The New Art Exchange Ltd

New Art Exchange is a visual arts gallery and registered charity, focusing on the expression of cultural diversity in society. We champion cultural diversity in the arts by showcasing the work of diverse artists in our Hyson Green gallery.

Our mission is to ‘stimulate new perspectives on the value of art in and society’. We work to achieve this through our excellent artistic, community, and young people’s programmes, festivals and events.

Each year we programme an average of 16 exhibitions and accompanying public programme of over 50 events.

All of our exhibitions, events, workshops, activities and our building are free for you to attend and enjoy. We will always work to keep New Art Exchange free of charge to the public.

We have 3 exhibition spaces showing black and ethnic minority artists from the UK and across the globe at different points in their careers:

• Main gallery- showcasing excellent art at national and international level

• Mezzanine gallery- profiling national and international artists often responding to our locality or working with Nottingham artists and groups

• Central gallery- a platform for early career artists, student degree shows and community arts groups

• Did you know? Our gallery spaces are never the same- every 12 weeks we re-model and morph our main gallery space to match our new season’s exhibition, every visit to NAE is a new experience!

Our exhibitions have showcased artistic work that is playful, thought-provoking and powerful; from Palestinian film maker Larissa Sansour’s futuristic explorations of land and heritage, a fully playable miniature golf course installed in the gallery; to Hurvin Anderson’s Arts Council 70th Anniversary collection paintings inspired by the Caribbean.

Public Programme: every season we have a bespoke programme of events, talks, gallery tours and family/children’s activities designed with every new exhibition. We host regular accessible sessions with Body as a Canvas, multi-language gallery tours and festival events such as Diwali, Mandala and Polish Fat Thursday.

Community: NAE is a hub for community engagement; we work closely with the communities in our surrounding neighbourhoods. In addition to our festivals and projects, we host regular Black History Month meetings and are open for all community groups to hire our spaces and hold their group activities in or versatile building.

Young People: YARD is NAE’s young people’s theatre group which meets every week during term time offering young people aged 7-16 opportunities to learn new performance skills, meet friends and learn to express themselves in a safe, productive and fun environment. Other young peoples’ activities take place during school holidays such as themed workshops, Saturday art clubs and creative projects such as our Murals and Get Up Stand Up.

Café: NAE’s Café bar is the place to be for coffee, lunch, meeting or just a place to chill and soak up the atmosphere after a visit to our galleries. At NAE our food is unlike any other gallery or museum- our café menu is inspired by our community and is the place to discover Indian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern and African specialities amongst delicious cakes, Nottinghamshire- sourced savouries and our special blend coffee.

Mela: Every year NAE hold several cultural festivals, the biggest being the city-wide South Asian festival Nottingham Mela, as part of Nottingham Mela Network. Nottingham’s Mela was the first Mela to take place in the UK, and is now entering its 29th year. We bring together artists and art forms representing the whole of the Indian sub-continent at venues across the city, recent Melas have been held in the grounds of Nottingham Castle, Nottingham Playhouse and at NAE.