Thursday 16th April from 10am-4pm FREE ENTRY @ ArtBomb & Doncaster Unitarians ArtBomb is delighted to welcome you all to Beyond the Scroll , a day of conversation, live art interventions, film screenings and workshops exploring how socially engaged practice can reclaim focus and meaning in a digital age of distraction. Taking place on Thursday 16th April (10am–4pm) , we're bringing together artists, activists and curious minds to offer a wide range of perspectives on the role that technology plays within contemporary arts practice and our everyday lives, and how this is shifting our understanding of what socially-engaged art practice is, or what it could be. With activities taking place throughout Doncaster Unitarian Church, ArtBomb's lab space and our courtyard—a hidden oasis in the heart of the city—you're invited to take the day at your own pace. Explore, debate and connect. We expect the forum to end around 4pm, after which you are invited to stay for our evening social ,  featuring live music performances and poetry readings. Here's a sneak peek into some of the wonderful people featuring in our programme! Jack Clarke HOST @clarkeofsalford Jack Clarke is a Producer, curator and cultural theorist from Kersal in Salford. Background across film exhibition making and socially engaged cultural practice. His work is rooted in Northern DIY traditions and focuses on working class history, community memory and political storytelling often developed within collaborative low budget and grassroots contexts.  He has worked with Factory International as a Young Curator, Bury Art Museum as Moving Image Curator, and Working Class Movement Library through the Big Flame Project . He co-curated Keep The Flame Burning with 16–25 year old working class volunteers and produced and co-curated Nothing About Us Without Us the national Big Local Legacy exhibition. With bylines in Culture Matters , Savage Minds , Z Network & STAT Magazine , he writes against the grain of polite arts discourse pulling apart the language of institutions and academia with a mixture of humour frustration and refusal often fucking up the idea that legitimacy only comes through degrees funding or institutional approval. Eelyn Lee GUEST TALK @eelyn.lee.film Eelyn is an award-winning artist and filmmaker based in Sheffield who has exhibited across UK including Barbican, Tate Modern, National Portrait Gallery and Whitechapel Gallery as well as internationally in Paris, Berlin, Bogotá and Toronto. In 2021, Eelyn co-curated Parallel State , a speculative project responding to a provocation; “ What Does a Northern Town Look Like in the Parallel State and what happens in it‘s public spaces?". 5 years later, Eelyn returns to ArtBomb to offer fresh provocations on what social art practice looks like in a place like Doncaster and more broadly, within today's digital culture. Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives SUBVERTISING DEMO @spellingmistakescostlives Darren Cullen is a satirical artist, illustrator and writer, born in Leeds to Irish immigrant parents and currently based in London. Cullen initially thought he wanted to go into advertising as a career, but became steadily horrified at the ethical implications of manipulating people's desires inherent to the industry. In May 2025, Darren transformed ArtBomb's shopfront space into a satirical estate agency on the Gaza strip, a razor sharp, anti-war assault on consumer culture. For ArtBomb, this installation—and the positive conversations it prompted with local residents—felt like a real turning point in the type of work we can present on a northern high street.  For Beyond the Scroll , Darren Cullen (aka Spelling Mistakes Costs Lives ) is hosting a ‘ subvertising' demo. Using examples of his own ad hacks, Darren will guide you through simple ways to “ hack" print adverts in real-world public spaces, and how disrupting consumer culture can begin by simply replacing ads with art. Shannon Chambers   MEDITATION  @flowwithshan Yoga & meditation teacher and founder of FLOW Studio in Doncaster, Shannon Chambers, invites you to “ The Space Between Stimulus and Self". This  20-minute introspective meditation invites you to notice your patterns of attention, disconnect from digital stimulation, and reconnect with your inner world and senses. John Ledger & John Wright PERFORMANCE @jb_ledger @johnwrightretrobaruniverse Coming out of Straight A's , a 3-month immersive exhibition (17 Jan–11 April 2026) at the Cooper Gallery, bringing together 25 years of his work, Barnsley born artist John Ledger joins his long-time collaborator John Wright to perform  Non-stop Inertia (I'm too busy to meet you). This performance-based text discussion illustrates the inability to stay with the trouble and the issue of burn out, followed by a short introduction to their collectives and how things have changed since their first performance of Non-Stop Inertia  in 2015. Other art & activities to explore at Beyond the Scroll: Matthew Humphreys EXHIBITION   @_mjhumphreys_ In Translation (in ArtBomb's lab space) Matt Redfern EXHIBITION  @mattredfernart Complexities of the Broken Mind & the Broken Vases (church balcony) Terry Hudson INSTALLATION Little Anarchist Bookshop (in the courtyard) Sally Kindberg 1-2-1 INSTALLATION @skindbergia The Museum of Dust (main church hall) Mother Hookers CIC CRAFT TABLE @mother_hookers Local crochet social group, Mother Hookers, will be bringing along some of the collective's crochet creations & will be offering scrap materials to be repurposed for your own projects! Church of Ping Pong TABLE TENNIS  Pick up a paddle and have a go at table tennis in the upper hall of the church.  Church of Ping Pong   host sessions here weekly every Monday and Thursday. Squiggle Gang CUSTOMISED SPRAY PAINTING (Pay What You Feel) Bring along a piece of clothing, tote bag or accessory to be custom spray-painted by local street art collective Squiggle Gang! Live music by a roster of local talent will soundtrack the event from day to night: The Skintones Anarcho-confusion band, a blend of reggae, funk, ska, trance, hip hop and ancient vibes, straight out of Doncaster. Olaniyan Olamide Olamide Sax (Olaniyan Olamide Phillips) is a professional vocalist and instrumentalist whose work spans gospel worship. African contemporary music, and cross-cultural repertoire performance. Bioni Samp Artist, producer & beekeeper will be bringing an array of mini synth instruments to take us into the Beyond the Scroll evening social. WHAT TO EXPECT  As with all of ArtBomb's programming, we want to make this event as accessible and inclusive as possible. Please email jennie@artbomb.uk.com  if there's a way we can make this event more accessible for you. The event is entirely free , including a hot lunch and drinks served throughout the day.  