Do It Yourself? An Intriguing History of DIY
DIY: Do It Yourself. An exhibition in partnership with the BBC
8 April 2022 - 25 September 2022 at the Museum of Making
In partnership with the BBC as part of its centenary celebrations
From DIY TV programmes to current DIY trends on social media, this unique, quirky exhibition will explore the intriguing past, present and future of DIY. The exhibition, in partnership with the BBC, will not only explore how DIY has been represented in the media, but will also showcase a vast amount of objects associated with DIY, as well as exploring how DIY is changing as we learn more about the importance of sustainability and healthy living spaces and materials.
Find out more about the exhibition here
#DIYDerby #BBC100
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Derby West Indian Community Association: Culture and Legacy
Derby West Indian Community Association: Culture and Legacy
18 March 2022 - 4 September 2022 at Museum & Art Gallery
The exhibition dives into the heritage of Derby West Indian Community Association (DWICA), including Windrush generation memories and the experiences of younger members growing up in Derby. It explores how the Association has positively responded to challenges over six decades, to support its local community, building a legacy in the city through its many social, cultural, educational and sporting achievements. The exhibition celebrates the vibrancy and spirit of Derby Caribbean Carnival and the year-long local, national and international connections and collaborations that make this highlight of Derby’s cultural calendar possible.
This exhibition is part of The Centre that Powers the Road, a 12-month project exploring the heritage of DWICA, ensuring the history of the Association, and Derby Caribbean Carnival, is better looked after, more accessible and understood. In partnership with Derby Museums, the project will create an important archive for the city documenting the building of a community from the 1950s and the continued vital work of the Association today.
The Centre that Powers the Road is generously supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
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Quentin Blake and John Yeoman: 50 Years of Children’s Books
Quentin Blake and John Yeoman: 50 Years of Children’s Books - Virtual Tour
9 July 2021 - 3 October 2021 at Museum & Art Gallery
Quentin Blake has had a number of extended collaborations with writers, but the longest of all has been with John Yeoman. This exhibition is the first to celebrate this partnership, featuring more than 40 works, including illustrations and books by the two.
Their first book was A Drink of Water in 1960, which launched Quentin Blake’s career in children’s book illustration. Since then they have worked together on nearly 50 projects including All The Year Round, launched by Andersen Press in October 2017, and A Drink of Water, which was republished by Thames and Hudson in September 2017.
Quentin Blake and John Yeoman: 50 Years of Children’s Books is an exhibition from House of Illustration, curated by Quentin Blake.
Cover image: All the Year Round © Quentin Blake
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3D Virtual Exhibition Tour supported by the Marketing Peak District & Derbyshire Business Grant Scheme.
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Scale
Scale - Virtual Tour
21 May 2021 - 28 November 2021 at the Museum of Making
Scale affects us every day, yet often goes unnoticed. Used in production and prototyping, in mapping and to convey perspective, scale is critical to the making process and a powerful tool in communicating ideas.
This first exhibition to open in the new Museum of Making explores scale as a theme on the site widely regarded as the world's first modern factory where, in 1721, Derby Silk Mill was processing raw silk on a scale never before seen, using the River Derwent to power machines worked by hundreds of people.
Surprising and perception-shifting, the exhibition explores the scale and impact of this site’s legacy, presenting the work of artists alongside intriguing objects from Derby Museums’ collection.
Suitable for all.
Image: The Stream (Royal Victoria Dock, London, 2014) by Slinkachu. (Image featured in the exhibition)
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3D Virtual Exhibition Tour supported by the Marketing Peak District & Derbyshire Business Grant Scheme.
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Cabaret Mechanical Theatre
Cabaret Mechanical Theatre - Virtual Tour
10 December 2021 - 13 March 2022 at the Museum of Making
Since 1979 Cabaret Mechanical Theatre (CMT) have played an integral role in the revival of automata and have supported a growing number of automata makers. Their visually stunning art, science and engineering exhibitions have been seen by millions of people worldwide.
CMT are delighted to bring 30 automata from their collection to the Museum of Making this winter. This interactive educational experience is perfect for children, families, school groups and adults.
The automata are made by 12 contemporary artists, including Paul Spooner, Carlos Zapata, Wanda Sowry and Fi Henshall. Marvel at the ingenious mechanisms, get inspired to make your own automata, and learn more about this wonderful art form.
Cover image: Mermaid of Zennor – automaton by Carlos Zapata, image © Steve Tanner
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Claude Cahun: Beneath this Mask
Claude Cahun: Beneath this Mask - Virtual Tour
22 October 2021 - 27 February 2022 at Museum & Art Gallery
This Hayward Touring exhibition features the work of French female photographer Claude Cahun (1894–1954), whose practice investigates gender and identity.
