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With Super Bowl LX taking place tonight, I’m sending this week’s main newsletter a little early, and resharing a newsletter post I sent last month below, as it features Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (AKA Bad Bunny), who will be headlining the half-time show. The Super Bowl is pretty much the one time of the year I watch American football, and I do actually enjoy the game, however, I have a new sleep schedule that I just can’t compromise on in order to be my best for a busy day on Monday, so I won’t be watching live this year.

In this revisited post, the emphasis isn’t so much on the hype that Benito brings, but on how his experiences away from home have allowed him to make a greater impact on his local environment, and rippling across the globe. Tonight’s half-time show is set to be a big celebration and uplifting of Puerto Rican culture, something in which he takes great pride in, and promotes through his artistry and influence.

As I’ve been working on putting together this week’s opportunities listing featuring residencies, bursaries, exhibitions and more (which will go out on Thursday — tell your friends to subscribe if they haven’t already), and as you scroll through the list, keep in mind the opportunities that allow you to step out of your usual environment, so you can become richer in your practice and give back more.

For those who are new, enjoy the read. For those who’ve been subscribed for at least a month, enjoy the re-read. And if you’re reading this and planning on staying up to watch the game, or just the half-time show, enjoy that too.

A Lesson From Bad Bunny

Think Global, Act Local

Around this time last year I found myself just coming out of a period of limbo. There was no curatorial work available in the city where I lived, which meant enacting on the common reality of travelling out of town just to keep working within my desired field. At the same time, I carried a concern: that by being away, I might disconnect from a place I am deeply committed to supporting, and that some of the work I had done to support artists and strengthen the city’s cultural infrastructure might become undone.

Nottingham is where I was born and bred, and where I still live to this day. The work that I have done here is not meant to be a temporary stop or a rung on a career ladder—it has always been about being in it, giving back, and helping to build something that lasts.

It was as I was emerging from limbo when this conversation between Zane Lowe and Bad Bunny was released, ahead of the release of Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS. During the, Bad Bunny said something that stopped me in my tracks and fundamentally rewired my mindset:

He was speaking about spending time outside of Puerto Rico. Zane Lowe followed in agreement with:

I think I may at the moment, paused, rewound, and listened again.

Bad Bunny went on to describe spending time outside of Puerto Rico, meeting people from different countries and cultures, and having conversations with those people. He spoke about finding new ways to talk about his art and the country he proudly represents outside of his usual environment, to people he didn’t know. Through that process came professional, artistic, and personal growth—and new inspirations that have since shaped his work and outlook on life. And can we talk about his global impact towards Puerto Rico last year?

That reflection brought me back to a pivotal point in my own career, quite early on actually, when I became intentional about broadening my horizons beyond the limitations within Nottingham.

I think about Berlin where I would visit regularly when starting out in the arts—the city where I truly believe some of the strongest foundations of my practice were formed, and where some of my best ideas emerged. Every time I return, I feel that connection again. I think about the artist residency I did in Budapest, Hungary, that made me realise I could do this art think for real for real (which included time as a studio interviewee on Hungarian evening news). I think about working for one of the world’s largest street art festivals in Norway, something I had the privilege of doing for 3 years, which allowed me to work with industry legends–some of my art heroes, and where colleagues became friends. Years later, when I crowdfunded a curatorial residency in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2019, a significant number of donations came from people I had met through that very job. That residency in Lagos marked one of the biggest shifts in my curatorial practice. It forced me to confront my Western education and gaze, and to actively unlearn inherited ideas of what curation “should” be. It reshaped how I think about curating for a global context—how to communicate not just for diaspora audiences, but for artists and communities on the African continent, without flattening diverse experiences, traditions, and realities into a single narrative. I think about the international conferences, symposiums, and art fairs I’ve attended. The new relationships formed (some of which became part of a peer network, mentors, business partners, clients, secured me my first published writing, access to funding to further my practice and more). The lessons learned. The artists I discovered. The ways city infrastructure shapes local arts ecosystems. The curator I am today would not exist without leaving Nottingham.

And yet, Nottingham remains the place I am committed to. This is why Think Global, Act Local can’t just be a slogan for me. Because every global experience has allowed me to give back at home more meaningfully, more critically, and with greater cultural richness at home. It also allowed to me to see what was missing, and I could only see this from afar.

I had to remember during that post limbo period that I was only going away to become much richer within my outlook and creativity, so that I had enough to give back locally, and also that I was limited my ambition by sticking to one place.

My New Year invitation to you is to set yourself a target to step outside your local environment this year.

That might be:

• Applying for a residency or open call

• Attending a conference, or symposium

• Initiating a collaboration beyond your local network

It’s also important to say this clearly: not everyone can travel internationally. Some artists cannot leave their cities. Some cannot leave their homes. Capacity, care, finances, and access all shape what is possible. If you stepping out cannot include crossing international borders, it can mean:

• Digital residencies

• Online conferences and symposiums

• International collaborations facilitated online

Working outside your local context should always be within your means, your capacity, and your reality.

Also, when you step away outside of that local environment you’ve worked in for so long, you create space for others, especially if you’ve exhausted all opportunity your locality has to offer. It means that the same opportunities don’t keep circulating among the same artists. Others get to benefit from local resources, platforms, and visibility. Growth becomes collective, not concentrated.

When you return, you can do so with expanded networks, new collaborators, and fresh perspectives that can feed back into the local ecosystem.

Think global.
Act local.
Grow outward—so you can give back inwards.

If you’ve made it to this part—thank you for reading! I hope there’s something in here that resonates or encourages you to keep going.

And if you know someone who might benefit from these newsletters or sessions, feel free to forward this on and encourage them to subscribe.