Skip to content

Fine Art alumni take over Attic at One Thoresby Street

Four recent graduates from our BA (Hons) Fine Art course presented work made during their summer residency at the local arts project and studio space

    Katie Bishop, Agil Abdullayev and Athanasia Papathanasiou at One Thoresby Street
    Katie Bishop, Agil Abdullayev and Athanasia Papathanasiou at One Thoresby Street

    A group of recent graduates from our BA (Hons) Fine Art course held an exhibition entitled Fluid Sense of Presence at One Thoresby Street this September. Agil Abdullayev, Katie Bishop, Heidi Chan and Athanasia Papathanasiou were all recipients of the 2018 ‘Moving On’ Bursary, and the exhibition marked the culmination of their summer residency.

    One Thoresby Street provide studio spaces, project space, art production facilities, art fabrication and other services for its members. As a member of the New Midland Group with fellow art spaces Primary and Backlit, One Thoresby Street is a real asset to Nottingham and destination for many NTU graduates. Built on a history of knowledge exchange, collaboration and collectivity, the space has evolved over a period of 10 years between over 100 artists. The result is a unique space, in which social experiences are shaped by a shared economy of knowledge to provide new forms of collaboration, stability, economic exchange and critical debate within the city.

    During their residency, the graduate artists produced a diverse array of reflective works spanning sculpture, installation and video. Agil told us: “The exhibition explores wishes, ideas, experiences, and aims which we realised through our graduate summer studio residency in the Attic at One Thoresby Street. When we heard our names announced as winners of the residency on the Degree Show opening night back in June, we knew we were to remain with the art-making process, but without any deadlines. What we have curated is a show of our works to reflect on the tensions between control and breakage, happiness and anxiety, and presence and absence.”

    Tristan Hessing, Director of One Thoresby Street, commented: “Nottingham has a rich history of artistic initiative and entrepreneurship that over the years has allowed the city to develop a unique and vibrant creative ecology. Our project in conjunction with NTU is aimed at encouraging new and collaborative artistic practice by providing flexible workspace and mentoring at One Thoresby Street for a selected group of self-organised graduates from the Fine Art course at NTU.”

    He added: “Over the summer months we guided the selected graduates to help them realise new modes of event and exhibition production and co-working practices that we hope will inspire young artistic talent to have a strong presence within the city.”

    Published on 1 October 2018
    • Subject area: Art and design
    • Category: Current students; NTU Arts; School of Art & Design