UKYA City Takeover: Nottingham 19 | Some interviews to participating artists

Simone “Sims” Longo / Music / Italy

UKYA City Takeover has been a really great experience, both artistically and on a human level. A week of confrontation on art: sound, dance, multimedia, figurative art and performance; a true journey of experiences for the new protagonists of the contemporary art world.
During the festival it was nice to be able to compare techniques and new technologies of art with artists coming from different worlds and backgrounds. Nottingham Metronome, the location where I performed NEUTRO, my audiovisual performance, is an avant-garde structure capable of containing and performing concerts of all kinds, it was the ideal place to exhibit my work.



Zala Zagoršek / Visual Arts / Slovenia

As an artist, I was extremely glad when I heard that I have been selected for UKYA City Takeover Nottingham 2019. The whole week was unforgettable. So many different artists, different personalities, different approaches to work. Joining the workshops (as “Made in a day”, Zine workshop, or “Finding your voice”, Poetry), I was forced to go out of my comfort zone and find out something new about myself. It has been an hectic week. Setting up my art piece for the exhibition, attending all the events (and there were many, believe me), and of course trying to find the time for mingling and making new friends. I have met some beautiful people. The ones I will stay in touch with for a long long time. I am very grateful fort he experience and I can’t wait to see what all those connections will bring.



Victoria Zammit / Literature / Malta

My experience at the UKYA City Takeover of Nottingham was an incredibly memorable one. While there were some slight organizational issues that were not related at all to what BJCEM had to offer, as they looked after us Mediterranean artists with great care, the festival itself had some incredibly well-done moments. I attended mostly poetry performances and open mic events, mingling with fellow poets and writers who were willing to listen to me and give feedback. There was an incredibly welcoming atmosphere around the festival, with artists mingling together effortlessly and going to events together, spending time together outside of festival boundaries and even extending to the last possible second when artists were having one last coffee and breakfast together before boarding their separate trains and buses to their destinations. The connections made at the festival were those that would last for a very long time, you could tell. The performances were spectacular, and it was a true joy to see so many artists from all over the UK perform their poetry and speak so humbly about their work. It would have been great to see performers that didn’t only speak in English, as most of the poetry performances were from those who spoke English as a first or second language. Perhaps next year there will be more of an international poetry and literature base, as there was in the music and performance sector of the festival, but overall I truly enjoyed the performance and would love to see more of these events happening all over Europe.

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