Links
- 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
- Job listing for Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum: Call for Proposals (The Event)
Good to hear this is happening again, I liked the last one. “Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum is pleased to announce it is currently seeking projects from artists and curators in the UK for inclusion in The Event 2011, to take place 21 – 30 October”
- Happy Birthday to Frilly! – blog – frilly
A big happy birthday indeed to Frilly
- Experiencing Burningham’s Live Graffiti Battle: Tagged@EXYZT
“We hope Tagged@EXYZT opened new minds to street art and showed the soul and joy a community the city would rather not exist can create. For all of us involved it was an evening where Birmingham sparkled”
- Presenting the world’s biggest art prize: the £175,000 Gulbenkian
“Graham Vick and his Birmingham Opera want to turn Brecht and Weill’s political satire Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny into a multi-participant online production examining the survival of the soul in a virtual world”
- Birmingham Hippodrome: Chief exec’s 10-year journey
Interview with Stuart Griffiths
- Desert Island Life « More Canals than Venice
Jeans Retailer Promotion in Decent Line-up of Events Shock. Featuring Project Pigeon, Flatpack Festival, LOAF, Chicks Dig Jerks, Them Lot and Mr Hudson (NB – some, perhaps all, of this has happened already)
- AE Harris
The venue now has its own website
- Pickled
Based in The Oasis: “Here at Pickled, we aim to provide a hireable exhibition space for anyone in the arts. From the amateur to the professional, we want anyone with an interesting art idea or project to come along and exhibit their work”
- The Style Kaleidoscope
“A vibrant street style documentary of Birmingham, UK”
- Sounds Of The City charity CDs | We Are Birmingham
“Vicinity Records presents Sounds of The City – a showcase compilation series celebrating contemporary music from select cities around the globe”. With Birmingham represented by Vinny and the Curse, Tempting Rosie, Pick Your Weapon and Glatze. Proceeds go to charity and you can grab a copy from We Are Birmingham
- Jonny Costello – Bite Down on that Gumshield Son
“Recorded in one take on CD & vinyl, it’s a selection of tracks old and new, hard and not so hard inspired loosely by the UK and Birmingham sound of today and yesterday”
- Art & Heritage quarterly « D’log
“A new quarterly Midlands art magazine, Art & Heritage, produced for a consortium of Black Country and Wolverhampton museums and galleries”
- Colourful World of Concrete
“Concrete needn’t be grey or square or boring I’m going to attempt to show what can be done. The world can be a much brighter place even built of concrete”
- FRAME: Whats it all about?
“The Frame mission is to encourage, support and stimulate the growth of the creative industries of Photography and Graphics in Birmingham.” They’re going to have premises and everything. Sounds very good.
- Emily Warner
Just noticed this new(ish) blog from multi-disciplinary artist Emily Warner
- Place, Space & Identity
Fierce Earth are looking after the third incarnation of PSI. There are six commissions with budgets ranging from around £7,000 to £23,000 for a high impact, big beautiful project to put Stoke-on-Trent on the map
- Blink Animation
They do a lot of children’s TV animation and they’ve just moved into Birmingham from Kidderminster
- We’ll miss you Andie
I seem to recall this sign cropping up in Ian Francis’s ‘My Favourite Things’ talk at Ikon a couple of years ago. A sad loss.
- Edgelands: Between the urban and the rural | Fierce Festival
The NEC as Edgeland
- Chief Executive, Suzie Norton, leaves Screen WM
Good luck to Suzie in whatever she does next
- Creative England response – Blog – Digital Birmingham
“Birmingham City Council supported by Digital Birmingham submitted a response to the recent consultation document Creative England: A Consultation on Strategic Priorities for Film 2011/12″. And here it is
- A penguin being tickled
No, I have no idea what this has to do with Birmingham, art, culture or anything. But then who cares? Maybe I’ll turn this into one of those blogs about cute animals
- Keeping it local: regional theatre needs new media | Stage | guardian.co.uk
“The challenge for arts organisations outside London is to embrace the blogosphere, and fast. I think we need to work hard to nurture the brave souls who are often spending their free time running what’s-on sites and blogs – invite them to our shows, treat them like proper journalists, buy them lunch, encourage our suppliers to buy advertising space on their websites, link to their sites from ours and so on. If we help listings sites and blogs to grow, we’re safeguarding the future of arts criticism.”
- Sky Arts launches Ignition investment scheme
£200,000 cash investment for six chosen projects, and bursaries of £30,000 each for young, talented individuals
- GZA/Genius (of Wu-Tang Clan) | Hare and Hounds
The GZA. In a pub. In a Birmingham suburb. For a tenner. How?
