Nottingham raises its profile as a culture capital

This autumn will see a number of prestigious arts events taking place that are raising the cultural profile of the city of Nottingham and attracting worldwide attention.

With Nottdance from 12 to 21 October and the Bang! short film festival on 20 and 21 October, plus the innovative new arts festival GameCity from 24 to 28 October, there’s not many cities in the UK outside London that will have so many major arts events all running back to back, all with their own agenda.

The second annual GameCity festival is unique in design, celebrating the video games industry with an impressive programme of events. Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy is the keynote speaker who will be making his one and only public appearance outside Tokyo this year.

The festival looks at the role video games occupy in modern society and in family life, exploring its potential for education, exercise and concept art from music scores to fine art illustration. People don’t realise for example, that there’s a whole music industry around video games, and producers will buy music and sign bands just as they do in the popular music arena.

It’s also a creative industry open to fashion designers and this too is addressed at the festival with a preview of the next launch by Freestyle Games (producers of a popular B-boy/ breakdancing game). A snowboarding game sponsored by Quicksilver and featuring a clothing range designed by the brand, it is a good example of how the creative industries merge in gaming.

What makes GameCity different to similar festivals is that it’s not commercially driven in any way. The game previews are purely about the industry and the products themselves are not for sale at the festival. There’s no other video games festival like it in the UK.

With talks from game-makers, exclusive looks at new games, art exhibitions, tournaments, tea-parties, gigs, gong-shows, piano recitals, parent and family workshops, dance events, public debates and retro arcade trails, there’s something for the whole family to enjoy.

It will take place at various venues and public spaces in the city from galleries to street corners. Nottingham’s Old Market Square will be recreated for use in Second Life – the internet’s virtual world.

Next year sees the opening of the Centre for Contemporary Arts Nottingham (as a result of the British Art Show 6 showing in Nottingham last year) and the New Arts Exchange. The former promises to deliver a highflying platform for international contemporary art on the scale of Bilbao’s Guggenheim, while the latter will be the only gallery in the UK dedicated to black and Asian artists.

With all this going on and two top universities producing future generations of creative talent, Nottingham has truly become a city of culture.

To find out more, log on to Experiencenottinghamshire.com.