Some activities are pay what you feel (please see above), and any donations made will be used to support ArtBomb in growing its creative community here in the heart of Doncaster. We're expecting around 80 guests to be joining us for Beyond the Scroll . There will be 2 dedicated quiet zones: one on the ground floor of the church and upstairs in the ArtBomb building, where there are comfortable couches and chairs. There are also benches and chairs in our outdoor courtyard area. Team members supporting  the running of the event will be wearing coloured lanyards or badges. They will be on hand to offer support throughout the day. We will be serving a buffet-style vegetarian lunch in the rear room of the church. For anyone wanting to purchase their own food, there are several great spots within a 5 minute walk of ArtBomb: The Jazz Caf é 5-7 Printing Office St, Doncaster DN1 1TJ A cosy, colourful cafe with a great selection of sandwiches soups and other hot dishes. The Glass Strawberry 48-50 Printing Office St, Doncaster DN1 1TR A lunch spot with an extensive vegan menu  Sterling Foods 118 French Gate, Doncaster DN1 1QQ A popular spot to grab a ready to eat  lunch on the go – lots of options for a fiver, including jacket potatoes, wraps and hot sandwiches. The Wool Market  Market Place, Doncaster DN1 1NG A modern market hall with a range of food vendors.  GETTING HERE Address: Doncaster Unitarian & Free Christian Church, 60a Hall Gate DN1 3PB  ArtBomb is located at 60 Hall Gate, Doncaster city-centre: a 10 minute walk from the train station. For anyone travelling by bus, please be aware that Doncaster services are expected to be disrupted by industrial action on 14th, 17th, 22nd and 24th April, and so  may have an impact on services running on 16th April. If you have any questions about the event, please email admin@artbombuk.com

One-Day Symposium, Workshops & Evening Social Thursday 16 April 2026 10am–4pm, followed by evening social (4pm onwards) Doncaster Unitarian & Free Christian Church, 60a Hall Gate, Doncaster DN1 3PB FREE ENTRY ArtBomb invites artists, activists and the curious public to a day of talks, workshops and live interventions exploring how socially engaged practice can reclaim focus and meaning in an age of distraction. Taking place in ArtBomb’s high street hub — hosted in partnership with the Unitarian Church — Beyond the Scroll  examines the double meaning of the “scroll” — sacred script and endless digital feed. Against a backdrop of algorithmic attention, anxiety and cultural noise, the forum asks how artists can interrupt habitual ways of seeing and speaking, and how creative practice can be genuinely of service. Building on recent commissions including   Apartheid Apartments   by Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives, and upcoming 2026 projects addressing homelessness and migration, the day brings together quick-fire provocations, open discussion and hands-on workshops in painting, zine-making and subvertising. The evening continues with film, spoken word, drinks, a private viewing of Matthew Humphreys' Tendresse exhibition in the ArtBomb shop and informal conversation. Themes include digital addiction, commodified attention, surveillance culture and the risks of “cultural welfarism.” Contributors will explore slow practice, critical digital literacy, hybrid spaces and art as shelter — strategies for sustaining care, agency and collective imagination beyond the feed. Working from a messy, mixed high street rather than a sealed cultural venue, ArtBomb insists on art as interference: negotiated in noise, grounded in place, and open to friction. Join us. Let’s go beyond the scroll. Spaces are limited, please email admin@artbombuk.com  to reserve your spot! Messy Provocations: Art, Authenticity, and the Age of Endless Feeds                               By Mike Stubbs  Let’s drop the polish and start with doubt. After the war, certainty felt dangerous. Science had already begun to loosen its own foundations — relativity bending time and space, quantum mechanics insisting the observer interferes with what is observed. Knowledge became provisional. Systems became relational. You couldn’t pretend to stand outside what you were measuring, and there seemed less time for simply being  in life. Art moved in parallel. Post-war modern art practice dismantled orthodoxy because orthodoxy had proved lethal. Grand narratives — religious, political, aesthetic — had marched people into catastrophe. So artists fractured perspective, loosened authorship, displaced meaning from object to encounter. Deconstruction wasn’t fashion; it was structural scepticism — whether expressed through punk, hip hop, conceptualism or community action. It was a refusal to inherit belief without interrogation and the promise of democratised interaction. I grew up around that kind of scepticism. A science technician dad fascinated by modernity, wary of faith, suspicious of piety. At school I wanted to talk about evolution. I prodded at the edges of what was presented as obvious. It leaves you with a taste for the awkward, the experimental — and a suspicion of anything too neatly packaged. Which brings me to the scroll. The scroll used to be sacred text — doctrine, instruction, order. Now it’s the feed. Endless, algorithmic, persuasive. It scripts authenticity, packages outrage and joy, instrumentalises connection. It tells us how to perform ourselves.  It feels fluid, but it’s another orthodoxy — softer, more seductive, a kind of cultural managerialism. ArtBomb sits awkwardly against that smoothness. We’re based in a shop on a busy mixed high street. Not picturesque. Wedged between vape shops with fluorescent signage, barbers with constant churn, bars pushing out the same playlist — “all night long, all night…”  — delivery drivers idling, people shouting across the pavement. It’s messy, ordinary, sometimes abrasive. It’s also a place where people meet, argue, laugh, share common ground. ArtBomb, situated in a former estate agents on Hall Gate. To the right of the shop space is the entrance to Doncaster Unitarian Church (Image Credit: Matt Hass) Our landlord and partner is the Unitarian Church — historically a place dedicated to belief, dissent and radical thought. That history lingers. A site of sermon making space for creative and cultural experimentation. There’s nothing romantic about who comes in. Some step through the door out of curiosity. Some by accident. Some don’t come in at