Exhibitions

Created with software used by the film and gaming industries, and using data from NASA’s missions to Mars, Richardson has created a realistic representation of the Mars landscape covered by the debris of centuries of exploration. Despite the apparent abandoned state of the planet, some of the spacecraft continue to work, looking for signs of life.

Kelly Richardson (b. 1972, Canada) is one of the leading members of a new generation of artists using digital technologies to create hyper-real, highly charged landscapes. Recent solo exhibitions include Dundee Contemporary Arts, CAG Vancouver, VOID Derry and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Her video installations have been included in presentations at the Toronto Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival.

Exhibitions, performance, music, writing and film and much more will animate cultural spaces and unusual places, presenting the work of over 50 practitioners at the leading edge of contemporary arts. In parallel, 20 artists will take up residence in Leicester; participating in collaborative ‘weekenders’ which will investigate   ‘sustainability’, ‘placemaking’ and ‘common interest’, respectively.  The overall programme will put a spotlight on Leicester’s geographic creative clusters; taking audiences on an immersive journey across spaces and art forms, and encouraging conversation through Q&As and tours. All events are free.

Mik Godley is an artist and art school lecturer based in Nottingham. He is a painter who makes work using both traditional analogue painting techniques and digital iPad technology. His ongoing body of work ‘Considering Silesia’ was initiated in 2003, and explores the artist’s Anglo-German heritage, cultural memory, displacement and migration.  

‘Considering Silesia’ observes the context of our evolving relationship with the internet, which increasingly enables us to virtually “visit” parts of the world and connect with strangers without leaving home. Despite having never visited his mother’s homeland, Lower Silesia, Mik’s work documents the landscape and architecture of the region through images, video footage and maps found online. 

The selection of works presented in this exhibition at Attenborough Arts Centre form just a small part of this major body of work that has occupied the artist for over 15 years. Alongside major paintings and digital works, there will also be a selection of small sketches and works on paper that give further insight into how the project has developed over time, through Mik’s own evolving artistic practice and the technological developments that have offered increasingly detailed and immersive experiences of physically distant places and people. 

Some artists have used space as direct subject matter, creating real and imaginary scenes of what lies beyond Earth. Other artists have used materials from space directly in their work, including fragments of meteorite and chemical elements that are more often found in outer space. Others still have responded to the long history that humankind has with the stars, using the night sky and the vastness of the universe beyond as a starting point for exploring the human condition.

Represented artists include: Glenn Brown, Angela Bulloch, Tim Etchells, Simon Faithfull, Fiona Finnegan, Stefan Gec, Brian Griffiths, Cornelia Parker and Michelle Stuart.