Greetings and Glad Tidings

Greetings and Glad Tidings

The Hull History Centre is putting on an exhibition looking into the history of the Christmas card. There will be lots to see visually and we hope to get people talking about Christmas past as we approach the 2018 festive season.

Inspiration for this exhibition came from a desire to know whether or not Christmas cards, once an integral part of Christmas, have a future in the age that we now live, dominated by social media and digital information.

The exhibition focuses on how the design of Christmas cards has changed as well as the sentiments and language used in them. It has been amazing to find how individual cards often have a story behind them and evoke memories of a bygone time.

We hope you will come into the History Centre and look at the examples we have chosen to display, dating from 1868 to 2014. Through reading the text that accompanies some of the images, you will also find out useful things about our wider collections here at the Hull History Centre.

We are also carrying out a survey to help us to assess what the future of the Christmas card might be? Simply pick up a form, complete it and pop it in our Victorian pillar box. The results will be posted on our website in the New Year.

Hessle Roaders: Artist-Led Tours

Join Photographer Dr Alec Gill MBE as he takes you on a tour of his photo exhibition, the Hessle Roaders, which captures life in Hull’s former Fishing Community during the 1970s/80s.

The artist-led tours are available on the following days:

Tuesday 4 December, 11.00am
Saturday 8 December, 2.00pm
Tuesday 11 December, 11.00am
Thursday 13 December, 2.00pm
Tuesday 18 December, 11.00am
Saturday 22 December, 2.00pm

Click here to find out more information about the exhibition.

To book your place please email culture@hull.ac.uk or ring 01482 465683

The Hessle Roaders by Alec Gill

This winter the University of Hull’s Brynmor Jones Library will be the home of a popular photography exhibition by photographer and historian Dr. Alec Gill MBE. The Hessle Roaders, captures life in Hull’s former Fishing Community during the 1970s and 1980s.

The exhibition was a highlight of Hull’s year as UK City of Culture when three showings of the images broke audience attendance records. At Hull History Centre, for example, it attracted over 8,000 visitors.

Dr. Gill began the work whilst studying his Psychology degree at the University between 1974 and 1977. People have always been central to the study and Alec, who sometimes describes himself as “a psychologist with a camera” aiming to capture everyday life,took over 6,500 negatives that capture the pre-digital world when children played street games, corner shops abounded, and the port had a powerful deep-sea trawling fleet.

In 1971, local historian Alec Gill spent time on Hessle Road capturing its residents with his Rolleicord camera. Hessle Road had a strong, working-class identity, as an area where Hull’s trawlermen and their families lived, in addition to many warehouse and factory workers. It was also the home of the famous trawler safety campaigner, Lillian Bilocca.

In 2017, Alec’s black and white photographs transport us back in time to the period where Hessle Road was the heart of Hull’s fishing community. These snapshots touch upon the everyday lives of the road’s inhabitants, with children playing on the streets, neighbours gossiping in the terraces, dock workers going about their business and Three-Day Millionaires having a ball.

Traenerhus: Christmas Shopper Night

Join us for a Christmas Shopping Experience, Traenerhus style!

Meet the makers, craft demos, shop for Christmas with friends whilst having a mince pie with a glass of mulled wine in our lovely High Street shop and gallery on Wednesday 21st November from 5:30-9pm at 167 High Street, Hull

@HullDotToday @HullHour

Hot Off The Press

An exciting new exhibition by local printmakers, the Hull Print Collective in the tranquil setting of The Carriage House at the Burton Constable Stables.

Hull Print Collective is an evolving group of printmakers employing a personal approach covering a wide range of subject matter.
The group explores a wide variety of printmaking techniques including etching, lino, collagraph, monotype and screen print.
The Collective whilst working at home, often in isolation meet weekly at Hull College printmaking class using the facilities to print and make final work.
Some members are currently in the process of producing prints which are inspired by Burton Constable Hall, the grounds and surrounding area. These will be on display at our ‘Hot off the Press’ exhibition which will be in the Stable Block Tea Rooms and the Carriage House Gallery from November 6th to December 21st 2018.

Location: The Carriage House, Burton Constable Stables

Open daily 11am – 5pm and included with the normal admission charges.

Ian McKeever: Paintings 1992 – 2017

Ian McKeever RA (b.1946) is a contemporary British artist. He grew up in Withernsea, East Yorkshire and was inspired early on by the Ferens’ permanent collection, especially Stanley Spencer’s Greenhouse and Garden, 1937, and maritime paintings by Thomas Binks and John Ward.

McKeever’s first solo exhibition took place at the ICA, London in 1973. His early work as a painter grew out of a conceptual interest in landscape, painting and photography in which often a photographic element was juxtaposed with a drawing or overpainted. However, around 1988 his work became more engaged with painting alone. His later works have an emphasis on an abstract language which is concerned primarily with the human body and architectural structures. At the same time the quality of light and its presence in the painting became increasingly important. Often the works are monumental in format. Since 2007 he has reengaged with the photographic element in his work.

McKeever’s work is represented in leading international public collections, including Tate, British Museum, Royal Academy of Arts, London; Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; Museum of Fine Art, Budapest; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Boston Museum of Fine Art.

