Made in Sutton is an arts forum created in Sutton Coldfield. Others have been created across Birmingham (see info on the Birmingham City Council arts pages for the others).
Their first meeting is on Saturday (26 November) and they say:
All local arts organisations are welcome to participate, so whether you run an amateur dramatics society or provide dance classes we’d love to hear from you.
On 8 November Turning Point West Midlands will be hosting Voice Your Vision at The New Art Gallery Walsall from 10am – 4pm.
With the opportunity to discuss and debate the future of visual arts in the West Midlands, this event aims to find and prioritize ways of strengthening the visual arts in light of recent cuts to the sector.
In these challenging times it is important that we play to our strengths that those in visual arts come together as a collective voice. Artists are at the heart of Turning Point West Midlands and we hope you, along with arts organisations – studios, galleries and museums, come together to discuss and steer the way forward for the visual arts strategy within the region.
The event is free and refreshments will be served. To confirm your attendance email: jane.morrow@bcu.ac.uk
Sound it Out run a project called VOLume (VOLunteering Using Music to Engage), aimed at 16-25 year olds in Sandwell and Birmingham who are passionate about music.
The programme offers numerous voluntary opportunities, which enable a diverse group of young people to work with others and get involved in their communities. Volunteers will also be provided with specialist training, induction, support and advice throughout, plus the chance to gain an Arts Award and attend music masterclasses and workshops.
Opportunities available on the scheme include peer music advisers, apprenticeships, shadow artists, office volunteers, youth advisory board, youth consultants and event volunteers.
For more information about VOLume, contact Tim Jones at Sound It Out on 0121 772 8655
Diversity in Youth are an arts project who meet every Tuesday at 6 – 8pm at the Brasshouse Centre in Smethwick.
Dedicated to the development of young people aged between 13-19, they provide creative workshops including music, singing, dance and drama, with training given by leading professionals in each field. You can start from scratch, with no experience needed, plus it’s free to attend workshops, thanks to a nice bit of Lottery Funding.
For more information on the project and how to get involved, call Khalid on 07916716162 or visit their Facebook page for the latest updates and events.
The Drum is looking of 16-25 year olds to create Olympic and Paralympic inspired flash mobs, creating new ‘disturbances’ that share values of the games – Excellence, Respect, Friendship, Courage, Determination, Inspiration and Equality.
Volunteers will have the opportunity to gain and Arts Award, work experience in the arts industry, plus paid expenses whilst you give up as much or as little of your time as you can afford.
To join the MOB and take part in free weekly activities which are open to all, call 0121 333 2422 or email n.galbraith@the-drum.org.uk
Young Professionals on Arts Boards are now recruiting for a fresh set of 8 Midlands based business brains for 2010/11.
This programme, an extension of our Board Bank initiative, is a bold and unique programme aimed at the UK’s brightest corporate prodigies. Our goal is to detect the best up-and-coming talents that British business has to offer and place them on the boards of leading arts charities in the UK.
With full governance training, access to an experience mentor and development support, the programme is open to 18-30 year olds.
If you think this could be beneficial and you’d like to give it a shot visit the website for more information, or contact Carolyn Pugh at carolyn.pugh@artsandbusiness.org.uk or call 0121 248 1200
Birmingham City Council’s Arts and Young People Team have commissioned Hybrid to deliver a series of events and training sessions providing pathways towards your career in the arts. There are four ways that you can take part:
1. Action learning sets to share challenges and find solutions, facilitated by coaches and those with mentoring experience.
2. Visits to arts organisations, to learn more about who, what and how. Visits with confirmed dates are;
3. Panels/ Talks on varying themes, with speakers, discussion and networking opportunities. Held at Apache’s Bar, the following events are coming up;
4. Café style conversations on project development, delivery and evaluation, which will be facilitated by practitioners and arts professionals including Bright Space, Multistory and Birmingham City Council. Also held at Apache’s Bar, the following events are coming up;
The programme takes place until March 2011. To register for an event and find out more, please email karen@hybridconsulting.org.uk, or leave a message on 0121 270 6389
I linked to Switchboard a couple of weeks back in one of those round-ups. It’s billed as:
a steering group which aims to put the West Midlands at the forefront of the convergence revolution
To kick things off, they’ve put together a survey to see what sort of support people and companies in the creative sector might need.
