This micro-residency series was open to the NMG associates cohort who were invited to activate the ground floor project space at One Thoresby Street, Nottingham for short periods in January – an opportunity to experiment, test ideas and develop practice. Each participant created a public event where they were able to share their work.
Melanie Wheeler invited participation in the space inviting reenactment/ reenlivening of ancient water rituals that were (and some still are) practised in the UK and Ireland, and have links with a once important Pre-Christian Water Cult originating around 5000 years ago.
This is a work in progress exploring rituals of care, reverence and animism and an experiment in thinking about folklore, connections with land and watery bodies, environmental cultures and ‘A new mode of posthuman feminist phenomenology that understands our bodies as being fundamentally part of the natural world and not separate from or privileged to it’ developed in – Bodies of Water by Astrida Neimanis 2017.
Melanie Wheeler is an interdisciplinary artist, based in Nottingham. Her practice moves across the mediums of installation, sound, film, research and social practice. Fictions, regional histories and folklore often run through her work and she uses these as a means to explore uncertain territories where different realities might meet and intermingle.
Image credits: Ismail Khokon
Miffy Ryan activated the space with the Lone Ones Collective using lots of red tents, pink balls and sponges with a dress code of red or pink advised for visitors. The collective looked at themes of Queer Reproduction and the connections between supernatural, folklore and liminal land in a queer context.
Exploring Art, Activism, questioning if society can self organise, and thinking about Palle Nielsen’s ‘The Model – A Model for a Qualitative Society’ (In 1968 Palle Nielsen approached the Moderna Museet in Stockholm with a proposal for turning the museum into an adventure playground).
Image credits: courtesy and copyright of the artist Miffy Ryan
Millie Quick‘s “Egregorial: a testament engine”: ritual, reflection and revelation in her memory shrine was open daily to the public concluding with “Egregorial: Ignition night” memory shrine installation, discuss the power of memory for community building and take part in the shaping of the egregore: a reflection of people and power
Image credits: courtesy and copyright of the artist Millie Quick