- Fireworks, intrigue and change
A thoughtful piece from Friction Arts’ Sandra Hall. Turning Point West Midlands are apparently lining up some specially commissioned essays from a range of people – looking forward to the rest
- “Brum band The Toy Hearts had the following stolen last night: STOLEN GEAR – 6th April 2011 2 x…”
Ouch. Have a look at the list, see if you happen see any of this stuff anywhere
- Staffordshire Hoard
New website for the hoard. Hat tip D’log for spotting it
- Support Sound It Out (SIO)
Petition for Sound It Out’s ACE National Portfolio application to be reassessed
- Highbury Studio – Birmingham’s Top40 Artists
A list of Birmingham artists who have had a Top40 record somewhere
- Fullrange – Colman Getty
Good follow-up from Lee Kemp on the Library of Birmingham PR contract thing. Includes an interesting bit on tender documents
- The Catapult Club celebrates 10 years at Birmingham’s 02 Academy « Area Culture Guide
Impressive stuff
- Birmingham’s £25m academy
“The academy, which is adjacent to Millennium Point in central Birmingham, is being created in partnership with London’s Brit School and Maverick TV”
- We Are « Nomad Projeckt
“The Nomad Projeckt is an artistic collective which specialise in the producing audio and visual work of all kinds inspired by old and new hip-hop movements, for details of our work have a look around the site.”
- Twitter / David McAlmont: Birmingham is also confoun …
“Birmingham is also confounding one’s expectations with its hot male totty count. I’m warming to the place.”
- Turning Point West Midlands – Artists’ News & Opportunities Bulletin, 31 March 2011
Loads of stuff in this. Worth subscribing to (it’s a PDF, btw)
- Bank your thoughts: artists access to technology?
“iShed (www.ished.net) is conducting a feasibility study, supported by Arts Council England, into the potential of a web-based ‘Technology Bank’, where tech and related software can be advertised and offered on loan to creative projects in return for accreditation and shared learning”. Looks like it could be a good thing
- The Blue Orange Theatre – Birmingham
Funny – I was wondering about this place the other day. New theatre in Birmingham, due to open 13 April with ‘What The Butler Saw’ although I think there may have been a launch event last night
- Fused Magazine – Fused at SXSW 11
Fused went to SXSW and pointed a camera at bands and people dancing in the street
- American Independents Day comes to Birmingham
“Ted Hope & Christine Vachon have produced over 120 independent movies between them (including Boys Don’t Cry, 21 Grams, American Splendor & Happiness).” They’ll be at the Spotted Dog in Digbeth on 7 April
- Using Film in Education – West Midlands Seminar
At the Light House on 12 May
- Welcome to the human race — ELO-ke Night 2nd April
Dirty Bristow are putting on a night of Electric Light Orchestra Karaoke on Saturday 2 April
- Arcane Magazine
“We will bring you the latest news on Birmingham club nights, promotional drinks offers at bars, restaurant deals, music events, sporting events, dance shows, comedy nights – and so much more in between”
- Interview with Lee Kemp, Fullrange
“I could genuinely count the number of useful creative networking events i’ve been to on the fingers of one hand shortly after I’d pulled that hand out of a blender”
- Due to Birmingham’s flourishing industry and…
The Birmingham Stock Exchange building’s been sold for £8m. Cue musings about Sherlock Holmes’ story about a young stockbroker taking up a new job in the city
- Second Home Sketchbook | While the paint dries and the renders crawl…
Chris Randall at Second Home Studios has got himself one of those blogs. Could be interesting.
- Interview with Will Grant, Buto
He’s the Technology Director there.
- We are Birmingham
“as we approach the six month marker Jeff slash Dave brings the world up to date with how We are Birmingham is getting along”
- Dudley festivals axed – Audiences Central
“Dudley Performing Arts (DPA) have axed their Rock The Castle and summer festival, both of which take place at Himley Hall, Dudley and attract in the region of 5,000 people”
- No Aloha
New zine
- Oxygen Theatre Company
“Oxygen Theatre is a Birmingham-based theatre company that aims to produce provoking theatrical experiences that inspire, challenge and engage it’s audiences”
- Artsfest 2011
It’ll be on 10/11 September and applications for artists are now open
- Studio Bonito’s whiteboard
“Having moved into bigger offices at the beginning of march we have finally finished illustrating our whiteboard wall”
- Brum museums to charge admission – Audiences Central
“Charges for Aston Hall, Blakesley Hall and Soho House are set at adults £4 (concessions £3), children under 16 free, annual multi-site pass £16. Sarehole Mill has slightly lower prices of £3 for adults and £2 for concessions (“due to it being a smaller site”)”. Applicable from 1 April
- Birmingham’s Fierce festival is a gem of local legacy-building
“Fierce understands that it’s not just the party itself that matters, but the traces it leaves behind”. Lyn Gardner says so.
