28 August - 24 September 2023
Work in Common is a series of short residencies that encourage artists to experiment with different ways of working – either testing out a speculative idea or developing new collaborations. Each artist will use the spaces at Primary to produce and present work to the public, through screenings, rehearsals, performances, workshops, and meals.
7 October - 9 December 2023
A new multi-media installation featuring two experimental films. THE WALL is a surreal and absurdist take on housing inequality and its psychological effects. Hyperopia is a psychedelic two channel video installation which uses script, disorientating film and editing techniques.
7 October - 9 December 2023
In Courses for Dis-Course(s), artist Roo Dhissou conjures up a space, for dining, eating, cooking and gathering that manifest in a sort of kitchen, dining room, café, restaurant, chill space. The project includes a series of exhibitions and dining events for British South Asian artists that will take place at GLOAM in Sheffield and Primary in Nottingham.
26 January - 30 March 2024
Sonya Dyer’s work intertwines speculative fiction, hard science and mythologies to propose new ways of conceiving where the centre is located in fictional narratives of the future. In this project, hard science meets science fiction, with the Ready Room providing space for cells to relax, strategize and entertain. Recalling HeLa’s dubious genesis, the exhibition contemplates alternate forms of building society – what if the HeLa cells have found a better way to live? HeLa cells were originally taken from the body of Henrietta Lacks, a young Black mother in the USA, and were the first human materials sent into space in 1960.
Primary plans to share an annual mapping of resident and member achievements that have taken place over a 12-month period. By bringing together and publishing our creative community's many successes we hope to better communicate with our audiences, partners and funders the ambitious work being created and shared locally, nationally and internationally.
Read MoreThe simple routine act of sharing stories while sharing a meal. In our 2022 Autumn season of Nourishment, artist Janhavi Sharma discussed with participants online how the archival material of food inspires her work.
Read MoreThis Autumn, the Nourishment programme returns, with a focus on harvest, glut, waste, preservation and fermentation. Events include, pressing apples with Cider Club, fermentation classes for community cooks with Sean Roy Parker @fermentalhealth, mushroom foraging walk and talk with Suzy @Queer as Fungi and food histories and storytelling with Janhavi Sharma.
Read More1 February-13 May 2023 at Bethlem Gallery
Being Present is a group exhibition and event presenting work by artists from Bethlem Gallery, London and Primary, Nottingham. During the Covid-19 pandemic and spanning various lockdowns exhibiting artists participated in Artist Meets, an artist-to-artist support programme which saw artists from paired based on their shared interests or approaches to art production.
This four-session practical workshop with Sean-Roy Parker is a chance for those already working in kitchens within the Radford area and wider Nottingham to explore the art of fermentation. We will work with surplus bulk ingredients such as fruit and vegetables to make large batches of fermented, pickled and preserved food that will be distributed back out to local food projects.
Read MoreLandedness is a commissioning, co-creation, and engagement programme running throughout 2022, that explores topics such as land access, custodianship, and intimacy. Through the programme Zethu Maseko has developed a large-scale quilted banner created from natural dyes.
Read MoreBuild Create Play is a project working with local families and young people around Ronald Street Playground in Radford. The playground is currently a neglected space with old play equipment and this project aims to bring local people’s voices and ideas in to shape how this space is developed.
Read MoreTo and Fro is a pilot project that brings together Primary’s Public and Artist Development Programmes. The project pairs four Primary residents / members with four non-resident artists who connect with our Public Programme. Following a call for expressions of interest from Primary residents and members pairs were suggested by our programme team based on a shared area of research or mutual approach and the potential for an exciting collaborative exchange!
Read More16 September-26 November 2022
Attention, Absorption is British Guyanese artist Maybelle Peters' most comprehensive exhibition of work in the UK to date. The show leads on from the When We Worked at Raleigh (WWWAR) project and oral archive between 2020 and 2021 which was delivered in partnership with Nottingham Black Archive.
16 September-26 November 2022
The exhibition Open Code by Nottingham-born artist Mac Collins takes over Primary’s Reading Room. The installation features furniture, objects, and sculpture.
Career, Plan, Development is a long-term project with coach Stella Sideli supporting ambitious sustainable career growth for Primary’s residents and members, helping them to work towards achievable goals and develop 1, 3 or 5 year career plans.
Read MoreMummy Hood Nesting Forest is a site to get lost: a forest, a URL, and a new work of fiction by artist David Steans. The commission takes the form of a multipart story hosted online in its entirety via a bespoke website. A macabre story about storytelling, preparedness, and packable techwear, Mummy Hood Nesting Forest uses the provisional scenario of a hiker getting lost in the woods to conjure, recur, rewrite, and exhume.
Read MoreLand Lay Moldbrest is a three-part audiobook written by following packhorse trails in Lancashire, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. Roy Claire Potter works between performance and experimental art writing with recent works facilitated by Counterflows music festival in Glasgow, Reduced Listening for BBC Radio 3, and Tate Britain with Tate Publishing.
Read MoreArtist Meets is an artist-to-artist support programme which sees residents from Bethlem Gallery and Primary being paired based of their shared interests or approaches to art production.
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