Dear Birmingham allows:

one person per day to send a letter to everyone else; a unique opportunity to share something with Birmingham.

Sign up to the mailing list and take it from there.

The all powerful Cabinet Committee has been completely reconstructed, with previously centralised powers devolved down to District Committees

You’ll have twigged from the title of this post that there’ll no longer be a Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport and Culture. Who will have responsibility for those areas and what will happen if there’s nobody pushing the arts and culture agenda at the council? Will we really notice much difference?

There’s been some Twitter-based wailing and gnashing of teeth about the lack of an elected figurehead for the arts but, to be perfectly honest, I’m struggling to muster any real interest in this. Thought I should mention it though.

Ah, the joys of a decent description on a video. Cue some copy/pasting:

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A-list stars spanning the UK’s entertainment industry are flocking to support the Tamperine Project, a quirky fundraising initiative dreamt up by Birmingham-based music charity Sound It Out.

Celebrities including Dame Judi Dench, Dame Helen Mirren, Ricky Gervais, Sir Tom Jones, Kate Moss, Robbie Coltrane and Kylie Minogue have been unleashing their creative side by “tampering” with a tambourine’s canvas, creating mini works of art that will be featured in an exhibition and online auction from 16-26 May 2012.

The Tamperine exhibition runs from 17 to 26 May 2012 at EC Arts Space, The Mailbox, Birmingham B1 1XL.

Bid online on eBay for tamperines from 16 to 26 May 2012 at http://www.worldebay.co.uk/sound_it_out

For more information about Sound It Out, visit http://www.sounditout.co.uk

For the sum of £208 (correct at the time of typing) you can stay overnight at Ozzy Osbourne’s old house.

We’ve just finished an animated trailer for the new Sega game Hell Yeah!  A completely Birmingham based project between ourselves writing, directing and art directing (and partly illustrating), Stevie Copter from Newtasty helping with the illustration and Character Shop doing the animation itself. The game isn’t released yet, but the trailer went out yesterday and its doing pretty well.

The other thing is a feature on a photographic book i’m working on over at CFYE in Amsterdam.

Here’s the trailer for the game:

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Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters,

As you may be aware, Birmingham City Council has recently launched a public consultation process on its budget plans from April 2012 onwards, and we thought it would be of interest to you as a customer and supporter of mac birmingham to hear how the city’s plans are affecting our work.

mac reopened in May 2010 after a £15.2m redevelopment and refurbishment. Birmingham City Council played a major role in the development providing £6.7m of investment and delivering the project under their Partnering Framework with Thomas Vale Construction, one of the region’s award winning construction companies. The rest of the funding came from Arts Council England (£6.2m) and from a highly successful fund-raising appeal with donations from companies, individuals and grant-making trusts (£2.3m). Over 850,000 visits were made to “new” mac in its first year after reopening.

mac’s finances are finely balanced in a mixed economy; in our second year since reopening 26% of our turnover is investment from the City Council. Since our much lauded reopening year our business confidence is established and a growing percentage of our income is earned from box-office, sponsorship and other commercial activities.

As part of its response to the government’s public spending cuts, the City Council has already substantially reduced the amount of funding it gives to all the arts organisations in the city and in April this year mac birmingham’s grant was cut by 14%, a cash reduction of £107,000 per annum.

To cope with this significant reduction in income we have driven further the plans which were developed prior to reopening, maximising efficiency, amending our programming plans and increasing our efforts to maximise all other income streams. Throughout the planning and delivery of the mac/sampad Building Project we sought to maximise future efficiency through, for example, creating a flexible staffing structure, delivering a cost-efficient building with an effective building management system, reducing our carbon footprint and our running costs, increasing recycling, using digital technology to manage our building and our communications. Our shared office space has also allowed us provide improved facilities for our partners sampad and for other artists, arts companies and community agencies who share the mac creative hub.

Whilst we fully recognise that we cannot be exempt from the public spending cuts being imposed at the moment, there are few options available for further reducing costs without severely damaging our services. Whilst we continue to look for greater efficiencies and sharing of services we do fear that any further cuts in BCC funding will lead to a serious “downward spiral” in which the inevitable reductions in artistic activity will lead to lower earned income and funding. Further investment secured from additional sources may well then be withdrawn due to our diminished capacity to deliver our agreed programme.

How you can help

Birmingham’s arts infrastructure and activities have, for so long, been a vital tool in the city’s aim to improve the quality of life for its citizens, its inward investment performance and its status as a true global city. Evidence of the hugely beneficial impact of the creative industries can be found at www.birminghamartspartnership.co.uk

City based cultural organisations contribute £271m to the region’s economy per year. This is generated from almost 2 million attendances, with arts attenders generating £40m in Additional Visitor Spend (AVS). This represents a return on investment of £29 for every £1 that Birmingham City Council spends on funding the arts.