all but watch from the pavement. Plenty walk past without a glance. You’re competing with beer, disposable vapes, shifts at logistics hubs, Uber routes, racegoers, those without a regular place to sleep, people in transit. ArtBomb is situated in an in-between place. The city centre demographic shifts constantly; Doncaster has become, once again a market again, a destination for those priced out elsewhere or seeking accessible labour. One doesn’t get to curate that public — unless you want to live in a gated community. That’s precisely why it’s compelling. Argue with a Woman by Anouchka Grose, ArtBomb Festival 2025 (Image Credit: Matt Hass) The work we host — and the projects that spill into the street during the ArtBomb Festival such as Argue with a Woman by psychoanalyst Anouchka Grose — don’t float above the public realm; they rub against it. They interfere with the choreography of consumption and leisure. They introduce subjects that aren’t easily reduced to content. When Fiona Cahill brought Rendition   into the shop, the focus was on extraordinary rendition — Irish state detention, disappearance of babies, the bureaucratic language that sanitises violence. Legal texts, redactions, testimony. In a church on a high street concerned with transactions. It wasn’t decorative; it was forensic. Apartheid Apartments   confronted spatial segregation head-on — how housing policy and architecture encode racial and economic division. On a street in Doncaster where housing pressure is lived daily, global histories of apartheid collided with local realities. It wasn’t metaphor. It was structure made visible and immediately and uncannily presenting a double take on Gaza. The Bare Project  explored care and food – sustenance distributed through a temporary and hyper local food distribution network and production space occupying the shop, this exemplifies many of the interventions which have experimented with the space as somewhere to take a risk and treat the shop as an artwork, in itself. Terry Hudson's The Little Anarchist Bookshop reintroduced the printed word into a site once structured around sermon, but without nostalgia. Shelves of anarchist theory, critiques of capitalism, histories of mutual aid and direct action. Kropotkin next to contemporary pamphlets. You could browse, argue, disagree, learn how to organise your own festival, make your own zine and program a Raspberry Pie and Linux. Political philosophy at street level, between vape advertising and bar promotions, a hack like Apartheid Apartment, but more friendly. These takeovers insisted on reflection, contemplation and curiosity — not as mood, but as method, slowing the tempo, asking for sustained looking in a culture trained for reaction. Deep engagement in that context isn’t cosy. It’s not just a tidy workshop with a sign-up sheet (though we also do that). It’s sustained presence in noise. It’s returning when turnout is thin. It’s listening to someone as interested in arguing as agreeing. It’s accepting that co-production is uneven and that power doesn’t dissolve because you’ve invited participation. The "Care" Trap: There is a risk that socially engaged art becomes a, "cultural welfarism" or "therapeutic" tool for institutions, focusing on superficial well-being rather than confronting systemic issues and looking at systemic causes of inequality, mental health and hardship - this demands addressing issues of class and owning politics for the common good long term. If quantum theory taught us that the observer alters the experiment, then a high street setting makes that alteration unavoidable. The street alters the work. The work alters the street — even if only slightly. The artist is implicated in the noise, the commerce, the tension of the place. Presidential Wheelbarrow by Chris Dobrowolski, ArtBomb Festival 2025 (Image Credit: Matt Hass) And all of this unfolds against broader instability. Since Trump, distortion has become tactic. “Fake news” operates strategically. Truth becomes performative and the work of The Yes Men, Maverick and Led by Donkeys essential in an era ICE raids and the global drift toward authoritarian postures, and shared reality feels under pressure. In that climate, authenticity is slippery. Disruption can be commodified. Engagement can be instrumentalised. Dissent can be branded, so provocation must be more than surface shock. On a high street like this, provocation might be as simple as holding space for complexity where everything else is immediate and transactional. Allowing disagreement rather than smoothing it over for optics. Acknowledging that some projects will fail to connect. Understanding that collaboration with others — artists, neighbours, institutions — is vital but never neutral.  Socially engaged practice, at its strongest, builds situations slowly, through repetition and friction. It recognises that authorship is shared and therefore complicated. With this in mind, we are progressing our Oasis Garden, an outdoor project called "Stories Grow Here" that draws on our research and practice commissions: The Anti-Social Housing   Agency by Ciara O’Rourke and Jack Clarke and Refugee Dreams by Angela Robson.  The relationships developed will feed into new designs for the Unitarian courtyard, a secret urban garden hiding in plain sight on Hall Gate. Bringing together street art with an edible gardening scheme, we plan to develop a vibrant outside space for those who wander in through the gates to experience painting, music, film and conversation- an informal space for chance encounters and alternative forms of "community outreach".  Beyond the Scroll isn’t about romanticising the street or imagining spontaneous awakening. It’s about choosing to work in friction. To occupy a site layered with belief — from Unitarian sermons to vape promotions — and test what art can do there. The inheritance from post-war doubt still holds: question the frame. Expose the structure. Accept instability and find new ways to counter anxiety, addiction and widespread issues with mental health. Let the work be messy. Let co-production tangle authorship. Don’t pretend it’s utopian. It’s negotiated in noise. Shaped by commerce. Interrupted by basslines and football chants. In a culture addicted to seamless feeds and controlled environments, there’s something quietly defiant about insisting on art as interference — in the middle of a loud, imperfect, very real street — and refusing to let the script, sacred or digital, have the final word so that conversation can resume and the small child (pictured in lead image above) gets a chance to make eye contact with the father on his phone.

