In recent years, the New Art Exchange gallery in Hyson Green has sought to firmly centre their ambitions in serving the local community – placing the cultural needs of the neighbourhood first. A big part of that has been their street art and murals project: Beyond the Wall, which via lots of ambition and creativity has spanned both Hyson Green and Marrakesh, Morocco. We spoke about the project with NAE CEO Saad Eddine Said and artist Laura Decorum – whose work has been vital to Beyond the Wall…
Since street art culture emerged in the UK, it’s been perceived by the public in multi-faceted ways. Often those perceptions have fallen into a few camps – the knee-jerk, reactionary conservatism: ‘it’s vandalism’, and the opposing view, ‘it’s a necessary part of counterculture’, or, of course, the question of ‘how much money will this make for people, and the local area?’
But it’s not, of course, all about who is and isn't breaking the law, and who is and isn’t making money.
Take a 2021 study from Arts Council England, for example, which showed that 62% of UK adults (67% in the Midlands) feel pride in their local area due to cultural experiences on their high streets. Pride in the local community is an important quality, but one that’s often reduced in UK neighbourhoods – street art is certainly an effective way of increasing it, enabling local communities to see themselves, and their history, celebrated, in kaleidoscopic, spray can strokes.
Over at Hyson Green, the New Art Exchange gallery team are aware of this, and want street art to be one of the main ways that they foster local pride. And the name of this project? Beyond The Wall.
One of the main provocations we gave ourselves was, ‘what role does NAE play in its neighbourhood?’, and ‘how can we push that agenda to be at the centre of what we deliver?’
Back in October 2021, seasoned community organizer Saad Eddine Said became the gallery’s new CEO and Artistic Director. For NAE, this was a good time to reassess their priorities as a business.
“One of the main provocations we gave ourselves was, ‘what role does NAE play in its neighbourhood?’, and ‘how can we push that agenda to be at the centre of what we deliver?’” Saad says. “It is through that conversation that Beyond the Wall displayed itself.”
During Saad’s tenure, NAE made some big decisions – they made themselves less of an inward looking business, and more so a place made for the local community’s needs – a ‘citizen assembly’ becoming central to more or less everything that they do.
When the idea emerged to start making street art, as such the community would inevitably be central. Their goal, Saad says, was to “change the walls of Hyson Green to become an open, contemporary art gallery that tells the story of people – the everyday heroes we have in our lives.”
Many local artists would get involved in this ambitious project. In Hyson Green Market, local creative Nate Coltrane and artist Pilth would create a mural focused on soundsystem culture in Notts.
Near to that, a towering image in violets, oranges, greens and reds, by collective Graffwerks celebrates Nottingham heritage.
Elsewhere, emblazoned on Hyson Green Youth Club, you’ll find the longest mural yet created by local artist Laura Decorum.
Laura says that the end result – a mural partly honouring the boxing gym behind the walls it graces – was one of a few designs that were in-the-running.
“I was asking the community what they’d like to see in the local area – how they’d like to be represented,” says Laura. “The overarching feeling was… I mean, I can’t believe some of the languages that are spoken in some of the Primary Schools – over 126 languages! So it was about expressing the fact that the area is so diverse, and also giving nods to bits of history. It took a while to collate the information I was seeking, with historians locally to me, like Chris Weir. I probably designed three or four murals.”
Beyond the Wall – as it manifests in Hyson Green – is a constantly ongoing project, with more street art yet to come, Saad says.
The team weren’t however going to stop in the local area, and saw in the project a great chance to put Nottingham street art on a world stage. The candidates for this project? Laura Decorum and Dreph Dsane, two local artists who are celebrated throughout the city.
“One of the things that came out from our assembly was, ‘how can NAE create more opportunities for artists from the global ethnic majority to connect internationally?’” says Saad.
“We were working with Laura and Dreph, at the time, and the opportunity to do something quite unique in Marrakesh, came up. It was a fantastic opportunity – full of challenges – taking us all outside of our comfort zone. Hopefully it’s one from which we all grew, and strengthened our leadership.”
Take a second, and imagine heading to Morocco, where your ambition is to paint UNESCO-protected walls in the Medina old town, which is the equivalent of painting a "section of Chatsworth House,” Laura tells me. Sounds easy? It certainly wasn't for the NAE team, weaving through lots of legal obstacles, and not knowing which wall exactly would be painted until Laura and Dreph landed.
Just like in Hyson Green, however, the community’s pride in seeing their culture emblazoned in bright, blaring colours grew all-the-stronger, the more Laura and Dreph worked in their streets.
For Laura and Dreph, it was a unique challenge, as street artists tend to be very familiar with the types of surface they’re planning to paint on, long before they actually start.
“It’s not typical at all,” Laura says. ”But sometimes you’ve got to roll with the punches – and when it comes to working with murals you often have things that don’t go how you expect them to.”
They say however that it’s always darkest before the dawn – and this couldn’t have been more applicable to the Marrakesh project, which by the end, Laura says, was one of her proudest moments Not only were they interviewed by a Moroccan TV station, once the mural was finished, but throughout they’d had a great chance to connect with a community that was a long way from Nottingham.
Just like in Hyson Green, however, the community’s pride in seeing their culture emblazoned in bright, blaring colours grew all-the-stronger, the more Laura and Dreph worked in their streets.
“The local shops were storing our ladders and paint for us, and coming out with Moroccan tea – offering us food. Everybody was so grateful that we’d come to make where they lived so much brighter,” says Laura.
“They did love the fact that we’ve worked so hard because it wasn’t the easiest surface to paint, and it wasn’t the easiest landscape really to navigate, because it’s the way that all the roads are so narrow. So I do feel like we represented NAE and did come away feeling very proud of what we’d done.”
The murals associated with Beyond the Wall are located around the Terrace Street and Hyson Green Market area.
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