Cultural exchange

Hundal says he found it hard to shift gear and adjust to his new role, having come from a middle management position as the director of operations and special projects at the South Asian arts organisation Sampad.

With the step into directorship, he felt a little under pressure and says he thinks that society places expectations on the type of people who take on senior roles.

“People want you to be something that they expect you to be when you’re the chief executive or the director of a gallery or an arts organisation,” he says. “It felt like everybody was looking at me and thinking ‘he’s going to goof it up’.”

Formed in 2003, New Art Exchange was originally a partnership between South Asian arts organisation Apna Arts, which was developing the Nottingham Mela festi- val, and Emaca Visual Arts, an organisation that supported the development of artists of African and Caribbean origin. Hundal volunteered at Apna Arts at the beginning of his career in 1992, so he was familiar with the previous incarnation of the institution and its building.

“It was an old Victorian red-brick thing – I have a lot of fond memories of it. It was a space that was used by mods, punks, rockers and the reggae boys,” he recalls. “The memories of the place are really beautiful.”

Nowadays, New Art Exchange is a very different space and is the largest gallery in the UK dedicated to culturally diverse contemporary visual arts. Central to its mission is celebrating the region’s cultural rich- ness and diversity.

“People were nervous about taking away history and replacing it with modernity,” says Hundal. “The new building is a black cube. It’s like afro-futurism that’s come from the future to re-align our identity.”

Now, the gallery attracts a broad and diverse audience. About 38% are from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds in a city that is 25% BAME. But Hundal points out that the community in the area the gallery is in, Hyson Green, is about 42% BAME.

Not only does the venue attract locals – the kind that most museums and galleries find hard to pull in – it is also very popular with 18- to 35-year-olds, a group that is also traditionally hard to lure through the doors.

Local knowledge

Hundal grew up in Birmingham in an Indian family, and did community develop- ment work for nearly 10 years as an inner city development manager for Sandwell Training and Enterprise Council.

“It felt like it was the other half of Birmingham, but often the forgotten half,” he says, adding that the community there was honest, hardworking and working-class.

With Hundal’s experience, it is no surprise that he has been able to champion local links at the exchange. But how exactly has he done it?

He says that one of the key things is being genuinely embedded in the community. “Part of being at New Art Exchange is you have to live with the community and do the things they do, with them,” he says. “If you do that, you achieve a lot. You cannot expect people to come to you: you must exchange.”

Hitting the streets

Hundal has also been the executive producer and artistic director of the Nottingham Mela festival since 2009, while he’s been at New Art Exchange. “Three weeks before the Mela I realised that we needed to hype up interest – we needed to hit the streets,” he says.

“We needed to talk to people, and share with them what we were doing and why we were doing it. And we did. It was tiring as hell, but it was liberating. We made bespoke literature, and we must have spoken to about 1,000 people in three weeks. When you’re talking one-to-one, that’s a lot of people.”

Hundal thinks this is a good approach – by giving to people, they automatically start giving back. “We found new volunteers, we found people who wanted to run craft stalls at the festival, and we found people who just wanted to have fun at the event.”

Hundal says that Nottingham Mela now has a far broader audience because of this work, something that a local community radio station picked up on. “Actually I need to follow-up on that,” Hundal says. “They want to do a monthly hour-long art programme with us.”

Hundal froths with ideas – it’s not surprising that he’s led dozens of fruitful local, regional, national and international partnerships over the years. He namechecks a 2015 project that he is particularly proud of, when New Art Exchange was part of the EM15 Midlands’ Pavilion as part of the Ven- ice Biennale. This featured a fully playable, artist-designed miniature golf course, titled Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf.

Culture of collaboration

One of the most recent partnerships he has been involved in is 14-18 Now, the national commemorations of the first world war. In a collaboration with Imperial War Museums (IWM) and with money from Arts Council England, Hundal helped set up a commission by the British artist John Akomfrah, titled Mimesis: African Soldier.

Akomfrah’s multimedia and video installation remembers the millions of Africans who fought as soldiers or served as porters during the first world war. It can be seen at IWM London until 31 March 2019, and it will then tour to New Art Exchange where it will be on show from September to December 2019.

Hundal really has a knack for making things happen. The current feather in his cap is the exhibition Africa State of Mind (until 16 December), curated by the Ghanaian-British writer, journalist, and broad- caster Ekow Eshun. The show, which interrogates notions of “Africanness”, travels to Impressions Gallery, Bradford, next year (29 March to 15 June 2019).

“The voice of the African diaspora is really important in Britain today,” says Hundal. “I’m delighted that Ekow has delivered our show. What shines through is the idea of Africans redressing the imbalance of how they’re perceived, the brilliance of col- our, and the vibrant signature of the changing Africa driven and delivered by afro- centrism. There’s a new Africa emerging, and the artists want to share that.”

Eshun helped Hundal put New Art Exchange’s mission and vision together in 2011 and they have stayed friends since. “He has been very helpful over the years and has the experience of being an African male in the contemporary art world.”

New Art Exchange’s approach to programming and audience development stands out in a sector that is a lot less diverse than it should be. Hundal has been central to this and he wants to push the boundaries even further.

“We’re trying to represent everybody’s story, but we’ve realised that there’s at least 60 to 70 different stories in one school class- room in this part of Nottingham,” he says.

“We aim for the 26,000 people who live in the surrounding circle of New Art Exchange to use this space regularly: with meaning, with purpose, with passion, with love, and to own the space. We are about diversity in its totality.”


Skinder Hundal has been the chief executive of New Art Exchange in Nottingham since 2008 and is also the artistic director of Nottingham Mela. He plays the tabla in his spare time.

He did an engineering and mathematics BSc at Nottingham Trent University and an MA in development at the University of Warwick.

After volunteering for two years with Apna Arts in Nottingham, he became the inner city development manager for Sandwell Training and Enterprise Council from 1993 to 2001.

He worked for the Black Country Learning and Skills Council before becoming the director of operations and special projects at Sampad, a South Asian arts organisation.


New Art Exchange is in the Hyson Green area of Nottingham and is at the heart of a diverse community. It is dedicated to culturally diverse contemporary visual arts.

It was designed by HawkinsBrown architects, and opened in 2008. The following year the building won five architectural and design awards: the Riba National Award, the Riba East Midlands Award, two Lord Mayor’s Awards for Urban Design (New Build and Overall Award), and the National Civic Trust Award.

Annual turnover is about £1.6m. The centre receives funding from a number of sources, including Arts Council England and Nottingham City Council.

The venue, which is free to visit, attracts a young and diverse audience. It presents a changing programme of art exhibitions, creative activities for families and young people, film screenings, symposiums, lectures, festivals and a live performance strand featuring music, dance and theatre.