Our Marian | Exhibition Preview
About this Event
Preview on Friday 17 July 2026 from 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Join us for the exhibition launch and be among the first to experience Our Marian. The evening is free to attend and everyone is welcome. Complimentary refreshments will be available.
Exhibition continues
- 18 July – 8 August 2026
- Open Thursday, Friday & Saturday
- 12:00pm – 4:00pm
- Free admission. No booking required for exhibition visits
Join us for the preview of Our Marian, a contemporary exhibition bringing together newly commissioned artworks and community responses that reconsider the figure of Maid Marian through a contemporary lens.
Developed alongside the creation of Alicja Biała's new public sculpture for Maid Marian Way in Nottingham, the exhibition explores how folklore can be reimagined and carried into the present. Rather than approaching Maid Marian as a fixed historical figure, Our Marian understands her as a site of possibility: a character continually shaped through storytelling and collective memory.
At the centre of the exhibition are two bronze sculptures by Alicja Biała, Hyperaccumulator VI (2025) and Hyperaccumulator VII (2025). Created through Biała's ongoing exploration of ecology, foraging and botanical forms, these works share a material and conceptual relationship with her newly commissioned public sculpture, foregrounding bronze as a material through which environmental and cultural narratives are preserved, transformed and reimagined.
Presented alongside Biała's work are three newly commissioned artworks by BACKLIT's feminist collective, Lumina. Bringing together Rocky Mol, Lucy Nelson and Wingshan, these commissions explore mythology, language, craft, embodiment and care, drawing connections between medieval histories and contemporary experience. The exhibition also includes Dominique Golden's Julian of Norwich, an experimental clay stop-motion animation that revisits the writings and visions of the medieval mystic, tracing connections between feminine spirituality, the Virgin Mary and the evolving mythology of Maid Marian.
Alongside the exhibition are outcomes from a programme of public workshops exploring medieval making traditions. Through collective making and shared knowledge, participants have developed new interpretations of historical forms, extending the exhibition beyond the gallery and into the wider community.
Across sculpture, text and moving image, Our Marian asks what it means to return to familiar stories and to imagine them otherwise.
Curated by Jazz Singh Swali.
Supported by Nottingham City Council, UK Shared Prosperity Fund and It's in Nottingham.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00
