended Illuminate Group. I was really curious and although I didn’t know what to expect I was excited to start.

My first meeting with the group was arranged spontaneously in the morning and after that every single week was exciting and new to me. I went to places like the Lakeside Art Centre, Nottingham’s Castle OPEN, a small and really cosy room in the Brewhouse Yard and the V&A in London. I got insights into aspects of daily museum work that I never had before and I am not sure whether I will ever have these opportunities again. I also learnt a lot about the many various tasks that are involved in running exhibitions and organising events; the urgent need of a Twitter account in order to survive in today’s world and a lot about the serious addiction to jaffa cakes.

I don’t regret a second of my time spent with Illuminate! I met artists, lots of enthusiastic and dedicated people, a curator and an amazing group. Every single second I felt welcome and as part of the group – although I still have a strange accent and my time was far too short!! There should definitely be more youth groups connected to museums and art galleries all over the world…

Lisa Meisch

Richard Slee and John Plowman:

Since kicking off 2015 with the awards ceremony for the OPEN, Nottingham Castle have continued the anticipation for exciting contemporary art by hosting two solo shows side by side. John Plowman, A Life Drawing and Richard Slee: Work and Play both opened on 31^st January. Illuminate Collective were not only quick to submerge ourselves amongst the works but were also lucky enough to gain extra insight from Deborah Dean, Nottingham Museums Visual Arts and Exhibitions Manager. This gave a further dimension to the investigation we had already started. The works of the two artists will be the inspiration for our Invent and Build event occupying the exhibitions all day 22^ndMarch .

            Being greeted with a wall of categories, the sense of order and structure is present in the first room leading into John Plowman, A Life Drawing. This is a retrospective organisation of the subjects Plowman has worked through since his degree show in the 1970s. He has used this exhibition to apply these categories to the castles drawing collection. The main two categories are ‘The made’ and ‘The yet to be made’. This explains the exhibitions intention to show the thought process of a sculptor through his drawings and shown again in a quote from Plowman ‘all my drawings are really drawings of the last sculpture I (n)ever made’. Illuminate felt that repetition and architecture elements of Plowman’s work were most prominent and would transfer well to our event.

            Richard Slee offers no such boundaries. An imminent reaction to this exhibition could be one of fun and chaos. Upon closer inspection however, we found beautifully crafted ceramics from earthenware clay that could only be made with the precision of trained hands. These objects often also portray a skilfully crafted pun. He does this by using different materials to change, or entirely remove, the function of everyday objects. In doing so he presents them in an entirely new perspective for his audience. In the gallery across the landing from the Richard Slee exhibition, we find a video of the artist in conversation with Grayson Perry where he explains his process of work. When we think of everyday objects being used in art we will most probably think of Pop Art. Illuminate Collective feels Richard Slee’s playful use of everyday objects could be the inspiration for our Invent and Build activities.

            Invent and Build at Nottingham Castle will take place on 22^ndMarch 2015. Illuminate Collective have designed a range of creative activities for all ages. There will be opportunity to work on individual projects as well as a chance to be part of a collective masterpiece. If you would like a deeper insight to the exhibitions there will be talks led by the artists on 18^th March 2015

Post by Hannah Satchwell, Illuminate member

Chinese New Year

As it's Chinese New year, we thought we would take the oppurtunity to take part in the New Year Celebrations, try out some traditional Chinese Activities and get ideas for our own events during the exhibition. Our first outing was to Lakeside Art Centre were we took part in paper folding and cutting, brush painting, tea tasting and watching a fan dance performance and workshop.

My favorite was probably the fan dance, it reminded me of martial arts and was very graceful and mesmerizing, I think as well, from watching the visitors, that it was probably the most popular workshop. The paper folding was very hard and you didn't get a go at Brush painting, although I did get my name written in Chinese Characters. Next week we are going to some more events, this time to see a traditional puppet show and some dragon dancing.

Food for Thought: Curation