Cahun achieved posthumous fame for her elusive self-portraits in which she assumed multiple personae.
The exhibition contains 42 contemporary giclee prints made from scans of Cahun’s original photographic self-portraits, as the majority of the negatives have been lost.
Born Lucy Schwob, she adopted the pseudonym in 1917 to free herself from the narrow confines of gender. At the beginning of her career she was aligned to the Surrealist movement and was friends with André Breton; however she distanced herself both politically and physically after fleeing France on the eve of Nazi occupation.
Cahun settled in Jersey where she embarked upon her defining photographic series, in which the subversion of traditional portraiture and the constructed nature of identity and gender are pressing concerns. In these now famous images, Cahun anticipated the performative work of contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman.
This Hayward Touring exhibition is in collaboration with Jersey Heritage and was first presented at the Women of the World Festival 2015, Southbank Centre.
Cover image: Claude Cahun, Self Portrait, 1928. Courtesy and copyright Jersey Heritage
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White Heat of British Industry, 1950s-60s: Photographs by Maurice Broomfield
White Heat of British Industry, 1950s-60s:
Photographs by Maurice Broomfield - Virtual Tour
15 March-6 May 2019 Museum & Art Gallery
Maurice Broomfield (1916-2010) made spectacular photographs of British industry, showing skilled men and women proudly at work in factories across the UK. Produced in the 1950s and 1960s, they reveal a workforce in an era of rapid technological transition. Broomfield was born to a working-class family in Draycott, Derbyshire, leaving school at 15 to work as a lathe operator at Rolls-Royce. He attended Derby Art College in the evenings before becoming Britain’s premier industrial photographer, drawing inspiration from the paintings of Joseph Wright of Derby and modernist photography from the German Bauhaus design schools. Images in the exhibition are from Broomfield’s archive housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, alongside works from Derby Museum and Art Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Martin Barnes, V&A Senior Curator of Photographs. A selection of Broomfield’s original cameras complement the photographs loaned by his son; acclaimed documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield. Part of FORMAT19, organised by QUAD and the University of Derby: formatfestival.com
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Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing
Leonardo da Vinci: A life in drawing - Virtual Tour
1 February-6 May 2019 at Museum & Art Gallery
A Touring Exhibition from The Royal Collection Trust The Royal Collection contains one of the world’s greatest collections of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. In spring 2019, a selection of these exquisite drawings travelled to Derby for a special exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance Master’s death. Never-before seen in the city, the works have been gathered together to reflect the full range of Leonardo’s interests, from painting, sculpture, architecture, and music, to anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany. As so much of his life’s work was unrealised or destroyed, it is only in these drawings, and a handful of related manuscripts, that Leonardo’s greatest achievements survive. This exhibition was part of a nationwide event, with simultaneous shows of Leonardo’s drawings at Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton and Sunderland, providing the widest-ever UK audience the opportunity to see the work of this extraordinary artist.
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A Personal Collection of Vivienne Westwood’s Shoes
A Personal Collection: Vivienne Westwood Shoes
Virtual Tour
17 June-17 September 2017 Pickford’s House
A Touring Exhibition from The Civic, Barnsley A Personal Collection of Vivienne Westwood Shoes, this ultimate indulgence shows how a private collector has built this collection over the last 15 years, choosing them for their innovative attitude towards design and most importantly their passion. Vivienne Westwood is best known as the creator of punk and new wave fashions as well as for opening the Sex boutique with Malcolm McLaren in the 1970s. This collection of shoes spans the decades from that time.
Virtual Tour
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Marion Adnams: A Singular Woman
Marion Adnams: A Singular Woman - Virtual Tour
2 December 2017 - 4 March 2018 Museum & Art Gallery
Marion Elizabeth Adnams was born in Derby in 1898 where she remained, for the most part, until her death, aged 96. During the course of her long life, she forged a reputation as a painter of deeply distinctive and dream-like visions inspired by the Surrealist movement. Adnams exhibited almost continuously in London and regional art galleries from the late 1930s and examples of her work can be found in many public collections, alongside that of her friends and contemporaries Evelyn Gibbs and Eileen Agar. Despite this, her work is largely forgotten today. This important exhibition brings together the full and diverse range of her art for the first time in almost 50 years in a bid to recapture the legacy of this most remarkable artist. This exhibition was made possible with support from Art Fund. This exhibition was curated in partnership with Val Wood, independent researcher, and Teresa Forde, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at the University of Derby.