- Madrid Digital Research Project #1 at Sampad
Report from Lorna Hirst on a two-week placement at Medialab Prado
- Jeff Stuka: Hidden Birmingham
“Here’s a little tour I wrote for some friends once, a kind of lost heritage trail of some things I’ve found in my time here. I enjoy it and perhaps you might too”. This is very good
- We Are Birmingham team up with Bullring for a very exciting public art project | We Are Birmingham
Tom Tebby, Carl Booth, Matt Murtagh and James Thompson are doing something to cover the hoardings while the Spiceal Street development goes on
- ‘type-writing’ Symposium – good, long, comprehensive write-up of the event from Rachel Marsden, who was also one of the speakers
- Porter, E. and Barber, A. (2007) Planning the cultural quarter in Birmingham’s Eastside
From 2007 (deposited June 2010) “ In Birmingham UK, the aim to create a new cultural quarter in the industrial inner city area of Eastside represents a unique opportunity for the city to examine and learn from past lessons of the “cultural turn” in urban policy. The article examines these lessons and whether the Eastside scheme is set to repeat the mistakes of the past”
- Turning Point West Midlands | Event, 26 May
An afternoon to find out about professional development opportunities for artists, makers and curators in the West Mids
- BBC U-turn over Asian Network closure
“The BBC has reversed its decision to close the Asian Network digital radio station – but will look to cut its budget in half”
- Licence to shoot | The Sunday Times
Nice bit of profile for First Light Movies in The Sunday Times. “Wanting to give today’s youth a voice, James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli is backing young movie-makers in an inspiring project”
- Jurn crowd-funding call « D’log
“My JURN search-engine is expanding, with your help! I’d like to build on the two years of hard work I’ve already put into building JURN. I want to make a world-class dedicated search-engine for open-access content in the arts, humanities, and (if funded) the social sciences”
- April Bloomfield: the English chef taking Manhattan by storm
Similar to the article we linked to a few months back. Fascinating lady
- Orbital – Live At The Dance Factory
Live recording of Orbital at The Dance Factory, Birmingham, UK, June 5th, 1993
- Social Media Tips for Musicians
Bobbie Gardner did a talk for someone (I think it was Sound It Out) and has written up her notes
- A Birmingham Flickr Directory
A nice, healthy list of Birmingham-related Flickr groups. Started in 2006 and still being updated
- We Are Fierce – Open Invite to Flatpack & Fierce Festival Launch, Tues 22nd March
Don’t forget to RSVP
- YouTube – Motionhouse Machine Dance ‘The highlights’
A dancing digger. Cool
- Culture – Funding opportunities 2010 | EACEA
Apparently something on this page says that Birmingham Rep have been given some European cash for ‘Four Cities, Four Stories’
- Swede it! :: Become a star on the big screen at Broadway Plaza
Re-make a movie lo-fi-style for Broadway Plaza, AMC Cinema and Kerrang. Submissions in by 20 March. Proceeds from the screening go to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. There are prizes too
- Moqapi Selassie
“a Rastafari dub poet, born and raised in Birmingham”, says the Apples & Snakes newsletter
- GET A GRIP – An open call for illustrators, artists and designers
“We’re looking for enthusiastic designers, illustrators and artists of all different styles and disciplines, who like our ethics and business, and reckon they’d be up for working with us.”
- Inspired Designs
“Inspired Designs allows users to search the decorative art collections held by museums services within the Black Country region”
- 16 Days
“For 16 days from April 1st 2011, Tether will be stationed at The Lombard Method in Birmingham. The Nottingham based collective will work towards creating 16 new works that seek to interfere with the Lombard Method and the way people interact and react within it”
- Love Birmingham
“I will try my hardest not to moan about the state of things as ‘Love Birmingham’ will exist to be a wholly positive collection concerning Birmingham.” Aw, shame – criticism is so hot right now
- YouTube – Kerrang! Radio: Watville Primary School Sing Iron Maiden – Flight Of Icarus
Kids at a school in Wolverhampton singing Iron Maiden. From the comments, it seems this vid’s very popular with Brazilian metal fans. Fancy
- Commercially Inviable Records » Here Come The Light Nights
A free sampler of upcoming releases on the label
- Wanted: Critical friends
“BiNS is looking for contributors, willing to go out, and then come back, and write good criticism about what they found”. Splendid.
- Why couldn’t I quote Charlotte’s Web on stage?
Lucy Caldwell on copyright struggles encountered when writing Notes For Future Self
- Nikki Pugh’s Colony Prototype | Hide&Seek
“On Tuesday I went to Birmingham, to try out a protoype of Nikki Pugh’s developing project Colony.” From Holly at Hide & Seek
- LOCKED OUT | The Abri
“We need to keep the building, which used to be an old post office but is now privately owned, in the community. We need a dentist and a GP, the building is ready for both. We need a place where mothers, fathers, families, friends and local businesses, (who remain or will soon return), can meet, have coffee and relax with a book.” Help needed to take this social enterprise on
- City TV Broadcasting
“City TV Broadcasting Ltd has announced it will file an application to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, to acquire television licences in a minimum of five cities across the United Kingdom. It will locate its head of operations in Birmingham”
- {placekitten}
One for the web designers, courtesy of Mark James from Made. It’s “A quick and simple service for getting pictures of kittens for use as placeholders in your designs or code”
- Where we’re at… « colour
“After much reflection, we’ve decided to wind down our live activities for the foreseeable future. We’re still very much interested in collaborations with other organisations, consultancies and guest DJ sets, but we won’t be putting on any of our own shows – only if something truly unmissable comes our way”
- Complaints Choir of Birmingham
This is from a few years back, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it
- Fifty:Fifty partner announced
“The Crafts Council and Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (BMAG) will work together to deliver a major contemporary craft exhibition in autumn 2011. The exhibition called Lost in Lace”. BMAG was chosen from a shortlist of three institutions