Since 1990 the artist has lived and worked in Hartgrove, Dorset.

KWL – Principal sponsor of the Ferens exhibition programme 2018/19.

You’re only here for the culture

Through photography, film, and audio, artist Kevin Crooks has been documenting a number of individuals and community groups situated in the port cities of Hull and Liverpool since 2017.
Throughout the production of ‘You’re Only Here for the Culture’ Kevin has captured personal accounts from people who have been directly and indirectly impacted by the legacy of both European Capital of Culture in Liverpool and UK City of Culture in Hull, ten years apart. Kevin wanted to explore how in the short and long-term future these significant cultural events may alter and affect communities in these cities.
The project is an extension of Kevin’s project ‘M62: The Transpennine Motorway’, a collection of work from 2017 which focussed on the M62 as a transport link which geographically binds and culturally connects the communities and cities of the North.
‘You’re Only Here for the Culture’ is a new body of work in which Kevin has collaborated with communities that share similarities. Particularly in terms of how increased support and investment into cultural activities has impacted on the status, opportunities and future prospects of people within these two port cities that have
faced the challenges of economic decline. The title ‘You’re Only Here For the Culture’ came from a Hull City AFC chant. Outcomes of the work produced will be exhibited at Artlink Hull from
December 2018, and will later be displayed in a different format by Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool in 2019.

Hull International Photography Festival – HIP Fest

Hull International Photography Festival #HIPfest takes over Princes Quay Shopping Centre for a 5th year. New for 2018; successful London show PhotoCity and partners Fujiholics bring fresh excitement to the opening weekend. HIPfest opens at 6.30 on the evening of Friday October 5th with a packed weekend programme. Exhibitions will stay until 28th. 12 exhibitions by award-winning visiting photographers & outstanding local talent, and 50 other events including masterclasses, photo-walks, discussions and a photography trade-show.

Festival highlights include: The POP Exhibition by legendary photographer Brian Griffin, a masterclass by Youtuber sensation Sean Tucker in Hull Minster, the moving “Stranger In My Mother’s Kitchen” exhibition by Celine Marchbank, 50’s Paris fashion and more from the Marilyn Stafford collection, #PhotoCity trade-show & exhibition, ‘A1 Britain On The Verge’ by World Press Award-winning patron Peter Dench and so much more.

Nic Gear: ‘Navigating Edgelands’

Opening Event Saturday 15 September 1pm – 3pm in our top floor Gallery. All warmly welcome.

The understanding and sense of place we have within our immediate lived landscapes often gets reflected in what’s known as edgelands, liminal spaces mediating the transition from the rural to the natural worlds. Even within cityscapes there are still spaces such as parks, allotments and waste ground, all be it on a smaller scale, where this process can be found.

These hidden and overlooked environments are what captures Nic Gears imagination, whilst out walking, in a strategy of repetition, as he discovers the ways in which we grapple with appreciating the value of the world in which we live.

Nic has lived in both urban and natural environments, from London to rural Staffordshire. Through the influence of his late Grandfather, Gerald, Nic has developed a culture of walking, which draws him particularly into ‘edgeland’ landscapes where he is most creatively inspired.

Having always collected photos, debris, natural objects and found text whilst walking Nic has extended his practice at College then University and in 2015 completed a Masters in Fine Art, with a project title of ‘Walking the past in the present, influencing the future’.

Drawing on and drawing with the materiality of the landscape summarises Nicks work, from using collected oak apples to make ink for ‘language and contour mark making’, to using found debris in making relief sculptures, and combining photographic prints with mark making. These techniques are also used to consider notions around ‘mapping’ and the ‘reality’ of what we do and don’t see.

Nics work has featured at St Johns College Library, Cambridge celebrating the life of Wordsworth in 2013, at the Dove Cottage Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere, in 2015, and at Lancaster Universities ‘Words Festival’ 2017.

Nic lives and works on the outskirts of Nottingham traversing the liminal spaces of the city continuing to pinpoint and make connections between our past and present.

Hull Print Fair 2018

Hull Print Fair, an annual celebration of all things print, is set to take over Humber Street Gallery and neighbouring venues along the street in November. A collective of 20 northern artists sell artwork showcasing a diverse range of artistic styles and print mediums such as, screenprints, linocuts, etchings and more.

Expect to see pop up exhibitions, demonstrations and performances in a weekend of pure print and graphic design love.

Stall holders will be on hand to provide you with all you contemporary print needs (and Christmas gifts perhaps?). All housed alongside Jamie Reid’s first major retrospective in the UK, “XXXXX: FIFTY YEARS OF SUBVERSION AND THE SPIRIT.”

Night Ferry

The Night Ferry exhibition features a compilation of images taken on the P&O ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge by local photographer Brian Rowlands About the Photographer.

Brian Rowlands took up Photography as a teenager, learning to print his own black-and-white photographs – which involved a pitch-dark room, smelly chemicals and peeling skin!

He finally made the move to digital printing some years after completing a B.A. in Fine Art at Newcastle Polytechnic. In spite of the proliferation of on-line digital images, He was keener than ever to make prints from his photographs.

