Created in Birmingham

I don’t usually regurgitate press releases wholesale but I’ll make an exception here:

Due to new challenges over the last 2 years, Rhubarb-Rhubarb has found it necessary to enter a period of transition. The core ethos of the company will remain at the centre of what we do. We will continue to offer support to established photographers whilst also nurturing both regional and world wide talent.

Rhonda Wilson is taking a sabbatical. In her absence a temporary board has been set up to steer the company whilst the management of Rhubarb-Rhubarb has been put in the very capable and safe hands of Lorna-Mary Webb.

The focus of the company for the next twelve months will be with Rhubarb East which will be launching a new web site. This will not just provide our usual information but will develop, as a priority, an online photographic community that networks the photographic client base with image makers.

As this priority demands much of the team’s time in research and development and will use new technologies to offer photographers links with the wider world of image buyers, it is more financially viable to procure this than run this years Rhubarb – Rhubarb festival. We look forward to reigniting the festival in the future when it can run parallel to the online platform.

Rhonda Wilson extends her thanks and gratitude, firstly to her team and temporary board. She also sends out thanks to Arts Council England and of course to the many supporters and friends that have helped Rhubarb-Rhubarb over the course of its inspiring journey.

All the best to Rhonda, Lorna and the rest of the Rhubarb-Rhubarb team.

The Hubb is another one of those places in Birmingham that I wish I could get down to a bit more often than I do. There’s another interesting-looking event on this Friday that I can’t make it to.

The blurb from the press release says:

Soul City Arts welcomes acclaimed author, Na’ima B. Robert, to the city of Birmingham for the first time. She will be launching her controversial new novel about Zimbabwe’s land reform programme, ‘Far From Home’, exclusively at The Hubb.

In addition to discussing some of the original ideas behind her new book, Nai’ma B. Robert will be speaking about her inspiration as a writer and her journey to becoming a published author at Birmingham’s exciting Hubb Arts centre in Sparkbrook, Birmingham.

Jan Bowman’s book, This is Birmingham, has been given the animation promo treatment by Graham D Lock, an animation graduate from Wolverhampton. Very nice it is too:

More Hippodrome-backed craziness in the streets of Birmingham this year, from 9 July to 13 August.

Giant lobsters, a scary ice cream van and a man with a big red balloon over his head. There’ll be some extra stuff on Fridays this year too. Splendid. I’ve also just learnt that the area outside the Hippodrome is called the ‘Hippodrome Piazza’. Now there’s fancy.

Link: Six Summer Saturdays

Yesterday afternoon I asked Twitter what I should write about next on CiB. I was given four topics and these are they (in reverse order).

Digbeth v the JQ (via @EleanorWi)

Ooh, good one – the battle of the so called ‘creative quarters’ – this could be fun. I’ve just moved from working in Digbeth to working in the Jewellery Quarter and Eleanor knows this, hence the request. FIGHT!

I shall now go on to disappoint with a bland appraisal of the two taken from my own point of view. Your experiences of the places may vary.

I’m enjoying the Jewellery Quarter. It’s nearer my house so cycling in is easier, there are useful amenities (there’s no need to get excited about cash machines around these parts) and there are some decent enough places to grab a drink after work.

The nightlife thing’s interesting. I’ve never been keen on St Paul’s Square as a place to go out but, with UAB book-ending things (with The Red Lion at one end, The Lord Cliffden at the other) and places like Vertu, The Vaults, The Drop Forge and soon The Rose Villa Tavern in between, I reckon we could start to see more people around here of a weekend. There are restaurants here too.

As for the creativity/arts/culture angle, there’s a bigger emphasis on heritage over this side of town, while a a lot of the current activity feels hidden away and goes on behind closed studio and workshop doors. Other than AE Harris (which I love) there isn’t much by way of a decent venue – there’s The Asylum and The Blue Orange Theatre but neither currently has a schedule of events that grabs me. Also, everything over this side of town seems quite managed and smoothly polished (which isn’t necessarily praise but is definitely a contrast).

Digbeth is rougher round the edges but it wears its distinctiveness quite proudly on its sleeve. It’s more performative. It feels like the art and creativity spills out of Eastside Projects, Grand Union, Vivid, Boxxed, Fazeley Studios and onto the streets. It’s a place for music and visual arts to tumble towards. If you want a night out and you like your music then Digbeth, with the Institute, Air, Space 2, The Rainbow, Irish Centre, Adam & Eve and others, can’t be beat.

