Ryan Boultbee

Art/Architecture

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Investigating the potential of creative mapping tools in subterranean environments (2019-). Collaborating with Andrew Brown, our work traversing isolated caves and mines in the Derwent South region in Derbyshire relies on collective exploration, sensory observation, and technological testing (LiDAR / Photogrammetry). Together, we’ve been exploring the underground to create a soundwalk experience in these underground systems. Thank you to Dan Billings for capturing this 3D scan.

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Sonic sculptures 1, 2, & 3: recurring soundscapes and sonic experiences. Sonic Sculptures is a project led by visual artist/curator Ryan Boultbee, architectural design studio FROMTHEGROUNDUP (FTGU) and musician Tom Harris. Sonic Sculptures is a recurring series of events hosting a programme of soundscapes and sonic experiences. The video is documentation of a livestream from Sonic Sculptures 3, through a call-out for audio submissions, creative were able to share their audio work through an experimental sonic sculpture.

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I've Been Documenting Barriers for a While Now. An ongoing photography project and small publication capturing temporary barriers in the urban realm. How these forms affect navigation and frame nature, especially those that have been misplaced, forgotten, or lost, particularly appeals to me.

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The Weight of Materials: learning the making processes of architectural heritage crafts. Intensive R&D project to provide a foundation for a significant shift in my practice. I intend to perform desk-studies and enrol in specialised classes in lead-working, lime-application, slate-masonry, and cob-forming. This formative period focuses on safe material re-use, experimentation, and technical skill-transfer, documented through consistent reflective journaling. This research will directly be synthesised into a research zine to share at-risk material insights with the wider arts sector and inspire future sustainable bodies of work through culturally significant making processes.

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Framework-for-Practice (current research)

Installation at Broadway Gallery for Near Now, Nottingham. 18–21 August 2022.

Framework-for-Practice is a project led by myself and architectural designer/artist Will Harvey. The project utilises both the architectural and symbolic attributes of scaffolding to create a minimal-waste, flexible and adaptable framework which supports a wealth of creative research and exploration, and to enable the building, repair and restoration of culture and creativity. Framework-for-Practice endeavours to critique, elevate, communicate, facilitate and support projects within Nottingham and Nottinghamshire that aim to provoke and promote positive and long-lasting cultural change. The creative kit of parts continues to be used for collaberative exhibitons and project in and around Nottingham. A project website documents some of these outcomes, Framework-for-Practice

Current research, updated 08/04/2024: Colaberating with musician Tom Harris, we've planned a series of events situated around a structure turning Broadway Gallery into an instrument, Sonic Sculptures.

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Bombing Berlin

During a 2022 residency at Lichtenberg Studios, Berlin, I collected city-wide acorns to create 117 seed bombs. I deposited these in carefully selected, sunlit, undisturbed locations throughout Lichtenberg, aiming to foster new oak growth. This time-based work explores long-term environmental transformation. The project is documented via a list of coordinate markers and a GIF compiling Google Maps imagery from 49 of the sites. The title of the work draws on the book I was reading, A History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist

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People vs. Power (current research)

Workshop at Primary, Nottingham. 2022.

People vs. Power: Re-imagining Our Local Power Station workshops invited people to make and share proposals to repurpose the architecture of the last coal-fired power station in Britain, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire, in response to plans to knock-down and redevelop the site. The workshops were delivered seven times with groups of up to twenty participants. The free workshops took place at several venues across the city of Nottingham, including Nottingham Contemporary, Primary, Green Light in the City, and Nottingham Green Festival (2023). The drawings, created by members of the public on activity sheets during the workshops, are to be deposited in the Nottinghamshire Archive. The collection totals approximately sixty unique drawings. I and project collaborator William Harvey have delivered three crayon-based workshop formats, between 2021 and 2022, each focused on a site in the public realm in Nottingham. The workshop formats all shared the same invitation: to re-imagine architecture and civic space through drawing, using an activity sheet as a tool, to visualize ideas for the future of a site. The titles of the three workshop formats, listed in reverse chronological order, are Reclaim Nottingham Castle; The Future of the Broad Marsh Shopping Centre; and, People vs. Power: Re-imagining Our Local Power Station. Current research, updated 08/04/2024: A publication is being generated to document the project.

