Nottingham Contemporary

Including keynote addresses by three of the most acclaimed new graphic novelists working in Britain today - Karrie Fransman, Nicola Streeten and Mary Talbot - this symposium will explore representations of the body within contemporary comics.

With work published previously in The Times and The Guardian, Fransman’s new graphic novel, The House that Groaned, explores bodies and the spaces they inhabit in a manner that interweaves humour, pathos and the macabre. Co-founder of both the Beacon art project and Laydeez do Comics, Streeten’s graphic memoir Billy, Me &You, redefines the parameters of the medium, providing a harrowing, yet compelling and at times very funny account of grief and recovery. An internationally renowned scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, Talbot is the author of the graphic novel Dotter of her Father’s Eyes, which delves into social expectations, gender politics, and thwarted ambitions through an interweaving of personal memoir with the tragic biography of Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce.

Convened by Matt Green, Associate Professor, University of Nottingham. Nottingham Contemporary’s public programme is jointly funded by Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.

Gillray’s caustic representations of the French Revolution form part of a complex culture of print media - and his images were reproduced and re- appropriated on both sides of the Channel. Richard Taws reveals the French Revolution’s role in spurring on further transformations in communication media. Technological revolutions - such as telegraphy - were fuelled by a desire to spread utopian ideals over great distance at high speed. The desire to conquer time and space however confronted a conundrum - presented to the French in the form of the Haitian Revolution - how could France spread a message of universal human rights, while also profiting from colonialism and slave economy?

Dr. Richard Taws currently teaches eighteenth and nineteenth century European art at University College London.

James Baker will provide a close reading of our selection of James Gillray prints, using the idea of liberty - central to British identity - in order to draw out the contemporary and historical questions of freedom, fashion, bodies, and politics contained by the prints on display at Nottingham Contemporary. Baker is the convenor of Cradled in Caricature, a multidisciplinary project that approaches the notion of caricature in its broadest sense - using it as a jumping-off point to discuss exaggeration, stereotyping, representation, and characterisation.

James Baker is an Associate Lecturer at the School of History, University of Kent.

A discussion between two leading contemporary novelists accompanies a cinema screening of two artists' films: Mika Rottenberg's Squeeze paired with Ryan Trecartin's K-CoreaINC.K.

Kitamura and Kunzru will address the issues at play in the work of both artists: from the body, personal identity and performance to systems, capitalism and affective and precarious labour. They will discuss how the concerns of contemporary art are shared by their own contemporary fiction: power, submission, and gender roles in the case of Kitamura, and the play of global networks and social forces in the shaping of contemporary identity in the case of Kunzru. They draw on these ideas, and on their knowledge of the work of both artists, as well as the content of a lengthy interview with Ryan Trecartin, published in edited form in a recent issue of Frieze magazine.

Chaired by Phil Leonard, Reader in Literary Studies and Critical Theory, NTU and Abi Spinks, Assistant Curator, Nottingham Contemporary.

Nottingham Contemporary’s public programme is jointly funded by Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.

A discussion between two leading contemporary novelists accompanies a cinema screening of two artists' films: Mika Rottenberg's Squeeze paired with Ryan Trecartin's K-CoreaINC.K.

Kitamura and Kunzru will address the issues at play in the work of both artists: from the body, personal identity and performance to systems, capitalism and affective and precarious labour. They will discuss how the concerns of contemporary art are shared by their own contemporary fiction: power, submission, and gender roles in the case of Kitamura, and the play of global networks and social forces in the shaping of contemporary identity in the case of Kunzru. They draw on these ideas, and on their knowledge of the work of both artists, as well as the content of a lengthy interview with Ryan Trecartin, published in edited form in a recent issue of Frieze magazine.

Chaired by Phil Leonard, Reader in Literary Studies and Critical Theory, NTU and Abi Spinks, Assistant Curator, Nottingham Contemporary.

Nottingham Contemporary’s public programme is jointly funded by Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.

In his life-time, Carlo Mollino photographed women, skied glaciers, crashed planes, and raced at Le Mans .. while also realising architectural projects and designing extraordinary furniture. Fulvio and Napoleone Ferrari, Curators of the Museo Casa Mollino, Turin - and currently guest curators of our Small Collections Room – present and discuss the work of this visionary Italian architect, designer and photographer.

Chaired by Francesco Manacorda, Artistic Director, Tate Liverpool

Nottingham Contemporary’s public programme is jointly funded by Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.

In his life-time, Carlo Mollino photographed women, skied glaciers, crashed planes, and raced at Le Mans .. while also realising architectural projects and designing extraordinary furniture. Fulvio and Napoleone Ferrari, Curators of the Museo Casa Mollino, Turin - and currently guest curators of our Small Collections Room – present and discuss the work of this visionary Italian architect, designer and photographer.

Chaired by Francesco Manacorda, Artistic Director, Tate Liverpool

Nottingham Contemporary’s public programme is jointly funded by Nottingham Trent University and The University of Nottingham.

A rare chance to hear Thomas Demand speak about his work, in conversation with Milan-based architect, researcher and editor in chief of Domus magazine, Joseph Grima. They will be discussing the research that Demand has undertaken at the Getty institute and the resulting body of work exhibited for the first time at Nottingham Contemporary, as well as architectural issues in his work in general.

A rare chance to hear Thomas Demand speak about his work, in conversation with Milan-based architect, researcher and editor in chief of Domus magazine, Joseph Grima. They will be discussing the research that Demand has undertaken at the Getty institute and the resulting body of work exhibited for the first time at Nottingham Contemporary, as well as architectural issues in his work in general.

The architectural model gained new prominence in the early 20th century, when it became a popular tool for design education, playing a key role in the Modernist image. Deriu is Research Fellow in Architecture at the University of Westminster and Curator of Modernism in Miniature: Points of View at the Canadian Centre for Architecture