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A Curious Turn
A Curious Turn - Virtual Tour
15 September-19 November 2017 Museum & Art Gallery
A Crafts Council Touring exhibition A Curious Turn presents automata by leading makers of the last 40 years that range from the humorous to the macabre and from the playful to the satirical. Works on show take a look at key automata makers such as Rowland Emett, famous for creating the elaborate inventions of Caractacus Potts in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). Automata are moving mechanical sculptures that are brought magically to life by sequences of cogs, cams, and levers. They have delighted and bewitched people for centuries. Visitors will be able to turn, push and crank to see many of the pieces in action, while newly commissioned films will show other pieces in motion.
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Finding Lines
Finding Lines - Virtual Tour
15 July-3 September 2017 Museum & Art Gallery
This exhibition features a fascinating variety of drawings, from Henry Moore to David Shrigley, Maggi Hambling and Frank Auerbach. Look out for commissioned works by Stephen Carley, Tim Shore, Susan Kester, Liz Atkin, Steve Chapman and Nick Parker in the gallery and adjacent spaces. This co-produced exhibition of drawings began with a sequence of creative acts by hundreds of participants, and builds on the notion of drawing as a tool to improve wellbeing.
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FORMAT19: Forever\\Now Exhibition
FORMAT19: Forever\\Now Exhibition - Virtual Tour
15 March-4 May 2019 Pickford’s House
Radical Visions: Camerawork Revisited Curated by Four Corners This exhibition reactivates the archives of Camerawork magazine (1976-1985), situating its radical approaches to photojournalism within the context of our current social-political moment. Emerging from the 1970s community arts movement, Camerawork did not view photography as a specialist practice, instead asserting the medium’s potential to effect social change. Inspired by the 1930s Worker-Photography Movement, its grassroots approach documented the political struggles of Thatcher-era Britain. Work by local people was shown alongside established practitioners including Jo Spence, Daniel Meadows, Susan Meiselas, Peter Kennard and many others. Contemporary photographers supported by Four Corners will be invited to submit images which speak to Camerawork’s ethos. Selected images will be projected into the space, creating a dialogue between two eras.
Anton Kusters: The Blue Skies Project The Blue Skies Project by Anton Kusters is an installation of 1078 mounted, peel-apart Polaroids of blue skies, accompanied by a 13-year real-time tracking audio piece created by Ruben Samama. The images were made between 2012 and 2017 at the last known locations of every former Nazi Germany concentration camp. One thousand and seventy-eight official concentration camps existed throughout Europe during the Nazi rule in Germany from 1933 to 1945. The artist comments that the blue skies in the project “…collectively bear witness to the systematic trauma that was happening below.” http://antonkusters.com/theblueskiesproject. FORMAT International Photography Festival, established in 2004, is the UK’s largest international biennale of contemporary photography, taking place in venues throughout Derby. FORMAT19 includes exhibitions, talks, conferences, performances, workshops, portfolio reviews and more. Curated around the theme of FOREVER\\NOW, the festival explores global perspectives on memory, archives and the enduring moment through incredible works by new and world-leading artists. A selection of these works feature in two exhibitions presented at Pickford’s House Museum. FORMAT is organised by QUAD and the University of Derby: formatfestival.com
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The Art of Industry: From Joseph Wright to the 21st Century
The Art of Industry: From Joseph Wright to the 21st Century - Virtual Tour
24 March-17 June 2018 Museum & Art Gallery
Exploring the interwoven histories of art and industry, this exhibition examines both the way that artists view industry and conversely the way that industry portrays itself. The exhibition charts the change in the artists’ viewpoint from depicting industrial buildings set in sublime landscapes to representing the ‘dark satanic mills’ and technological power houses reaping havoc on the natural world. Over the last 300 years since the birth of the Industrial Revolution artists have been fascinated by industry and people who work in it. Joseph Wright’s An Iron Forge painted in 1772 and in the Tate collection, returns to Derby for the first time since the 18th century. Other artists whose work are exhibited in the exhibition include Ford Madox Brown, L. S. Lowry, Graham Sutherland and Sir Edwardo Paolozzi.
Part of The Grand Tour | www.thegrandtour.uk.com Supported by Arts Council England’s Cultural Destination fund
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Dear Reader
Dear Reader - Virtual Tour
16 September- 19 November 2017 Museum & Art Gallery
An exhibition of paintings by Eleanor Watson the winner of the seventh Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award. For the last year Eleanor has explored the life stories of a selection of influential Women in the history of Derbyshire. The collection includes interiors, gardens, landscapes and still lives; from photographs taken and found and film stills each connected to a famous protagonist, with biographical elements to prompt a reading of their story. The viewpoint is brought into question as the figure is often absent. There is a suggestion that the viewer may have just disturbed the private world of the sitter.
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