Matt Chesney, director of Backlit in Nottingham, explains how the gallery has twice won a Connect! artist to lead their Museums at Night events. This explains how Matt's team reached out to new audiences to vote for Backlit, and how they collaborated with Mat Collishaw and Gillian Wearing on successful Museums at Night events.

1. Backlit
est. 2008
@BACKLITgallery backlit.org.uk info@backlit.org.uk

3. Backlit:
A brief history
Connect!:
Mat Collishaw 2013
Gillian Wearing 2015

5. Backlit is a two storey independent art gallery located in the heart of Nottingham,
UK. It provides affordable studio spaces for contemporary artists; supporting early
career graduates, emerging artists and international touring
practitioners. Backlit provides a dynamic public programme of national and
international artists including original artist commissions, workshops, screenings
and live debates. It has a strong working relationship with regional and national
organisations and universities. It is committed to supporting community engaged
projects and provides unique critical sessions for artists working in the city.

9. Connect 2013
• Mat Collishaw
• We were selected to compete in the 2013
competition to bring Mat Collishaw back to his home
town of Nottingham and reconnect with local artists.
• We put together an award winning social media
campaign with local PR company Cartwright
Communications called BringBackMat!

10. Bring Back Mat Campaign
The tag #bringbackmat, fun ‘Mat facts’ and links to the online
voting site were used to draw attention to the campaign
online. Online regional ‘influencers’ such as journalists, local
artists, and educational and cultural organisations were also
identified and approached to support the campaign.
The Gallery was featured in local, national and international
press including Nottingham Evening Post, AN and Vogue
Ukraine!

12. • Backlit was awarded significant Arts Council
funding in 2013 not long after the Connect
win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6U96u9FS
kc

13. The House of the Flying Wheel,
2014

18. The Exhibition

19. Yinka Shonibare MBE

20. Julian Wild

21. Mark Davey

22. Darren Banks

23. Virtual Reality Experience

25. Digital Archive

26. morleythreads.com

27. Connect 2013
• Gillian Wearing
• We were selected to compete in the 2015
competition to host a ‘personal karaoke’ event.
• We put together another successful and interactive
social media campaign for “spoken selfies” that
would use contemporary culture to reference
Gillian’s work.

28. Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what
someone else wants you to say, 1992-93

29. Vote for Gillian
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2BjyIAB
KnA

32. Dancing in Broadmarsh
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7pKa2
T0A4

33. • We won the vote by 50% by drip feeding
information and encouraging local students
and cultural organisations in the Nottingham
to back us!
• The Personal Karaoke event was later
developed with Gillian Wearing into the ‘Shy
Convention’.

38. • Gillian Wearing and Backlit hosted an afternoon
of creative sessions exploring confidence, writing,
music and language. The Shy Convention involved
a small group of participants who attended two
sessions; one in creative writing with local
collective Mouthy Poets and the other with life
coach, Isabel Mortimer. The objective was to
prepare a personal piece of writing to perform
later that evening to a live audience as part of the
‘personal karaoke’ experience.

39. Gillian says…
• ‘I hope it will bring a lot of like-minded people
together in celebration of a trait that many
people have, including myself. Let this be a
celebration as well as an opportunity to find
techniques that can help boost confidence.’

44. Featured in National press!

45. In 2016
• Following on form this we are looking into an
interesting legacy to the project and how we
can capture the event.
• We have a received Arts Council funding
following the Connect! and Museums at Night
2015.
• info@backlit.org.uk