Press Release : 18th March 2010 13:00

Taking place in some of the most prominent exhibition spaces in the region, SYNAPSE Festival 2010 is a celebration of the talent and vibrancy of the visual arts across the East Midlands.

Just as a synapse acts as an interface between a nerve and a cell to create activity, SYNAPSE Festival is stimulating new, distinctive cultural activity across Derby, Nottingham and Leicester, bringing together around twenty of the three cities’ most exciting artists.

Demonstrating the social diversity within the East Midlands and the richness of its artistic scene, SYNAPSE Festival is a cross-cultural event, with regionally-based young artists from Japan, Canada, Cyprus and Italy exhibiting alongside those originating from the British Isles.

With a vast array of work, ranging from painting, photography and print, to video and sculptural pieces, SYNAPSE Festival is an exploration of the many approaches artists have in producing their work, and an endorsement for the exchange of ideas. As well as many traditionally presented exhibitions, there will be one-off projects and special collaborations.

During two weeks in May, SYNAPSE Festival artist Beth Heaney will inhabit the Malt Cross Gallery space in Nottingham to undertake a research-based residency. Working with drawing as a temporal process, Heaney creates works which explore existential notions of actual space and perceived space, using the act of creating a mark as a performative action, as a measurement of time and a means of questioning the process of creating and understanding art, often drawing on the surface of the gallery space itself.

Whilst Chie Hosaka - graduate of Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University, born 1984 in Saitama, Japan, now living and working in Nottingham - uses her simple but imaginative drawings to express a melancholic personal philosophy on the nature of living, illustrating narratives which reflect her own daily life.

As well as showing her wall-based works, Hosaka will be collaborating with Wirksworth-based artist Anna Mawby in a residency during which the two artists will work together for the first time. United by a shared interest in human vulnerabilities, passing moments and the ephemeral nature of our existence, they will each bring their own artistic style but with an openness to respond to the environment in which they are residing. Using an empty shop in Derby as an artists’ studio, Mawby and Hosaka will react to the space. Limited to a stack of paper and cardboard as their only materials, the artists will begin to create intimate and thought provoking work shaped by interactions with the public. As the residency progresses the public will be able to witness the transformation of the space, observing the daily shift as the stack of paper depletes and the work begins to emerge.

Funded by Arts Council England, this residency project is part of a wider Derby City Council scheme aimed at regenerating urban areas that have suffered during the recession, promoting reinvestment.

As well as exhibiting in many established venues such as the University of Derby, Déda (the only dedicated dance house in the East Midlands) and the New Art Exchange (an international centre for the contemporary visual arts and crafts in Nottingham with a focus on African, African Caribbean and south-Asian artists- the only of it’s kind in England outside of London), SYNAPSE Festival events will also inhabit unusual, unfamiliar spaces during the course of the three months. From unused shop spaces and cafes, to Derby’s BBC Big Screen and the Royal Derby Hospital, over April, May and June, the East Midlands will play host to all manner of exhibitions, performances, screenings, talks, tours and workshops, including a Post Graduate Symposium, designed to motivate the region’s young artists to make ambitious leaps forward in their own careers.

SYNAPSE Festival is proud to be receiving the support of the region’s academic institutions: the University of Derby, De Montfort University Leicester, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham. During the festival, the Royal Derby Hospital - perhaps one of the last places to expect to see an exhibition of contemporary art- will play host to several wall-based works, working in collaboration with SYNAPSE Festival as part of their ‘air: arts to aid wellbeing’ project: an ongoing Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust initiative which aims to support the healing process with high quality art which helps create a place in which patients, visitors and staff can engage positively with their environment. Work on show will explore links to science and nature, including lightbox installations by Lorraine Ashley, which use medical images depicting the artist’s own very rare lung-based medical condition. “Only six or seven women in the whole of the UK have this condition and I am currently under the care of Dr Hay at Royal Derby Hospital. I am incredibly interested in art and medical science collaborations and using medical imagery within my work. I also wish to raise awareness via my work of endometriosis, especially the rarer forms.”

SYNAPSE Festival’s Curator, Saira Lloyd (herself a Fine Art MA Graduate from the University of Derby), formulated SYNAPSE Festival as a development of the ‘One Step Beyond- The Fringe’, an annual exhibition at Derby Museum and Gallery that showcases the work of emerging artists from MA courses in the region. Saira devised and has been co-ordinating this fringe event since 2008.

SYNAPSE Festival is being supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.