The event will feature testimonies from artists who make work in the public realm, international experts in public art commissioning and delegates from East Midlands arts organisations with off-site programmes.

Confirmed Speakers

Isabel Vasseur, ArtOffice

From 1980 to 1986, the Director of ArtOffice (formerly Art Project Management), pioneered the Public Art movement in the UK, acting as agent for Eastern Arts encouraging and advising on the use of the Arts Council's Works of Art in Public Places funding scheme. During this time, she was also responsible for residencies, collections, loan schemes and policymaking.

From 1986 to 1990, Vasseur was Visual Arts Co-coordinator for both the Glasgow Garden Festival and the National Garden Festival in Gateshead, orchestrating over 150 commissions, fundraising and initiating performance and education programmes. In parallel to these activities, the consultancy service was formed which has provided advice on Public Art strategy and commissions management to the public and private sectors.

Vasseur also acted as Senior Visual Arts Officer for the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1990 to 1991, where she edited the publication A Percent for Art: A Review which covered public art practice worldwide. In 1992, Isabel Vasseur initiated, planned and curated Lux Europae, an international citywide exhibition of light installations in Edinburgh to coincide with the European Summit.

Vasseur was Visiting Lecturer on Public Art and Commissions Management at the Royal College of Art, was a member of the Arts Council's Visual Arts Exhibitions & Events Committee, the Architecture Advisory Group and the International Initiatives Advisory Panel and is a trustee of the Baltic Gallery, Gateshead. In 1991 Vasseur won the Arts Council British Gas Working for Cities award.

www.artoffice.co.uk

John Newling was born in Birmingham and after completing MA and M.Phil degrees at Chelsea and Wolverhampton he was awarded the first Fulbright Fellowship in Visual Art in 1985.

During his time in America, Newling produced works in hotels, swimming pools, burnt out cars, sales of memorabilia and on the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC and New York. This experience marked the beginning of his enduring interest in notions of Place both in terms of cartography and context. This has generated many works over the following decades both gallery based and site specific.

Newling constantly reviews 'The tacit agreements of Place' and this has coalesced into a view of the pathology of institutions such as banks and churches. His current researches have been into the nature, manifestations and relationships of Currency and Belief. This process of review is the initial impetus for a work for a specific place.

Whilst always underpinned by rigorous conceptual thinking, Newling's works are always conscious of material, fabrication and architectural space. His sculptural installations are possessed of a quiet beauty that resonate with layers of meaning that are inherent within the form.

Newling has large scale works within the public domain such as major commissions for the Post Office and The Inland Revenue. His exhibitions include a recent retrospective at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park that also incorporated nine new works for the Pavilion Gallery.

Newling has an international reputation and has installed works across Europe and the USA. John Newling lives in Nottingham where he is currently Professor of Installation Sculpture at The Nottingham Trent University.

www.john-newling.com

Ulrike Solbrig, Jole Wilcke, BennoGammerl, Dorothee Albrecht

UNWETTER

In her article, Walls Fall Down: Berlin's Contemporary Art Institutions, the Berlin based curator and writer, Astrid Mania, states: "Among the many Berlin-based initiatives offering space for debate and reflection on contemporary art and its institutions, UNWETTER is perhaps the most changeable and unpredictable, functioning without a permanent space or platform as an umbrella organization for relatively unstructured, open art events. UNWETTER (the German word for "bad weather" which translates literally as "non-weather"–a notion originating in Sarat Maharaj's lectures during his guest professorship at Berlin's Humboldt University in 2001/2002–is the collective moniker of a group of international artists, curators, theoreticians and activists.

Initiated in Berlin, the collective stages temporary events–so-called discursive picnics–with open invitations to participate in an exchange of ideas and a discussion on the parameters of contemporary art. The picnics are often organized within the framework of larger, temporary exhibitions, such as biennials. They either take place within the urban environment–often without the approval of local authorities–or on the premises of an art institution. In the latter case, the rules and laws of the institutions in question–in particular access restrictions such as entrance fees or prohibitions on the introduction and consumption of food and drink–are temporarily suspended. During the course of the picnics, the rigid designations of curator, artist, audience, producer and consumer are broken down. In practice, the activities of UNWETTER seem to be most effective within the confines of major institutions where they highlight and infringe the unwritten rules that quietly govern the behavior of museum visitors, keeping them passive and receptive."

Excerpt from "Institutional Critique and After" ed. John C. Welchman [Second SoCCAS Symposium] (Zurich: JRP|Ringier, 2006)

www.un-wetter.net

Catherine Hemelryk, Curator CAC Vilnius, Lithuania

Venue:

Djanogly Lecture Theatre
Lakeside Arts Centre, University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
click here for map

Transport:

Bus Routes: Trent Barton 5, NCT 33, 34, 35 and 36
Trains:  Nottingham Station

Booking & Tickets:

Tickets cost £5.00
Concessions: £2.50

To reserve a ticket, please call the Hinterland information line on  07847 414251 and leave a message.

Alternatively you can email jennie@hinterlandprojects.com and mark the subject-box 'Seminar Booking'. Please leave details of your name and address, a contact telephone number and the amount of tickets you need.

This event is part of Architecture Week 2007

Please book via Hinterland. Booking is not available through Lakeside Box Office.