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People vs. Power: Re-imagining Our Local Power Station Ryan Boultbee and Will Harvey (2024)

The publication documents workshops in which people were invited to share their proposals to repurpose the architecture of the last coal-fired power station in Britain, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire. This is a response to plans to demolish the site, it ceased operation in September 2024. All drawings from the project are deposited in Nottinghamshire Archives. A copy of the printed publication is available at the Wellcome Collection. The People vs. Power digital activity sheet can be accessed here for print at home use.

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I think this work had a poetic title, like scanning life and death, but I can't remember Film. 2023.

Blank sheet of paper, photocopied. Then, the print-out was photocopied again. Repeated, until the printer ran out of ink. The prints were scanned to make this short video. Physical works exhibited at Surface Gallery, Nottingham, in Early 2023.

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Temporary Bug Hotel Kit Postal Project. 2023.

Create a DIY bug hotel with everything in the flat-pack kit. Carefully place the tiny structure that you make into any green space you can access; to help you care for local bugs in your neighbourhood and create a welcoming space for them.

The pack includes a sheet of cardboard with a water-resistant wax coating, paper, tape, and two sizes of paper straw. The materials provided to make the bug hotel could last for up to a year outside. When the structure is no longer useful, it can be easily composted, as all the materials are biodegradable.

A DIY bug hotel will provide bugs, such as ladybirds, bees, spiders and woodlice, with a safe place to shelter, look after their young, and hide. I hope that, after seeing the success of your bug hotel, you will be inspired to find more ways to look after bugs in your local area.

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My Perfect World Workshop

Lincoln with UK New Artists’ Foundations Programme. Oct 2022.

The invitation to the young people during the workshop was to think about what their perfect world would look like. Each young person was given a sheet of A3 paper, with a circle outline in the centre to fill. To help them put pen to paper, they were asked to orientate their utopia around an issue or concern. This is the crayon drawing I made during the workshop. 

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Let’s Run

Ink on canvas. January 2022. 100 x 100cm.

Exhibited as part of Without the Sun (14th – 29th January 2022) at Surface Gallery, Nottingham; the culmination of the eight-week Platform residency awarded to three local artists.

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If it wasn’t for the work, I don’t think I’d have made it throught this

 Exhibition installation. Backlit, Nottingham, July 2021.

A canvas in the act of giving up. Inspired by the quiet fatigue of lockdown, the work melts into its environment. An outcome of my lockdown experience, surrounded by blank canvases and failed artworks in the run up to my graduate show.

[boultbee]

Home

Installation. Nottingham. April 2021.

The soiled living room centre piece I lived on, and with, during the Lockdown. A thirty-year-old sofa with a unique stay-at-home patina, a scratch-and-sniff patchwork of spilt dinners and a sweaty summer.

[boultbee]

Looking Back

December 2020. Nottingham Trent University.

Looking back’ turned a gallery space inside out. My action flipped the visible surfaces of the gallery to reveal the superimposed actions registered on the back of the walls by years of students. By inverting the white cube, I invited the viewer to consider the history of a space that tries to exist outside of time: the gallery space is physically ‘reset’ after each use, returned as close as possible to a neutral white cube. I find this reflective action of looking back particularly poignant. To me, this gallery space is always looking forward: forward to the next artist, show, or tutorial. But, in the context of a national lockdown, we have to look back to fill the space.

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Spatialprint

Painting. Surface Gallery, Nottingham. September, 2020.

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The Art of Working (Internationally): Ryan Boultbee

The Art of Working (Internationally) is a series of short documentary films featuring interviews and work from three UK artists. The interviews focus on the influence and impact of having international experiences either through festivals, exhibitions, performances or residencies.

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Commissioner: UK Young Artists / Eurodesk UK

Producer: Underhill Creative