The Current Underground: Art and Activism in Alternative Spaces

The Current Underground: Art and Activism in Alternative Spaces

The Current Underground: Art and Activism in Alternative Spaces will showcase the work and research of a range of artists, researchers, activists and archivists from different cultural and social backgrounds. This event is comprised of a two-day conference (12th-13th June 2024), and a three-week exhibition at Gasleak Mountain Gallery, Nottingham (opening on the 12th), showcasing the Norfolk Trans Joy Community Quilt, alongside materials from The Sparrows Nest Anarchist Library Nottingham.

The conference explores art made with a ‘do it yourself’ or ‘do it together’ ethos: an ethos that can be applied to music, visual art, film, craft, writing, political activism, and social protest. It foregrounds art produced outside traditional institutions that challenges conventional ways of seeing, thinking and being, made by artists who are self-directed, self-reliant and circumvent gatekeepers of official culture. There will be a specific focus on the visual culture of activism and protest, DIY communities, historically gendered and devalued arts and crafts such as quilting and embroidery, DIY feminist noisemakers, and collective and generational knowledge exchange.

The contributors are:

· The Sparrows Nest Anarchist Library Nottingham

· Dr Amelia Groom

· Dr. Vicky Sparrow

· Beau Brannick and Alice Bigsby-Bye from the Norfolk Trans Joy Community Quilt

· Rowan Frewin

· Dr. Tracey Potts

· Dr. Lila Matsumoto

· Sonic Cyberfeminisms panel

· Dudley

· Kyla Craig from Art Riot

· Hande Cayir and Jennifer Gilbert

· Patricia Francis