Written by Ian Walker as part of In Translation by Matthew Humphreys. This is a camera obscura, the name comes from the Latin and means ‘dark chamber' Step in and sit down. Turn off any phones you have, as the screen light will destroy the effect. Do not turn the screens on; to take photos. This is an experience, just enjoy it. Then use your words to tell your friends. This physical media, not AI slop for the algorithms. IMPORTANT First close your eyes for about five minutes to adapt to the dark. To fill the time I am going to tell you a story. Once Upon a Time… It is not a bedtime story so NO SNORING! As you will notice the camera obscura you are in: is a large black box; big enough to walk into, as they have been for hundreds of years; often as with this one it is just a curtained off part of a room, where light can on only come in through one small hole, on one side. In this case window of the gallery shop front into the street. On the opposite side to the small hole is a black stretched cloth: The viewing screen! This is a lensless camera obscura and is also referred to as a ‘pinhole camera’; you can make one with cereal box and a piece of tracing paper. Camera Obscura have been around for a long time probably right back into Prehistory in cave paintings and from that and sacred underground spaces, such as Göbeklitepe, as signs of divinity and the powers of priest, priestess and shaman. The earliest known written records of a pinhole image, is found in the Chinese text called Mozi, dated to around the 4th century BC western calendar, to a Chinese philosopher Mozi (c.470 BC—c.391 BC), a Chinese philosopher and the founder of Mohist School of Logic. This is earliest written record of light rays. Other philosophers expanded on this. From Aristotle onwards to Ptolomey and the Han Chinese polymath Shen Kuo. They were used to study sunspots and eclipses, without going blind. The Muslim physicist Ibn al-Haytham; one of the creators of the Scientific Method, critiqued Ptolemy's Almagest, Planetary Hypotheses, and Optics and after experiments inspired by Shen Kuo gave us the first modern scientific description of light rays creating the modern concept of optics used even to this day. Painters since the cave times had realised they could get accurate images by tracing them from images through a small crack on to a stretched skin in a cave or tent, such paintings would have made the painter seem magical. We know that after reading a translation of Ibn al-Haytham’s works Leonardo da Vinci started experimenting with camera obscura. In this lensless camera obscura as Ibn al-Haytham proved. If you follow the light ray path of the light reflected from the objects outside the camera obscura, you will see they result in a projected image of the scene outside the chamber on the viewing screen opposite to the hole, that is inverted and reversed. When you open your eyes as they adjust and your brain begins to process the image; the first thing you will notice on the bottom right of the viewing screen is a white oblong. That is the shopfront sign opposite, after a moment you will realise the road and path are at the top of the viewing screen and that the traffic is moving the wrong way on Hall Gate’s one way street and you notice people walking along the paths, they are actually moving in the opposite direction to what is projected on the screen. This then with the invention of lenses became more common in art and lead to discoveries about perspective and massive improvement in the quality of images in paintings that began in the Renaissance. Later in the 19th century Fox Talbot using Silver Nitrate to fix the images to glass plates invented the modern camera, but that is a whole other story.

Debut Solo Exhibition by Matt Redfern Saturday 4th April 2026 11am—6pm Doncaster Unitarian Church, Doncaster, DN1 3PB FREE Matt Redfern’s practice has developed through a combination of a part-time degree in painting and professional experience supporting individuals through challenging moments. Working primarily in oil and acrylic, his figurative practice explores male mental health through intense, narrative-driven imagery, balanced by colourful and visually engaging compositions. Influenced by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Peter Howson, Aly Helyer and Egon Schiele, Matt's work uses the male figure to convey emotional tension and psychological depth. A distinctive use of an ultramarine line is employed to define form and heighten mood, creating visual contrast within the work. Each piece presents an open-ended narrative, inviting interpretation and encouraging conversation around vulnerability, resilience, and the often-unspoken realities of male mental health. This exhibition, presented on the balcony of Doncaster Unitarian Church, brings these themes together in a direct and uncompromising exploration of emotional struggle, identity, and resilience from a male perspective. Through a series of figurative works, which present an honest reflection on lived experience, challenging traditional expectations of masculinity and the culture of silence that often surrounds it. The exhibition insists on attention rather than avoidance, using painting to confront stigma head-on and to invite empathy, understanding, and open engagement with men’s mental health. The exhibition will remain open until 16th April 2026, for a private viewing as part of ArtBomb's Beyond the Scroll forum event. If you would like to arrange a group visit or private viewing between 4th - 16th April 2026 please email admin@artbombuk.com Please note that the exhibition is only accessible via a staircase. Instagram:  @mattredfernart

Launch Event: Friday 20th March 2026 (5pm-7pm) Exhibition Opening Dates: Friday 20th March– Sunday 26th April 2026 (open daily 10am-5pm) FREE In Translation  is a new exhibition by London-based artist Matthew Humphreys exploring memory, family and the fragile ways we communicate and remember across time. The exhibition brings together five new works created from fragments of the artist’s personal archive – home videos, drawings and photographs more than twenty years old. Through film, installation and collaborative works with local students, Humphreys translates these fleeting moments into artworks that quietly explore care, loss and the ways memories are shaped by both technology and human touch. Central to the exhibition are the artist’s parents, Mervyn and Betty. In the film  Tendresse  (2026), they appear in intimate family footage, while  Sweep  (2026) retraces the artist’s father’s working life inside a factory where he once worked. Other works extend these personal stories into the public realm: bird boxes built with Doncaster Deaf Trust students are installed on the building, while a walk-in camera obscura invites visitors to experience the street outside in a new way. Humphreys, a Child of Deaf Adults (CODA), often explores communication beyond spoken language.  In Translation  invites audiences to slow down and experience memory through gesture, touch and image. Everyone is welcome to attend the launch event on Friday 20 March, 5–7pm. Words by Jennie Gilman It's 3pm on a Friday afternoon in Doncaster, and Matthew Humphreys is giving ArtBomb's shopfront a fresh lick of paint.  “ The paint is from a photograph of the last blue sky my father saw," explains Matthew, dipping a paintbrush into a freshly unlidded can of paint. Matthew has travelled up to Doncaster from London to start prepping for his forthcoming exhibition, In Translation. Earlier that day, Matthew had taken a digital photo of the final blue sky his father had seen to be developed at Boots in French Gate. He then took the photo to the local B&Q and had the sky colour-matched and developed into a bespoke paint. The shade is a vast, infinite blue. A blue that recalls those rare, long hot summer days spent playing out with mates during half term. Watching Matthew apply strokes of the paint to the wooden window trim, I almost get a whiff of sun cream, conjuring memories of family holidays, mum plastering yet another layer of SPF 50 onto my arms and legs before I scramble out of her hands to water bomb into the pool.  These childhood moments, unlocked from somewhere in deep memory by this blue paint, make me think of family, of home and the ease of being a kid. It also reminds me of how much I seem to have forgotten from my childhood. I wonder if this is just an inevitable aspect of getting older, or in part due to too much partying. Perhaps it's because the Cloud promises to save decades worth of videos and photos somewhere in the digital realm, archiving a lifetime of memories so that my brain doesn't have to.  I sometimes worry that my dependency on technology has damaged my ability to remember, an anxiety about what we might have lost to digital technology culturally echoed by the ongoing physical media trend. The retro revival of collecting CD's, DVD's and print zines seems to be an attempt to get to grips with who we are in the digital age through the objects we collect. But as Zarah McIntosh cautions in her analysis of physical media , t his search for self perhaps risks a culture of over-consumption no different to the Stanley cup and Labubu doll hype.  Nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool. The Flares chain nightclub opposite ArtBomb, one of six branches in the UK promising a one-night hedonistic trip back to the 70's and 80's, has built its commercial success on it. Reform UK, who hold 37 seats on Doncaster's city council, have built their Trumpian campaigns on it, or at least a pseudo variety which makes people, disappointed with how things are today, long for a way of life which never really existed.  Matthew's latest body of work, In Translation , takes an altogether different approach to memory, explored through gesture, touch, image-making and collaboration. He does so with a tenderness which throws the violence of nostalgia and miscommunication in a forgotten, post-industrial place like Doncaster into sharp new relief.  In Translation  consists of five new works, each a multimedia translation of ephemeral moments recovered from Matthew's personal archives that are over 20 years old, fragments of home videos, old drawings and stories distilled into visual artworks and released into the public sphere. Betty, in Tendresse (2026) At the heart of these works stand Matthew's parents, Mervyn and   Betty, captured in Matthew's moving image work, Tendresse  (2026). In other works, Matthew walks in the footsteps of his parents, retracing their movements with his own body. In a second moving image piece titled Sweep (2026), a cavernous factory is shot from a wide lens. Matthew steps into frame, wearing traditional dark blue overalls, sweeping sawdust from the factory floor where his father once worked. Matthew collected this sawdust, a by-product of the timber goods being made at the factory, and has repurposed it to fill the holes in ArtBomb's well-loved shopfront, faintly fragrancing the space with the warming smell of wood. This patched-up job on ArtBomb's facade is symbolic of Matthew's approach to art: seeking out the empty space that exists within our memories and filling these narrative gaps to create something new. This act of tracing someone else's steps as a form of remembering, of walking in someone else's shoes to feel the things that they once had, is echoed through Flock (2026), a bespoke wallpaper of bird drawings, traced and finger painted onto plain white wall lining paper by students from Doncaster Deaf Trust. I had the pleasure of accompanying Matthew on this trip to the school back in February 2026, one of the oldest deaf schools in the country now increasingly referred to as a “ school of communication".  Rolling out metres of plain paper spanning the width of the school hall, we invited students from different year groups to trace a selection of bird drawings from Matthew's father's portfolio of birds using pencils and carbon paper. Together, bodies sprawled on the floor, we traced and retraced and traced again Mervyn's robins, blue tits, magpies and house sparrows, birds native to Doncaster, forming a kind of human production line and enacting a somatic form of remembrance for Mervyn. This felt particularly resonant within the setting of the school hall, where Matthew's mum, as a student at the school 70 years ago had once performed in plays.  Earlier that morning, Matthew invited Year 8's to build their own birdbox, using an AI-inferred design based on a timber birdbox—one of many which Mervyn would make using off-cuts from the factory- which Matthew spotted in the blurry background of a photo of himself and his brother sitting in the family garden, smiling in front of a white canvas tent. The collection of birdboxes, titled A Reprise for Birds  (2026), are mounted onto the front of ArtBomb's building and in the courtyard area, providing new nesting places for Doncaster's native birds and speaking to the themes of migration being explored within ArtBomb's wider programming.  Matthew is a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), and his work is largely inspired by the role that he had as a communicator and translator for his parents. Growing up in a Deaf household, Matthew would act as a mediator between his parents and the hearing world, communicating through a combination of BSL (British Sign Language), lip reading and spoken language. Deaf communication is highly visual and very physical, requiring a fluency in reading other people's body language and facial expressions, and at the most basic level, an ability to maintain eye contact when making conversation. In his work, Matthew exercises a flare for visual communication and an attunement to the quiet, fleeting moments which may otherwise get lost within an attention economy in which those who shout the loudest and dominate our screens the most are the ones that get heard and seen.  Later in his life, Matthew's father developed blindness and Alzheimer's. When a person's capacity to see, hear or remember the world around them becomes less clear, touch becomes everything. The value of touch as a way to both create and experience art is communicated beautifully through Beyond the Visual , t he UK’s first major sculpture exhibition in which blind and partially blind practitioners are central to the curatorial process, currently being shown at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. As someone who thinks and writes about art as part of their job, a question lingers in my mind after experiencing this exhibition: “ How would you describe an artwork to someone who cannot see it?". This provocation is making me think differently about how to write about art without relying on ocularcentric language, instead considering how an artwork might feel, sound and smell. Matthew (right) and his brother (left). In the top right corner of the photograph, you can see the bird box which inspired A Reprise for Birds (2026) Matthew's approach, however, is slightly different. Mervyn's gradual loss of sight and memory prior to his passing in 2021 prompted Matthew, foremostly a filmmaker, to think deeply about the role of photography and video as a conduit for memory. Harnessing a range of analogue and digital cameras to produce the moving image works within In Translation , Matthew invites the audience to view the world through a kaleidoscopic, slightly blurry lens. He visually translates the world as his father might have experienced it: as non-linear fragments of beautiful, touching moments. The presence of loved ones helping Mervyn to navigate what could be a very disorienting world can be viscerally felt by the audience through the sheer devotion Matthew has committed in creating this body of work in his parent's honour.  