Hugh Nicholson

September – December 2025
Open School East + Online

The Unstable Ground research group unpacked research commissioned as part of our civic programme by artist and researcher Hugh Nicholson. Collected in a fragmentary and poetic publication of the same name, the research explored the central themes of Home is where the garden is: Civic Space, Material and Produce.

The Associates met with Hugh on a fortnightly basis to exchange, discuss and enact elements of the research, entwining Hugh’s proposed starting points and lines of enquiry with their own research, experiences and practices. Together, the group circled around descriptions of Kent as ‘The Garden of England’, and the implications of pastoral stability, prosperity and abundance.

Through its entangled explorations, Unstable Ground asked:

Where is this garden, and who are its owners? What are its histories, its features, its borders and boundaries? Who are its workers? What tools and modes of production are used to manage its materials? What strategies of governance are used to shape its civic spaces? What implications do these techniques have? What unseen impacts do they entail? What functions do they serve? Just what is it that is being cultivated in this garden? And what, in turn, might be cultivated here in the future?

Hugh Nicholson is an artist living between Nottingham and London. His work examines the relationship between financialization, ecology and subjectivity as a means to address the capitalisation of nature and the naturalisation of capital. Often using contracts, commissioning and outsourcing as artistic strategies, artworks aim to reflect and critique capital’s globally distributed impacts, affects and desires.

Recent projects include: a new commission for Chaleur Humaine, Dunkerque Art & Industry Triennial 2023, France; contribution to TESTCARD, Primary, Nottingham; and a three-month Magnetic Residency at the FRAC Grand Large, supported by Fluxus Art Projects. He has written for publications including Art Monthly, The Contemporary Journal and Hospital Rooms, and received funding from bodies including Arts Council England and Artist Newsletter.

These sessions are part of OSE’s two-year thematic cycle Home is where the garden is – find more events: openschooleast.org/home-is-associates