An artistic response to colour has been made fast and easy by digital cameras. He is often astonished by the omnipresence of colour in the modern material environment. Harbours and ships offer one particularly good hunting ground for colour and for striking shapes.

The Exhibition: Blessed with a warm summer night and sporting a new digital camera, I spent a July evening photographing on the decks of the ferry to Zeebrugge. I was unprepared for the simple, stunning colours, created by a vivid sunset and glaring cabin lights. Most of all, I was thrilled to find that the vividness of colour increased, if anything, as it got darker!

Location: The Carriage House, Burton Constable Stables This exhibition is included in the normal admission charges.

No So Imaginary Friends

IMAGINARY FRIENDS COME TO LIFE AT LOCAL GALLERY!

A new City Centre art exhibition will showcase a striking collection of surreal and fantastical artworks by Hull based artists Anna Bean and Sam Fowler.

Queens House Showcase on Paragon Street will host their strange and imaginary art for their new show; “Not So Imaginary Friends”.

Featuring painting and photography, Anna and Sam’s work mixes up human and animal imagery with intense colour and pattern to create distinctive and fanciful scenes. Anna works with photography, combining nostalgia and surrealism with dramatic digital collage techniques to produce what some describe as ‘dream-worlds filled with Gothic horror and surreal humour’.

Sam’s work comes from a painterly perspective, using left-field humour and illustration techniques to comment on contemporary life, complete with its’ challenges and delights.

Anna is best known for her work under the name of Bluebeany, featuring anthropo-morphic characters heavily influenced by vintage Star Trek and Doctor Who imagery. Her portraits and images are often filled with recognizable yet unnerving characters.

Sam’s work is rooted in childhood imagery, playing with ideas of etiquette and mischief to produce accessible and often amusing scenes made up of imagery and text.

Anna & Sam are the latest artists to be showcased by Creative ENRG, who support crea-tive enterprise across Hull & East Riding. Since the showcase opened in 2017, Creative ENRG has supported over 50 local creatives to develop their businesses – Queens House Showcase is just one of their many initiatives to support creative enterprise to develop, grow & thrive.

Gill Hobson, Creative Director commented, “We’re delighted to be hosting this new show, which we hope visitors will love. It’s so important that we support and nurture local talent to help us create the vibrant place we want to live and work in.”

“Not So Imaginary Friends” opens to the public on 9 August – 7 September at Queens House Showcase, 44-46 Paragon Street Hull. Opening times: Wed – Fri 11-4pm daily. Free Entry.

Creative ENRG is the specialist enterprise support programme for arts & culture in Hull & East Riding. Creative ENRG is hosted by Goodwin Development Trust and Funded by Arts Council England’s Creative Local Growth Fund and the European Regional Devel-opment Fund.

‘Breaking Chains’ Open Exhibition

Our first Open exhibition ‘Breaking Chains’ invites work that encapsulates that moment of a chain or shackle (physical or otherwise) being broken. We are encouraging artists to submit work that to them represents a moment when they felt or recognised in someone or something else a sense of Freedom being realised.

We are open to all mediums, mixed or otherwise, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, film, sound, textiles, sculpture and illustration. We particularly welcome submissions from artists born or working in Hull and the surrounding area.

The exhibition will be open to the public from Friday 31st August to Saturday 1st October 2018.

Hull Connected, a story of rail in Hull.

In partnership with Transpennine Express – The History Troupe are pleased to announce the opening of an new Pop-Up exhibition – Hull Connected, the story of rail in Hull.

The exhibition tells the story of rail in Hull, from the beginnings of the early railways to its development with the docks and beyond – the Roots, Heritage and Future.

There will also be a photographic gallery of images sourced from the Hull Daily Mail archive, featuring some amazing photographs of Hull Paragon Station from the 1940’s down to now.

This free exhibition will open on Friday 3rd of August in Retail Unit (3) on the concourse of Hull Paragon Station (next to Starbucks).

The Charente Exhibition

The main exhibition presents the biographies and wartime exploits of 35 French citizens from the Charente in south-west France. The second exhibition relates the story of ‘Opération Frankton’ a Royal Marines commando mission. This story is more familiar to English audiences as the series of exploits which inspired the making of ‘Cockle-shell heroes’ a 1955 British war film.

The programme includes a series of short lectures followed by a film extract related to the exhibition theme. The first day is aimed towards non-French speakers and will be of special interest to historians, students of politics and European culture. The second day is aimed towards college and sixth form students of French and for those who have an intermediate level of French. The third day is aimed towards undergraduate and post-graduate students of French.

Sponsored by the Ferens Educational Trust. Free admission.

British Science Association

Europe’s longest standing science Festival will travel to Hull & the Humber this September. Science the night away at the Humber Street Party, discover if you’re a super-recogniser, unlock the secrets of the canine mind or take part in some UV yoga. There really is something for everyone. The diverse programme of over a hundred talks, debates, performances and activities will be happening across the University campus and Hull city for four days only. And the best thing? It’s all free! Book at: www.britishsciencefestival.org