SELECTION PANEL ANNOUNCEMENT FOR UKYA CITY TAKEOVER
UKYA is delighted to share with you some of the experts who will be assessing submissions over selection week for UKYA City Takeover: Nottingham 2019. Our hand-picked panels are experts in their field, made up of talented artists, and representatives prestigious cultural organisations or institutions.
SAM THORNE
DIRECTOR, NOTTINGHAM CONTEMPORARY
Sam Thorne is a writer and museum director. Since 2016, he has been the Director of Nottingham Contemporary, one of the largest centres for contemporary art in the UK. Prior to that, he was artistic director of Tate St Ives. Sam is a contributing editor and columnist at Frieze magazine, and has written widely about art, music and literature. He is also the author of a book about art education, titled ‘School: A Recent History of Self-Organized Art Education’ (2017). In 2013, he co-founded Open School East, a free-to-attend art school in East London, which in 2017 moved to Margate. Sam is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Art History at the University of Nottingham.
DEIRDRE FIGUEIREDO
DIRECTOR, CRAFTSPACE
Deirdre Figueiredo, MBE is Director of Craftspace, a leading craft development organisation and creative producer. Craftspace commissions exceptional, world class contemporary craft and champions makers to take an active role in civil society. It connects creative practice with diverse communities of interest and place through a range of activities and partnerships. These include touring exhibitions, cross art form productions and participatory projects. The programme at Craftspace is underpinned by socially engaged, participatory, collaborative and co-created approaches to engaging communities through the arts. Building cultural, social and human capital is a key driver of our work. Deirdre has worked as a curator and manager in the field of contemporary visual arts, craft and museums for over 25 years. In a wider role she has contributed to a range of advisory panels, boards and steering groups and has selected for numerous awards and open exhibitions including the Jerwood Makers Open 2017 and the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize. She is the Co-founder and Secretariat of CraftNet, a national craft leadership network a board member of Axis, Punch and Create in Ireland and is a Trustee of The Crafts Study Centre, Farnham.
KASHIF NADIM CHAUDRY
ARTIST
Kashif Nadim Chaudry is a Nottingham born artist, of Punjabi origin, living and working in
the East Midlands. He studied Textiles at Goldsmiths College, London, graduating in
2005 and continuing to develop his textile orientated art practice.
A family heritage in tailoring has been very influential for his work and has focused his
creativity around the importance of materiality and craftsmanship. The heart of Nadim’s
practice lies with the working, shaping and moulding of physical ‘stuff’.
Negotiating his sexuality as a gay man, within different cultural and religious spheres,
has been a fertile ground from which his practice has taken root and continuously draws
inspiration. This ‘negotiation’ has often translated literally into physical space; a question
of how you choose to position yourself in the world. In relation, it is increasingly the
sculptural and three dimensional possibilities within his work that address the issues of
space and position, which fascinate him most.
ROSIE GARTON
ZOO INDIGO THEATRE COMPANY
Rosie is a Senior Lecturer in Performance and Digital Arts at De Montfort University, Leicester. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of Anglo-German performance company Zoo Indigo, who make nationally and internationally touring multi-media performance work. She has mentored a range of emerging performance makers and acted as a dramaturg for both emerging and established artists. Rosie is also board member of Reckless Sleepers and Handmade Theatre.
JUSTIN TURFORD
TRUTH & LIES MUSIC
Justin Turford is a Creative Director for cultural events people Truth & Lies Music, a busy DJ and a highly experienced Production and Stage Manager for music and arts festivals across the UK, including having a busy old time as the Visual Arts and Dance Coordinator for WEYA Festival in 2012.
HUW DAVIES
PROFESSOR & ARTIST
Huw Davies is Professor of Lens Media at the University of Derby and Visiting
Professor at HBU/UCLAN in Baoding, China. As a filmmaker, photographer and
curator his work has included commissions for many national and international agencies and broadcasters including; Arts Council England, Scottish Screen, BBC, Discovery Channel, Arte and Canal +, as well as being screened at international film festivals in over twenty-five countries. Huw has an active involvement in a number of
arts and cultural organizations he has previously sat on the boards of QUAD and Derby Theatre, and is currently a trustee of UK Young Artists, Artcore and FORMAT International Photography Festival Steering Group. In 2004 he founded the Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, based in England’s most northerly town. He was its
Artistic Director until 2008 and is currently Chair of its Board of Trustees.
JOHN BERKAVITCH
ARTIST
Berkavitch is one of the most respected voices in the UK spoken-word scene.
Former UK Slam Poetry Champion, Internationally acclaimed Storyteller, accomplished Breakdancer, Digital Artist and Animator.
Berkavitch has showcased his poetry at most UK music and literary festivals including Glastonbury, Latitude, Bestival, Reading, Leeds, The Cheltenham Literature Festival and the Hey Festival. He has performed at venues and theatres including The Royal Opera house, The RSC, The Old Vic, Royal Festival Hall, Roundhouse Camden, Contact Theatre, The BAC, The Albany, Nottingham Playhouse, The MAC and numerous others across the country.
JAY JOHNSON
ARTIST
Jay Johnson is an award-winning musician, songwriter, and producer who moved to London before his teenage years and began making music from a young age. Jay’s naturally curious mind led him to start learning the cello. He then taught himself how to play the guitar a few years after. Jay started listening to artists such as Bob Dylan, Paolo Nutini, and Ben Howard from his early teens, and as a result, their influences can often be seen in his original works.
Jay eventually began writing his own original songs, then a year later, he started busking on the streets of London, and another a year later, he began performing at pubs and venues. A few months after Jay started playing to live crowds in various venues, he decided to leave his previous career plans of becoming a doctor behind and decided to become a full-time musician. Jay’s most recent music features the styles of the early 90s hiphop artists whom he was exposed to at an even younger age.
