Germinator

‘Even tomorrow you will have today’

…is a phrase from a poem by Ocean Vuong — a poem called ‘Headfirst’, which feels apt. That’s how a lot of artists enter the art world. How a seed sprouts from the cracks in concrete.

‘Germinator’ is a head-first exhibition. A group of artists bound together by their restless engagement with the material world, prodding at what’s around them

Tea bags

Cardboard

Oil Paint

Silicone

Old linens

Clay

Creating worlds, themselves, or versions of it as they go, they question meaning-making as it exists. Iris May creates sculptural ‘possible bodies’, assembled from wood and designed to fold, move and travel. These figures act as companions as much as objects, accumulating histories through their reuse and recombination. ‘Possible bodies’ leads one to think of ‘possible worlds’. Sireen Martin creates hybrid landscapes, organic forms placed in imagined terrain, exploring the porous boundaries between virtual, physical and metaphysical spaces.

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Thinking of environments, we are led to Vidhi Jangra, who repurposes domestic material to reconstruct memory and question the spaces we inhabit. The Home becomes a site of resistance and politics; repair becomes a tool of thinking. Lucy Vardy approaches the domestic through residues of daily life: tea bags, textiles, traces of wear, transforming them through sculptural installation into quiet relics that honour the sacredness of the ordinary.

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Somewhere between the metaphysical and physical, Lucy Nelson constructs ambiguous forms that hover between the natural and synthetic. Nelson examines cycles of becoming and unbecoming, presence and absence, drawing on experiences of pregnancy loss.

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Thinking further between the physical and the felt, Lucy Bronwen Davies works intuitively with found and foraged materials, weaving and carving biomorphic forms that reflect the interdependence of natural systems. Jessie Farnsworth’s paintings emerge from internal rhythms and sensory perception, where fluid shapes drift across dense colour fields like organisms or sonic reverberations, creating imagined spaces that feel both bodily and atmospheric.

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Germinator is the process of assembling, disassembling and reimagining fragile and fluctuating relationships between bodies, places and histories. The works question traditional methods of meaning-making in a world that is constantly shifting. And in that process, build a living archive of the present day– a fluid, constantly changing, weird moment in history. So as we move forward, we will still have today.

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Iris May
Iris May is a multi-media artist based in Glasgow. She graduated with a First from The Glasgow School of Art and was recently selected for the RSA New Contemporaries. Her work has been featured in publications including The Skinny, The Herald and voc .a (Issue 8, Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio). Recent exhibitions include A Dark Pool of Water at The Colour Factory, London, and a solo presentation at Rumblehouse Gallery, Calgary. She will begin a residency at The Shift Gallery, Glasgow, in May 2026.

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Lucy Nelson
Lucy Nelson is a visual artist based in Nottingham. She graduated with distinction from the MFA Fine Art programme at Nottingham Trent University. Her work has been exhibited across the East Midlands, including at Nottingham Contemporary, as well as in Cambridge, Sheffield and Staffordshire. She is an associate artist at BACKLIT Gallery and a member of the Lumina Collective, and has been commissioned to produce new work for the 2026 Maid Marian Legacy Project. Nelson is a recipient of the Eaton Fund Award and was a finalist for both the Vieunite and Women in Art prizes.

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Jessie Farnsworth
Jessie Farnsworth (b. 2002, Nottingham) is a Manchester-based painter. Her practice is informed by sensory experience, internal dialogue and responses to sound. She graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in Fine Art from Manchester School of Art in 2024, where she was awarded the Wallace Seymour Painting Prize and nominated for the Freelands Painting Prize. She has exhibited across the North West, including at The Manchester Contemporary, Oceans Apart, FG Gallery, SEESAW and 50MV. During her studies, she undertook a residency at Cortijada Los Gázquez, Vélez Blanco with Joya: AiR.

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Lucy Vardy
Lucy Vardy is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nottinghamshire, working across drawing, sculpture and installation. She graduated with a First in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University in 2025, where her work was acquired for the university’s art collection. She recently completed the East Midlands Graduate Project at Surface Gallery, Nottingham, including a residency, public workshop and group exhibition. Upcoming projects include group exhibitions with Crop Up Gallery and Hagstone Collective, and inclusion in No Jobs in the Arts zine (Issue 10).

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Vidhi Jangra
Vidhi Jangra is a visual artist and curator working across art-making, programming and research. Her practice is informed by ideas of cultivation, material memory and domestic space, alongside a commitment to inclusive and accessible public engagement. Recent projects include developing Bonington Connects (2024–25), and exhibiting and co-curating at Surface Gallery, Nottingham Contemporary and BACKLIT Gallery. She has also led Art Walks for London Gallery Weekend. Jangra is currently Artist-Curator Trainee at Eastside Projects, Birmingham, and a trustee for AA2A and No Jobs in the Arts.

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Lucy Bronwen Davies
Lucy Bronwen Davies is an ecological artist and facilitator based in Nottinghamshire. She graduated with a First-Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University in 2024, receiving the Ecological Awareness and Sustainability Award. Her work has been exhibited across the East Midlands, including at BACKLIT, Surface and ILKON. She has undertaken residencies at Haarlem Artspace and through the East Midlands Graduate Project at Surface Gallery. Alongside her practice, she works as a freelance facilitator and producer with organisations including Refugee Roots, the National Justice Museum and Ashfield Creates, and is a trustee of Young Creatives Nottingham.

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Sireen Martin
Sireen Martin is a mixed-media artist based in the West Midlands. She graduated with a First from Birmingham School of Art and has collaborated with Birmingham Opera Company on productions including Voices of an Ancient Youth and Are You Ready to Be Heard. She is currently Artist in Residence at Grand Union, Birmingham, and has exhibited across Digbeth First Friday at venues including Junction Works, Secret Space and Eastside Projects. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the Birmingham Open Prize and is currently developing new sculptural work in collaboration with curatorial students at the University of Birmingham.

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​Germinator developed out of a growing concern around the shifting conditions of art education, particularly the widening gap between academic study and the realities of sustaining a practice beyond it. At a time when courses are under increasing pressure and professional development is often sidelined, the project seeks to offer recent graduates a clearer sense of the context they are entering. Launched via an open call, seven recent graduates from universities across the UK, each with connections to the Midlands, were selected to take part in a year-long programme of mentoring, dialogue and support. Through a series of sessions with Kristian Day (Haarlem Artspace), Steve Swallow (Castlegate Gallery, Cumbria), Dan Howard-Birt (Kingsgate Project Space, London), David McCleavy (Humber Street Gallery, Hull) and Séamus McCormack (New Contemporaries / Commonage Projects), the artists have been supported in developing their work while gaining insight into the structures, expectations and possibilities of the contemporary art world, culminating in this exhibition at Haarlem Artspace. Germinator is not a solution to wider systemic issues, but a small, practical intervention—an attempt to better equip emerging artists with the experience, confidence and networks needed to navigate an increasingly complex landscape.