Space must be cheaper there. That brings in the artist collectives, the gallery spaces and the graduates looking for their first studio space. It’s a shame a shame the developers have made such a mess of the place over the past few years though – too many decent places bulldozed leaving large swathes of cleared, fenced off land.

For a while, the Custard Factory drifted into becoming a nightclub which I’m not sure was a good idea, but maybe that was a result of trying to pack lots of activity into a fairly small area. It seems to be moving away from that again. Besides, Digbeth is sprawling away from the Custard Factory these days and that’s no bad thing.

Both sides of town suffer from a bit of a visibility problem – directing people to either from the city centre is no easy task.

So, to ramble to a conclusion – horses for courses, innit.

Comedy in Birmingham (via @RosieHighlight)

I’m going to duck this one slightly and refer back to the post I wrote a few months back about comedy in Birmingham. Although I’ve asked Ian and he’s reminded me about the Fat Penguin, Cheeky Monkey and Laughing Cows nights in Kings Heath/Moseley that are often overlooked. I’m not sure I mentioned The Drum as another venue for that sort of thing either.

The upshot of that previous conversation was that there’s a reasonable amount of stuff going on although we’re not quite world-beaters, there could be more and it could do with being more visible. Couldn’t that apply to pretty much anything we do here?

Burning Ham (via @LouisHudson)

Louis is presumably referring to EXYZT’s contribution to this year’s Fierce Festival. I wasn’t around Birmingham when most of the events were going on down there and this round-up made me a bit regretful of that. It’s good to see that they’ll be back to work on a new site for the next festival.

Bunnies (via @Ravonski)

With the whole arts funding situation having settled down somewhat and no more cuts looming in the immediate future, I haven’t had much cause to lighten a gloomy post by finishing with a picture of a bunny.

That said, I expect there’s still bad news to come as the effect of the earlier cuts comes to be felt. There’ll be a few more leaving parties, closed signs, permanently-out-of-office messages and euphemistic talk of ‘transitioning’.

So on that downbeat note, cue bunnies:

(Photo by captainsubtle)

Yesterday there was a vintage fair in the Jewellery Quarter. Charles J Davis tool some photos. The Flickr set’s here.

Mid*Point, the network for theatre makers in the West Midlands, has a new website for West Midlands theatre-related goings on.

If you’re into that kind of thing then you might want to think about bookmarking or subscribing to that one.

As I type this very sentence people are formulating answers to the question ‘What more can we do to create a better future for theatre in the West Midlands?’ at day two of the West Midlands Theatre Open Space event. Am hoping some notes will appear from this somewhere.

Photo by Graeme Braidwood, cropped by Stan’s Cafe.

• Birmingham’s flagship garden show to be held in derelict bank
  Sounds pretty cool to me.
• Project Platform Review – Bright Space- Eventbrite
  Project Platform was an interesting thing and here’s an invite to a follow-up discussion. Given some challenging circumstances, ‘how can we build on our successes and improve the relationship between youth and culture in Birmingham’?
• Birmingham City Council insists on £2,000 tea at three-hour meeting
  In April, the Local Government Chronicle did a list of ‘the 50 most influential people in local government’. People asked why there was nobody from Birmingham City Council. Here’s your answer.
• Sarah Ray illustration: Art markets this weekend
  Moseley market and Harborne carnival are both on this weekend. Sarah will be at both
• Dirty Bristow Issue Two: Beast | Dirty Bristow
  “80 pages packed with essays, stories, opinion pieces and artwork on the theme of ‘Beast’”
• Piccadilly Arcade – Part II « Birmingham Conservation Trust
  A look at the ceiling of Piccadilly Arcade
• Birmingham Royal Ballet – Carmina burana rehearsals on Vimeo
  “Céline Gittens and Tyrone Singleton in early studio rehearsals for David Bintley’s ballet, Carmina Burana”
• Fierce Festival Caravan of Artists 2011 – 12 | Fierce Festival
  “These are the artists that will form the core of the festival in Spring 2012. Over a nine month period they will develop their ideas with us, through city walks, discussion and residencies in Birmingham. We will share the process and development of these works over the year, online, through ad-hoc events, words and pictures. We invite you to follow and share that journey.” With pics and vids and everything
• People’s Festival « Active Arts
  “The Castle Vale Active Arts People’s Festival brings together performances, workshops and activities across the area.” 29 June to 9 July
• Museum Network Warwickshire
  “News, useful resources, events, training, joint projects, support and issues will all be here”
• IdeasTap Student Ambassador x 4
  One wanted for Birmingham City University. Could be a good thing to be involved in
• Urban Breakfast
  “Birmingham’s Premium Weekend Breakfast Delivery Service”. Granted, it’s not yer usual CiB thing but it’s a compelling service all the same