All of the city’s arts organisations believe that we are now at the tipping point where incremental reductions in costs are no longer achievable.

If you share our concerns and would not want to see the City Council reduce its funding to the independent arts organisations any further, I would urge you to make your views known to the City Council before the end of November.

• By filling out an online survey at  www.birmingham.gov.uk/budgetviews
• By emailing to budget_views@birmingham.gov.uk
• By text message to: 07786 200 403
• By writing to Budget Views, Room B119, The Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B1 1BB

You may have received a similar plea from other arts organisations and we would urge you to respond to any one of us. Representation needs to be made before the end of November in order to be effective.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your continuing support of mac birmingham.

Anita Bhalla
Chair of mac Board of Trustees

I just came across this and don’t think I’ve linked to it from here before:

Funded by Arts Council England and jointly conceived by The New Art Gallery Walsall and mac Birmingham, British Summertime 2 is a career development programme for emerging and mid-career visual artists who come from diverse communities. More broadly, the programme aims to increasing knowledge, access, networks, artistic standards, and leadership in order to strengthen and enrich the visual arts scene.

The artists involved were Dan Auluk, Dilwara Begum, José Forrest-Tennant, Karen McLean, Mark Carroll, Pauline Bailey, Saranjit Birdi and Shaheen Ahmed.

There’s information here via New Art Gallery Walsall and there was a British Summertime 2 blog too.

Media Circus 2 – promo from Karl Binder on Vimeo.

For 2 days this June (Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th) we will be exhibiting the very latest in digital screen technology in Fazeley Studios. The 2 day event is to demonstrate the display technology available at the Media Circus. We’re then looking for work to be submitted and ideas to be created by Creative Individuals, agencies and organisations to be shown at the final 2 day exhibition in the autumn. This will be capped off with this year’s Media Circus, where the work, displays, creations and concepts will be voted for on the night and the winners suitably rewarded.

And if you want to get involved then you can do – there’s a get-together on 8 June.

SEARCH ENGINE

Starting next Monday is Grand Union‘s six-week open residency programme, which will run from 21 March – 30 April 2011. Three artist groups have been invited to work in the project space for two weeks each, starting with Manu Luksch & Mukul Patel.

MANU LUKSCH & MUKUL PATEL, Kayak Libre <<free thinking, free transport>>

Thursday 24 March, 6-9 pm: Opening
Artists’ talk at Grand Union, 6.30 pm
Screening of shorts by Manu Luksch at VIVID , 9 pm

Thursday 24 Mar – Sunday 27 March:
WATER TAXI available to book from 19 March.
For booking please contact info@grand-union.org.uk

Saturday 2 April, 12-2 pm: Final open workshop

Behna (Sisters)

This unique and intimate theatre production by Kali Theatre will be performed in the kitchens of Punjabi households across the Black Country from 22 March to 15 April.

It’s the day before a wedding, Ladies’ Sangeet Night, in a Punjabi household. The bride is having her henna done and the guests are busy eating, singing and dancing. But in the kitchen, sibling jealousy simmers alongside the samosas.  Fast-paced, funny and moving, Behna takes a look through the keyhole of a family house to reveal the secrets and lies of two generations of sisters.

For more information and to book tickets, visit The Public’s website.

One, Nineteen

One, Nineteen from local ‘Archers’ writer, Tim Stimpson, is on at The Old Joint Stock Theatre on 18 & 19 March.

19th January: Freak storms bring devastating floods to the English coast, but before the rescue effort arrives, the media are already in town spinning their story. A play about the power of the news, the strength of the government, the question of climate change, and of course, and the search for Sam, Jack and little Chloe…

After premiering in London, it was given a 4 star review from Time Out, so it’s probably worth a watch.

For more info and how to book tickets, visit The Old Joint Stock’s website.

LUNÄ Talks

Ikon and the Lunar Society present this series of evening talks revisiting themes discussed by the original 18th century Lunar Society within a contemporary context.

The next talk is happening on Wednesday 23 March, from 7 – 9pm and focuses on Education. The panel of speakers looks a bit like this:

Felicity Allen: Artist, writer, educator. Former Head of Learning, Tate Britain (2003-10). www.felicityallen.co.uk

Nancy Evans: Education Manager Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, freelance musician and trainer working in early years education

Colin Gale: Head of School of Fashion and Textiles and Course Director for MA Textiles, Fashion & Surface Design, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design

Kate Iles: PhD student, University of Birmingham; Constructing the 18th Century woman; The life and education of Sabrina Sidney

For more information on the future talks, entitled ‘Urban design and regeneration’ and ‘Medicine and science’, visit Ikon’s website.

Tickets cost £10 (£8 concessions), to book call Ikon Shop on 0121 248 0711.