- Venue
- World Event Young Artists
- Location
- East Midlands
World Event Young Artists is a global art event that this year was hosted by the city of Nottingham. It began on Friday the 7th of September and ran through the week to Sunday the 16th. The event consisted of 1000 artists, from 100 countries for 10 days, and brought together art, music, food, and people. To begin bluntly, a lot of the art was crap. The standard of installation in each gallery space seemed varied, and a fair portion of the work seemed to lack both conceptual integrity and a level of craftsmanship expected to come along side such an established event. It is definitely fair to say that the strengths of this festival did not lay dormant in the 30 odd exhibition spaces throughout the city, but in fact came with the buzz generated by the influx of 1000 new, and really quite remarkable, people. Rather than looking at WEYA as an event to showcase specific artistic accomplishments, we should in fact see it for its true purpose. WEYA acted as a platform for young artists to travel and experience a global art scene, making connections and friendships intercontinentally, and working with one another to bring together varied cultural influences. It was great for the people of Nottingham, and for the city, which in recent months has been devoid of a student presence, and thus been a bit stale. The live music and dance events in market square were both impressive and immersive, presenting new and imposing 3D projection technology to the masses, and showing the capability of people to transform a space into an exciting and different place. Hockley lived up to its reputation as a vibrant epicentre of live music and art throughout the event with music hosted by Jamcafé, Broadway, and Bad JuJu. Whilst some of the exhibitions lacked, others excelled. Primary studio presented a show which creatively used its unique surroundings, being an old primary school and all, to show art from all over the world which seemed to be of a consistently high standard. Stand out works in this show included Esther Strauss From the Grammar of the Country Davon which was an interactive experience where you could recreate a world using pre made felt continents and islands on the floor of an old dance hall, and Fatmir Mustafa Carriage, which effectively presented an ensemble of items hurriedly packed up by someone fleeing their homeland. This piece was of course made more poignant by the fact that Fatmir himself was part of Kosavos 1999 exodus. There was good art, there was bad art, but the overwhelming aspect of World Event Young Artists was how human it was. It was a festival to bring people together and in my eyes it was a success. I look forward to somehow trying to be a part of WEYA Brazil four years from now.
