10th anniversary programme 2020

2020 marks the ten year anniversary of Grand Union’s first exhibition which opened on March 28, 2010 in Birmingham, UK.

We are curating a programme of exhibitions and events throughout the year to celebrate this milestone. Confirmed projects for 2020 include working with artists Alberta Whittle, Louis Henderson, Jamie Crewe, Cooking Sections, Holly Argent, Navi Kaur, Lucy Reynolds, Carole Wright, Sudanese Kitchen, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Bassem Saad and Ed Webb-Ingall, as well as with many community partners across the West Midlands, the rest of the UK and internationally.

Gallery programme

LOVE & SOLIDARITY | SOLIDARITY & LOVE
“sister” exhibitions by Jamie Crewe
Grand Union: February 7–April 17, 2020
Humberside Gallery: January 18–Sunday, March 29, 2020

Grand Union (Birmingham) and Humber Street Gallery (Hull) have co-commissioned “sister” exhibitions of new work by Jamie Crewe comprising videos, sculptures and writing—Love & Solidarity in Birmingham, and Solidarity & Love in Hull. This new body of work will take inspiration from Radclyffe Hall’s 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness, using the ambiguous tensions it stirs to think about repulsive kinships: with places, cultures, histories, communities, and individuals.

Extended Outwith
Events curated by Seán Elder
July–October 2020

As part of ongoing research into curatorial work’s affects and subjectivities, Seán Elder has invited artists Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay and Bassem Saad to present new work and research in events as part of a curatorial programme.
Invited to Birmingham in the midst of micro-local and national infrastructural shifts, actions and gestures within these events will configure intimacy and resilience in relation to cultural, historical, and personal materials.

A simultaneity of stories-so-far
Holly Argent, Navi Kaur, Lucy Reynolds, curated by Laura Onions & Alice O’Rourke
September–December 2020

A simultaneity of stories-so-far is a long-term public programme and research project which explores processes of gathering stories, histories and possible futures. As Grand Union enters its tenth year, we propose to reconsider the archive through its own terms, so we might critically reflect upon the past whilst making room for future making.

Elsewhere

The Empire Remains Shop Birmingham with Cooking Sections
2019–2022

Last summer we launched our long-term project with artist duo Cooking Sections, with the Grand Union programme relocating to Junctions Works, our future home in the former Canal & River Trust Office grade-II listed building in Birmingham.

This building is animated with installations changing in the windows every four months, working closely with Cooking Sections. Alberta Whittle has created a new painted billboard commission on the building investigating her Barbadian heritage and respectability politics, followed by a sound installation by Louis Henderson revisiting “Blues Parties” and music created in Handsworth from 1960s–80s.

Projects involving communities across Birmingham include the Growing Project in St Anne’s Hostel with homeless charity Crisis; Laura Wilson’s bread project with a cooperative bakery in Stirchley in collaboration with mima (Middlesbrough), Site Gallery (Sheffield) and TACO (London); a Housing Justice research project building a national network with grassroots activist organisations and artist filmmaker Ed Webb-Ingall with Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham), LUX Scotland (Glasgow) and Liverpool; American Export, a series of site-specific projects developed for Birmingham City University, the Library of Birmingham, Millennium Point and Thinktank Planetarium curated by Christina Millaire.

Grand Union’s 10th Birthday on Saturday, June 20, 2020. Join us to celebrate with a BBQ, live music and performances.

For further information please visit our website (grand-union.org.uk) or contact Kim McAleese, Programme Director, at kim [​at​] grand-union.org.uk.

These projects are made possible through funding from Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Birmingham City University, Bruntwood and Architectural Heritage Fund.