Projects

Between November 2023 and August 2024, BACKLIT hosted Janhavi Sharma as part of the Global Ethnic Majority Artist Residency, co-organised by BACKLIT and New Art Exchange. The programme was founded to support Global Ethnic Majority artists in the East Midlands’ arts landscape who face barriers in accessing studio spaces and developing their studio practice.

As part of BACKLIT’s on going aims to address Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in our organisation, over the last 12-months we have created a new profressional development programme, GEM (Global Ethnic Majority).

BACKLIT and the University of Nottingham, Creative Writing course are pleased to be delivering an Ecopoetry Programme, to an invited group of young people that are associated with BACKLIT’s youth collective, Pending.

In 2022, BACKLIT introduced OUTCOME. OUTCOME is a creative residency programme that brings students from The University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University together for the first time in BACKLIT studios and online.

Partnering with HART Galery, Hong Kong, on the Peer to Peer: UK/HK programme, BACKLIT and HART artists Millie Quick, Tom Ireland and Nicholas Wong are developing and collaborating on new works as part of this cultural exchange.

In 2021, BACKLIT created a young people-led podcast series that platforms marginalised perspectives, individual experiences, and opinions on issues spanning the complex socio-political spectrum — Are You Even Listening? Developed by Assistant Curator, Jazz Swali.

In 2017/2018, BACKLIT developed a programme titled Introduction to Art-Writing. A series of workshops to bring together people in Nottingham. With continued support from ArtReview, BACKLIT has created an independent online platform, The Remark, that continues to celebrate art and cultural experiences through writing.

Since 2019, Nottingham Trent University MFA students have been a part of the BACKLIT studios and hosting yearly exhibitions and events in our galleries. This ongoing partnership aims to promote student artists, give a prominent city-centre studio location, host exhibitions and events and support the overall development of artists and arts ecology in the region.

In 2021, BACKLIT presented a year-long research project on the history of King Edward Park, Sneinton, Nottingham, the site of the UK’s first county asylum, 1812. The project showcased community research, artist commissions and an online resource.