Encapsulating the artists' fascination with the mediating role played by technology in shaping the relationship between humans, memory and reality, Matthew has built a walk-in camera obscura entitled Staying with Light (2026), using the same techniques used to create the first camera 200 years ago and which will be installed in one half of the ArtBomb shop. ArtBomb's visitors are invited to step inside of the camera and see an upside down image of the street outside projected back to them. This rendering of Doncaster turned on its head is emblematic of the shift in perceptions of the city that we try to encourage at ArtBomb through our commissioning, inviting local audiences to see their environment in a slightly new way, or through a stranger's eyes. In a moment captured in Tendresse , Matthew can be seen guiding his father through the garden, heading out arm in arm to feel the warmth of the sun and fresh air outside. This moment, I think, captures the essence of In Translation : Matthew gently guiding the public through these incredibly personal, tender moments, moments translated into a silent poetry which reaches out into the high street and touches people, shifting something in them as they go about their everyday lives. List of Works A Reprise for Birds (2026) Reconstructed bird boxes from AI-inferred plans, student-built structures, timber, printed plans Flock  (2026) Student traced stencil drawings, finger paint on paper, installation Sweep (2026) Single channel video Staying With Light (2026) Camera Obscura, Matt Emulsion Paint colour matched to final sky in Tenderesse, Sawdust from factory floor Tendresse  (2026) Single Channel Video Links to Matthew's Work Website:   mjhumphreys.com Instagram:   @_mjhumphreys_

We've won an award! On 28th October, ArtBomb was delighted to be invited to the UCDon Graduation Ceremony, to celebrate the achievements of Class of 2025 and to receive the University Campus Doncaster 2025 Community Award! This award recognises the contributions of local organisations that enrich and inspire the wider community. ArtBomb was awarded this year's Community Award for our positive impact on the city’s cultural life, by activating public spaces as hubs of conversation and experimentation through the ArtBomb Festival, and using our high street space to supporting artists at all stages of their careers. ArtBomb has become a dynamic platform for emerging artists, including many UCDon students, as well as a home for grassroots creative initiatives. Through street-art workshops, collaborative growing projects, and imaginative community programmes, ArtBomb fosters creativity, participation, and connection across Doncaster. Its open, exploratory environment invites people of all ages to experiment with new ideas and engage in meaningful artistic dialogue. Reflecting on why ArtBomb was shortlisted for a UCDon Community Award, BA (Hons) Fine Art & Craft Programme Leader Andrea Sutton noted: “Through their generosity, innovation, and unwavering passion, Mike and Jennie have created opportunities that genuinely transform the lives of our students. Their commitment to nurturing emerging talent and opening up space for creative risk-taking is leaving a lasting impact not only on our learners but on the cultural life of the wider city. We are incredibly grateful for their partnership and proud to celebrate the difference they continue to make.” Read the full article here.

Dates: Friday 13th–Sunday 28th February 2026 @ ArtBomb Opening Hours: MON 16th Feb - Closed TUE 17th Feb - 10.30 -12.30  and 1.30-3.30 WED 18th Feb - 10.30 -12.30  and 1.30-3.30 THUR 19th Feb - 10.30 -12.30   and 1.30-3.30 FRI 20th Feb - Closed SAT 21st Feb - Closed SUN 22nd Feb - Closed MON 23rd Feb - Closed TUE 24th Feb - 10.30 -12.30  and 1.30-3.30 WED  25th Feb - 10.30 -12.30  and 1.30-3.30 THU 26th Feb - 10.30 -12.30   and 1.30-3.30 FRI 27th Feb - Closed The Six Seeds Succeed exhibition showcases work by Year 2 Fine Art and Craft degree students from University Campus Doncaster, celebrating creative learning rooted in the local community.  Through experimentation with materials, ideas, and making, the works share developing practices and warmly invite visitors to connect with the area’s emerging creative voice. Together, the six Doncaster-based artists featured in this exhibition spotlight the practical skills they have developed through the studio-based Fine Art and Craft degree programme , each bringing their own personality, research interests and lived experience to their creative process.  Lovingly dubbed “ the lab", ArtBomb's high street gallery is a place for artists at all stages of their creative career to experiment with new ideas and to share this experimental process with passersby. Following a successful exhibition last year, ArtBomb were delighted to invite a new cohort of Year 2 Fine Art & Craft students to take over the  lab and to present their work outside of the classroom for the first time. Special thanks to Michael Bunn & Andrea Sutton (Programme Leaders, BA (Hons) Fine Art and Craft, University Campus Doncaster. Ahead of their exhibition launch, ArtBomb's Jennie caught up with the artists to learn more about the inspiration behind their work. Learn more about the artists below! James Warnar @jamesemmanuelwarnar “ I'm inspired by the Czech creatives that shaped the media in my childhood: Jiří Trnka   and his gorgeous puppets and stop motion, Josef Lada   and his illustrations that could be found in just about every classroom calendar and so on." “ Art has always been something I excelled at, often being a safe haven for self-exploration and creativity. Being creative means being myself: I simply wouldn't be me without it." Debbie Blackmore “ I've always loved crafting, and I used to do lots of craft activities with my girls when I was a Rainbow Guide leader, but I'd never really been into actual art." “ When I moved to Telford in 2016, I signed up for a ‘ Clay Making for Mental Health' short course. The tutor, Anne-Marie Lagram, also ran local craft & art groups which I joined. After attending Anne-Marie's art group for two years, she urged me to study further and so I attended Telford College, where I earned a foundation diploma in Art & Design. I later attended Wolverhampton University, where I was studying a degree in Glass & Ceramics, but unfortunately the course ended early. When I moved up to Wakefield last year, I got the opportunity to complete my degree by attending Doncaster College, where I am now." “ I can't say who I'm inspired by. I like trying many different things, but my initial inspiration was Anne-Marie Lagram  who encouraged me to study further." Shirley Werner “ I have always