Mansfield School of Art features in a new exhibition at the Bonington Gallery in Nottingham

The School of Art building is currently slated for demolition to make way for a new £8.8 million technology and skills centre.

For over a decade artists John Beck and Matthew Cornford have been researching and documenting the sites of art schools across the UK. They quickly found many had disappeared, either amalgamated into larger institutions, been redeveloped or demolished.

The Art School Project, is their ambitious attempt to identify and document all the old buildings around the country and in so doing create a national record of places that were once an important part of our towns and cities. Many were established in the Victorian age to deliver a skilled labour force for local industry – such as lace manufacture in Nottinghamshire - and much needed educational opportunities to the newly enfranchised working class.

Opening on 22 September at the Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University, is an exhibition of their research and photographs of the art schools of the East Midlands. As well as Mansfield School of Art the exhibition includes new photography of the art school buildings in Nottingham and Newark and art schools across the East Midlands.