Jay's last significant performance was at an event on Trafalgar Square that had a turnout of 20,000 people including the mayor of London.
KYLE HOUGHAM
MANAGER, ROUGH TRADE
Rough Trade first opened in 1976, West London, on the doorstep of punk.
Forty years on, they continue to celebrate and focus on simply the most exciting music.
As thier stores have grown in size and popularity, so has their scope and ability to embrace a wider celebration of independent thinking, creativity and fearless self-expression, from literature to DIY technology.
Fundamentally, their stores provide creative, independent minds a shared place of discovery and congregation.
Rough Trade have four stores in the UK: Nottingham, Bristol, East & West London, and one in NYC.
CATHERINE MUGONYI
DIRECTOR, WINTER GARDENS FILM FESTIVAL & AUNTY SOCIAL CIC
Catherine Mugonyi is a director and founder of Aunty Social CIC which provides accessible, affordable and participatory arts activities. She leads on Aunty’s Pop-up Picturehouse which provides screenings of independent and specialised film for community organisations and neighbourhood audiences in Blackpool. Catherine organises and programmes the Winter Gardens Film Festival which focuses on the best of classic and contemporary black and white film. She is also Creative Programmer at the Harris Museum, Library and Art Gallery in Preston and a trustee of Voluntary Arts.
LAURA MCCAFFERTY
ARTIST & TRUSTEE OF UKYA
Laura McCafferty uses text, drawing, textile and performance to set up tensions between the trivial and serious. Obsessively gathering images of incidental peculiarities from the ordinary and popular culture, then constructing realities from these varied sources. Creating spaces that sit poised on the threshold of narrative that subtly mess with what’s expected. Currently exploring themes of repetition, permutation and multiplicity.
Laura is one of the first Alumni from UKYA. She was selected in 2008 to present her work with us at the International Biennale of Young Artists of Europe and the Mediterranean in Bari, Italy.
Laura holds an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University and a BA in Decorative Arts from Nottingham Trent University, where she now teaches on the Fine Art, Decorative Art and Fashion and Textiles degrees.
IAIN SIMONS
DIRECTOR OF CULTURE, THE BGI
Iain Simons is the Director of GameCity – Europe’s biggest and best-loved cultural videogames festival.
Apart from being the Director of the GameCity festival, Iain is an active speaker and writer in the field of videogames and new cultural technologies, and is a co-author of the book 100 Videogames (BFI Screen Guides). The book written with James Newman is a collection of short pieces about at least 100 games, and was one of the last books to be published before BFI publishing was sold off. Iain’s other books include Difficult Questions About Videogames and Inside Game Design, and he is currently working on a new book with James Newman.
In 2008 Iain co-founded the National Videogame Archive of the UK, a collection of Videogame software, hardware and ephemera. His areas of interest include mostly the public engagement with technology, mainly what happens when videogame culture meets everyone who is not a direct part of it.
EMILY SIMPSON
ARTIST
Emily Simpson is an artist, who since graduating from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2014 with First in Fine Art, has floated between living and working in Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham. She has exhibited across the North and internationally, and been an artist in residence with ‘The Art House’, Wakefield, and ‘The Can’, Bucharest. Simpson’s work deals with 'vagueness', with a tension between states, between chance and control, successes and failures, past and presents, certainty and uncertainty. This stylised hesitancy becomes the work’s medium, using a language of purposeful purposelessness to mimic the desirable uncertainty of post(post)modern living.
SUZANNAH BEDFORD
DIRECTOR, THE RENEWAL TRUST
Suzannah works with leading artists and arts organisations from across the country to develop new and exciting projects for our communities.
Art is Suzannah’s passion as well as her work. Her free time is mostly taken up with gallery and studio exhibitions, dance and theatre performances or music events both locally and further afield.
GARY THOMAS
DIRECTOR, ANIMATE PROJECTS
Gary is co-founder and director of Animate Projects, curating and producing projects at the intersection of film, animation and art. He also works as a Film Programme Manager at the British Council, the UK’s cultural relations organisation. He leads on film for East Asia and China and he is the Film team’s specialist on animation, experimental moving image, and cross art form practice. He coordinates the advocacy group Animation Alliance UK; he’s a trustee of the National Dance Company of Wales and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
LEE NICHOLLS
CREATIVE PRODUCER, NEAR NOW
Lee Nicholls is Creative Producer of Near Now [https://nearnow.org.uk], Broadway’s studio for arts, design and innovation. Near Now works with artists to make, and make sense of, technology in everyday life.
The Near Now Fellowship is an artistic and professional development programme which, through curiosity and discovery, helps pioneering artists to explore and realise bold ideas.
Over the last ten years, Lee has produced many projects, events and experiences in Nottingham that explore arts, design, technology and play.
WAYNE BURROWS
WRITER
Wayne Burrows lives and works in Nottingham. Publications include The Apple Sequence (2011), Black Glass: New & Selected Poems (2015), Exotica Suite & Other Fictions (2015) andEastern Bloc Songs: A Sampler (2016). Recent exhibitions include Folklore, Ritual & The Modern Interior (Xero, Kline & Coma), Behold! The Markets Shall Erase Our History!(Nottingham Contemporary), Exotica Suite (New Art Exchange), Telekinesis: Ghost Pornography & Fabricated Phenomena (Watch-It Gallery) and The Buried Moon: Heart of A Cave(Lakes Ignite 2018 at University of Cumbria). Eastern Bloc Songs: Party, Pop & Politics launches as a publication and exhibition at Centrala, Birmingham, in September 2018.https://wayneburrows.wordpress.com/