been creative from being a small child. I have a highly active and creative imagination and often perceive the world not as it is." “ I am very instinctual in my work-led processes. Sometimes, I find the mundane and ambiguous stimulating. At other times,  it is great works of art that can move and inspire me. My influences include Abstract and German Expressionism , Bauhaus , Cubism , Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso in his many periods  and countless contemporary artists all play a part. I feel like a sponge soaking up the visuals around me." Kwai Chang Kibble “ The inspiration for my current work is based on the symbols found on a Chinese Dragon robe of an emperor of China. It made me think of how I would convey my own thoughts of happiness, good luck, protection and longevity to my family and friends. The work aims to show this through the use of motifs and colours found amongst the objects in my home and the rituals we carry out." “ I have always been creative since I was a child. I could be found drawing, colouring, cutting up different papers for collage. My teachers through the years were very encouraging of this, my parents not so much. I returned to this creative path a few years ago, and it is very rewarding." Kath Boughton “ I have been influenced by many visits to art galleries, artists' open events and workshops over the years plus a very inspirational art teacher at school.I have always enjoyed painting portraits and landscape, having attended Stourbridge Art College before going to Royal Worcester Porcelain to train as a figure paintress." “ I like the work of John Piper , English painter and printer. His use of vibrant colours and architectural studies fascinate me." Denisa Feniser “The main inspiration behind my work is really myself, my childhood and the way my ideas have developed and changed through the years. I like exploring personal memories and how they continue to shape my creativity over time." “To me, creativity means being able to imagine, experiment, and turn simple ideas into something meaningful. I’ve been creative since I was a child, always playing with paper, cutting out different shapes, and enjoying making things with my hands."

Terry Hudson Saturday 6th December 2025—Saturday 31st January 2026 Opening Times: 11am-4pm daily (closed every Sunday & Monday) Workshop Dates: 13th December 2025, 10th January 2026, 24th January 2026 (more info below) The Little Anarchist Bookshop is a summer festival feature brought to Doncaster… in the winter! Step off the street and into the woods this winter. This December and January, artist, poet and horticulturist Terry Hudson , brings the magic of a woodland to Doncaster city-centre through an immersive installation. Evergreen branches growing from the walls, leaf litter, moss and twigs crunching underfoot - take a breath of heavily oxygenated pine fresh air and listen to the sounds of birdsong overhead. Something of a breath of fresh air himself, Terry is a champion of the ethical British summer festival, educating communities about woodland preservation through fire circles, wood craft workshops, and in turn, preserving our sanity. Coffee pot on the boil, Terry will be sharing his personal library of books classics, philosophy and anarchist literature. Come and learn more about the collection, hear more from Terry about his ethical hacktivism, his involvement with Doncaster’s DIY festival scene, and a colourful lifetime lived by the Reuse, Reduce, Recycle mantra. There are many contradictions about our modern world, and we all want to do our bit, as Terry puts it: We’ll be reading, chatting, figuring things out, there will be workshops, discussion, readings, poetry and art. Workshops are just that, I am seeking answers, come along and help me out. A salute to the revolutionary speakeasies, coffee shops and tea rooms, and a time when land ownership, direct relationships to nurturing and creating seemed simple, Anarchist Bookshop will be an evolving site for conversation, learning and itself an evolving art installation. Over seven cold weeks, Terry will be delivering a range of activities. Expect: Terry’s personal library of classics, philosophy & anarchist lit Conversations, workshops, readings & poetry Ethical festival culture, DIY craft, off-grid know-how Zine-making, self-publishing, Raspberry Pi basics & more From 11am-4pm,  Terry will be hosting free, drop-in workshops on the following dates:- Saturday 13th December  Saturday 10th January  Saturday 24th January Come along and take part in a workshop, or bring your own craft project to enjoy a hot drink in a cosy, creative space. Workshop Timetable (same timetable for all 3 Saturday workshop sessions):- 12:00 | Zines 101  Create your own zine and learn about the origins of zine (short for "maga-zine") culture, a DIY approach to publication with its roots in dissident and marginalized communities.  14:00 | From Art of Nowhere  Terry invites you to create your own Blackberry Beastie, a nymph-like tree spirit who guides wandering souls, brought to life in this craft workshop using dead blackberry roots salvaged from Doncaster's woodland. All paints and conjuring spells will be provided.  15:00 | Twelve Hundred Watt Weekender Challenge Terry has made it his mission to host a 4 day off-grid festival using just 300 Watts per day. Come and learn how to save money and energy by powering your own life using just one Lead Acid Leisure battery. Join the challenge! Preferably let us know if you are coming, on which day and your interests, by emailing admin@artbombuk.com The little Anarchist bookshop is a feature of a festival In English Summer woodland Where the ethos isn’t capital Writing silly rhymes That are always counter cultural Expounding for a society That is fair, honest, and Mutual A tiny little bookcase made from rubbish on the grounds Reading, Raps, Music, Chats or just to hang around A place where revolution isn’t what we wish A place where revolution already exists

Naveen Rabelli Naveen and his electric solar tuk-tuk! Stuck in traffic on the way to a kite festival, he had a sudden brainwave—why not build a solar powered tuk-tuk, and drive it across Asia to London? In the event the rickshaw had to charge overnight in some places, but this only increased the social dimension of the project as in each place he had to ask villagers for electricity to charge up. In exchange for his fantastical story he not only got power and a place to sleep in this vehicle, creating a chain of supporters all the way through Iran, Turkey and Europe. In his own words: “They are all over India—they are loud and smoky and somehow have some Indianness in them. Everyone has been brought up in one” He started the process of converting one for his journey and in the two-year process so shared his dream in schools around India.  He recalls one father saying his son had dreamed of owning a Lamborghini – now he just wants a solar tuk-tuk. The basic Piaggo Ape model auto-rickshaw was converted into a solar-powered zero-emission vehicle, with the same specifications as a petrol-driven one, in which Rabelli slept on his 10,000km journey to London. The Tejas Project (meaning Radiance in Sanskrit) is an example of a single inventor’s crazy persistence, thinking like an artist to subvert our expectations about impossible transport infrastructures and link together ordinary people with a viral thought-process that may, somehow lead to a step-change in thinking about sustainability.