This evening I’m at Fazeley Studios for the BOA Digital Partners Forum event, hosted by Birmingham Ormiston Academy (which is due to open later in September).

There’s information about the event here although the highlight of the evening will be:

a panel debate with some high-profile industry figures including; Chris Deering, former President of Sony Entertainment Europe, Kim Blake, Education Liason Manager of Blitz Games, Leigh Thomas, CEO of First Light and Mike Nutley, former Editor and Chief of New Media Age. The topic will be Nurturing the Digital Talent of the Future.

If you’re quick you might still be able to register here. Otherwise I’ll be liveblogging from 6pm and you can follow along with that here:

Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum will be hosting a silent auction of over thirty artworks from the 6 – 24 June 2011 for The Event’s third bi-annual visual art festival due to be held in Birmingham this Autumn. The bidding will close on the 24 June 2011 in Digbeth’s Bond Company, where the works will be available for viewing and final bids may be placed between 7 – 9pm.

Here’s a random smattering of what’s up for auction but you can see the whole lot here:

Victoria Jenkins

Sally Payen from a ‘series of case studies’

Juneau Projects – Emotional Modernism

Viv Sole – Barchan

Just look at that! That’s the Hippodrome 30 years ago that is.

Seriously, I mean you’d think that rebuilding a stage might involve swapping out a few planks, maybe putting in some new struts, checking the hydraulics and giving the whole thing a new coat paint. Or something. Apparently not. Apparently diggers are involved.

I found this at the bottom of this page on the Hippodrome’s current stage appeal. They’re looking to rebuild the stage next year. I think I now understand why it’ll cost £1,137,000.

I can’t find a photo credit for this one – if I’m doing someone a disservice then let me know.

UPDATE: Thanks to Judy Cartwright for pointing out that the photo is by John Whybrow.

Nick’s doing a thing to highlight community culture in Birmingham. Have a read of his post here and here’s the bit that explains how you can get involved:

I’ll be doing one of my favourite things – chuntering my way through the wonders of Birmingham, asking for 800 words or so and lovely pics. No one’s getting paid for this, but I hope you’ll join in.

Who should I talk to – where is the new community culture in this city and who are the militant optimists?

So, who should he talk to?

Continuing the theme of writing about some of the stuff I get out and about to, last night I followed the robots down to AE Harris for the Fierce Start Party.

The idea with these things is to introduce next year’s artists to Birmingham and vice versa. There are a few Fierce stalwarts and returning names in the 2011-2012 caravan but plenty of new faces too. Because I’m too lazy to type them all out and too impatient to wait for them to appear online, here’s the list of names:

I arrived in time to have a bit of a natter with some people, watch some archery (BE Festival‘s Miguel winning the competition there) and see a balloon-festooned woman dosed up on sleeping pills who had quite literally danced until she’d dropped. The usual kind of Fierce thing then.

I should probably have got down a bit earlier to catch some more stuff but that’s the problem with these ’4pm til late’ things – it’s hard to tell when to turn up to catch the action. Still, there was plenty on display around the venue. I particularly liked the look of what Ron Athey will be cooking up – something to do with automatic writing.

In conclusion: Excellent and I’m looking forward to seeing how some of the embryonic ideas presented will turn out in 9 months time.

• BBC iPlayer – Front Row: Home of Metal and some other stuff
  The interesting bit starts at 6mins 30s. The exhibition opens tomorrow
• The 405 – Speech Fewapy // Label Profile
  Decent piece about the label
• The National Lottery Awards – Best Arts Project – mac Birmingham
  Click the link and hit the ‘Vote Now’ button. It only takes a second, so I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t
• Events Gallery » The Square Shopping Centre
  The Square is the shopping centre near Dale End with Argos and The Oasis and all that caper. They have a programme of events too