It has been a year since I left to live in Australia. What an amazing experience it has been, and continues to be. Working at the MCA is endlessly interesting, challenging and above all, agile, collegiate and exciting.
I am planning to begin another 52 series on this website and other social media, looking at […]
Some news…I am moving to Sydney, Australia in July to begin working as Director, Audience Engagement at the MCA Australia at the beginning of August. How excited am I! Lightsgoingon has been amazing these past four years and I have worked with so many brilliant people; but it feels like the right […]
Last week I took part in the Awkward Bastards symposium around diversity, organised by DASH and held at mac in Birmingham. I was to speak, along with three other artists, about this question ‘why is it so difficult to define yourself as a disabled artist?’. It was a fantastic day, so much covered – […]
I visited the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne- NGV – for the first time, and had a great time there. And that was because I saw some really interesting artwork, most of it acting as an invitation to join in, to interact in some way. Relational aesthetics has been around for a while […]
Chuck Close in Sydney is an obvious crowd pleaser, and for that reason I debated whether to visit it. His work is so familiar and unswerving, with his images of ‘heads’ – he is not keen on calling them portraits – being the way he has made artwork since the 1960s. What swung it […]
Well, it’s been another really busy year work-wise; stimulating, exhausting (all that driving), and a real buzz. There’s been a breath of work across the UK, but I have to thank Bristol Museum &Art Gallery and Mead Gallery, University of Warwick for trusting me to deliver teachers resources, talks and training for them. And […]
Week Fifty Two
Susan Meiselas (1948-)
Teen Dream, Woodstock, VT, 1973, from the series Carnival Strippers
Susan Meiselas has spent her career documenting people in different situations, and in doing so, capturing historic moments in time. In the 1970s, over a three year period, she took a series of photographs of […]
Week Fifty One
Esther Teichmann (b. 1980)
Untitled, from the series Mythologies, 2012-13
Esther Teichmann is a German–American artist based in London. She works in series; her first body of work entitled ‘Viscosity’ shows men, women and children surrounded by a dark thick liquid (is it the sea? oil?) or floating half […]
Week Fifty
Alexander Gronsky (1980-)
Pastoral, 2008-2012, Dzerzhinskiy II, Suburbs of Moscow
Alexander Gronsky was born in Tallinn, Estonia, and lives and works in Riga, Latvia. Between 1999 and 2008 he worked as a press photographer for the Russian and international media, covering Russia and the former USSR. He is one of a […]
Introduction
My name is Gill Nicol and for the last four years, I have run lightsgoingon, with its mission to make contemporary art accessible, for as many people as possible. This happened through a range of workshops, training, projects, events and courses; providing knowledge, skills and increased confidence for individuals, businesses, community groups, teachers and the gallery and museum sector. Lightsgoingon has worked with a wide range of people and organisations including: Folkestone Triennial, Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, Ikon Gallery, Chapter (Cardiff), Hampshire County Council, Film Agency for Wales, Bath Spa University and Plymouth Arts Centre. I have also coached and mentored some amazing creative people.
For the next three years, I am going to be Director, Audience Engagement at the MCA in Sydney, Australia.