Applications are now open for proposals from artists for two upcoming commissions at ArtBomb. Deadline: 5pm Sunday 4 January 2026 [ EXTENDED DEADLINE* ] * Please note that each document states that the deadline for applications is Sunday 14th December 2025. This has now been extended by 3 weeks to Sunday 4 January 2026. ArtBomb is accepting applications for two new commissions as part of the 2026 ArtBomb Residency programme: Rethinking Migration  (Commission 1) and Arts & Homelessness (Commission 2). Each commission will take the form of a residency, consisting of an extended research period beginning in February and working towards a final public sharing of work in June-July 2026. ArtBomb Festival 2025 (Image Credit: Matt Hass) About ArtBomb's Commissioning       ArtBomb is an evolving creative platform for high quality, experimental and socially engaged works with a political edge, by artists at different stages in their career.  Part civic experiment, part artistic  intervention, we use our creative lab to subvert public expectations of the high street, showcasing cutting edge art which lands in the public consciousness with maximum impact.   ArtBomb is also the driving force behind ArtBomb Festival , an event which animates the city with powerful installations, performances and provocations. Our year-round residency programme invites artists to inhabit the ArtBomb shop over several weeks.  Floor-to-ceiling windows offer nowhere to hide, inviting passers-by to witness artists working in progress. Our transparent and participatory approach to creative practice aims to promote meaningful, honest debate between strangers, and encourages audiences to be part of a creative movement for positive change.     Our 2026 commissioning emerges out of the urgent global themes explored at ArtBomb Festival 2025 (15-17 August) and is grounded in the socio-political context of Doncaster, a city home to repeat rough sleepers,  asylum seekers and economic migrants seeking to integrate into daily life. Commission 1) Rethinking Migration Rethinking Migration, our first commission, is delivered in partnership with Don Catchment Rivers Trust , CAST , and Changing Lives . We are seeking an artist or artist collective based in the South Yorkshire region to work collaboratively with our partner organisations and with members of the public — particularly those in transit, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Doncaster. We actively encourage applications from artists who identify as migrant or asylum seeker themselves, who feel their voices are currently under-represented in the arts, or who may have experience of collaborating with people who have lived experience of migration, marginalisation and displacement.                                           Themes might be inspired by ideas of home, animal life, diaspora, food, plants (indigenous and introduced), nomadism, and human purpose, through creative exploration of place, refuge, humans in motion and paths of migration. We expect there to be a public artwork or artistic outcome (in any form or medium) by the end of the process. For more information on what we're looking for and how to apply, please visit Apply for Rethinking Migration . This will take you to downloadable PDF, which includes extended detail about the commission background, research opportunities, the support we can offer, eligibility and key deadlines. Commission 2) Arts & Homelessness Arts & Homelessness, our second commission, is developed   in partnership with Trussell Trust , Changing Lives , Project 6 , CAST and Doncaster City Councils Rough Sleeper Team. This commission aims to engage people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, exploring themes of security, precarity, self-worth and belonging through creativity. Artists are encouraged to create work collaboratively with communities in multimedia forms, such as (but not exclusive to) painting, street art, performance, video, or spoken word. We see homelessness as a social condition affecting everyone, revealing the fragile boundaries between security and precarity.  There are many definitions of “homelessness”: from rough sleeping on the street or in emergency accommodation, to what one participant dubbed “posh homelessness”- sofa surfing or car camping. We invite artists to reflect on how we reconcile such complex issues as homelessness with a society distracted by hyper-productivity, individualism and aspiration. Please note that for this commission, we are looking for an artist(s) living and/or working in Doncaster. For more information on what we're looking for and how to apply, please visit Apply for Arts & Homelessness . How to Apply Each of the links Apply for Arts & Homelessness and Apply for Rethinking Migration will take you to downloadable PDF, which includes extended detail about the commission background, research opportunities, the support we can offer, eligibility and key deadlines. Please read this document carefully and submit your proposal to admin@artbombuk.com by 5pm on Sunday 4th January 2026. If your particular circumstances or access needs mean that the application process is inaccessible to you, please let us know via email and we will do our best to facilitate your proposal in another format. If you wish to apply for both commissions, please make two separate proposals. Please note that we cannot award both commissions to any one applicant. All proposals will be treated equally and no favour will be given to production quality or how you apply . We are currently a small, part time team. If you have questions about making a proposal, please contact admin@artbombuk.com and we will try to respond to you within 3 days.