The survey is online here and is only a quick one-pager. Fill it in by 17 September and you’ll be included in a draw to win a bottle of champagne.
For what it’s worth, I’m sitting on the steering group and, although it’s early days, I’m of the opinion that this could be a Useful Thing.
Birmingham Future bills itself as:
Birmingham’s leading membership organisation for young professionals working in the professional, financial and creative services sectors
Chris Brown is involved with them and has a question or two:
One of the things I’ve been tasked to look into is why there is a lack of creatives at these events. Is it cost, type of events or simply a lack of understanding to what Birmingham Future is. Perhaps it is the speaker or even the lack of other creatives attending
I’m guessing that there are a few people who read this who would describe themselves as working in the creative service sector (and several more who would rather be beaten with a stick than referred to as ‘a creative’). Have you got any thoughts on this?
sampad turn 20 this year and have just published their brochure with details of how they’ll be celebrating.
The Sampad Story is an exhibition that will open on 1 May at the mac and run through to 30 August. It’ll be accompanied by a book edited by Tasawar Bashir. From the blurb:
Come and find out how from humble beginnings from its home at mac, sampan has transformed an annual festival into a year round programme. From large scale productions to intimate poetry sessions and participatory activities, sampan has been instrumental in developing and showcasing a wealth of south asian arts from the UK and abroad
They’re also doing some performances as part of IDFB – Utopia, Thresh Dance Company: The Absent Lover and a Kathak Duet – showcasing Urban Jungli at The Drum and there’s the sampad Arts Mela on Sunday 25 July.
There’s loads more too, so here’s the brochure:
Spotted at last night’s creative industries debate – a document called Birmingham’s Cultural Capital (PDF) and referred to by the Hippodrome’s Stuart Griffiths as Birmingham’s arts manifesto. Apparently it was produced in October 2009 and was produced by the Birmingham Arts Partnership.
The BAP (who are presumably distinct from the Birmingham Cultural Partnership) includes:
Birmingham Hippodrome, Symphony Hall/Town Hall, The Drum, The Rep, Ikon, Fierce, mac, Birmingham Royal Ballet, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Opera Company, sampad and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Their aims are:
There’s an explanation of how that’s going to work but it’s the standard arts measurement/engagement/excellence waffle so I’ll spare you.
Other than a statement of intent, what can BAP be credited with thus far? There are two things that I can find:
Worth a skim through if you’ve got the time and it’ll be interesting to see what comes of it all.
The Arts Council recently asked for regional submissions to win a significant pot of money under the title ‘Artists Taking the Lead’ - linking into themes of the Cultural Olympiad, and leading up to the 2012 Olympics.
The first selection process has happened, and details of the potential regional winners have been announced and can be found here. Unsurprisingly, all of the West Midlands shortlisted are designed to happen in Birmingham (with perhaps the exception of Imagineer Productions – which doesn’t specify, but has obvious Coventry connections?) and so it seemed relevant to point it out to the CiB readers and point you to the site where comments are invited on which idea excites you the most.
I have rather strong feelings on the selected few and would be curious to find out what you all think. If any particularly strike you (either positively or negatively!) then feel free to leave a quick comment below explaining why.
I’ve often wondered why museums and galleries aren’t using their web presence in more innovative and useful ways. I worked within a gallery for a number of years, and this gave me the unsurprising insight that many factors contributed to this: underpaid overworked staff, simply no capacity (in terms of time) to explore new avenues, gallery staff restricted to working within strictly defined roles with little room for experimentation, and those who do maintain the web side of things being under supported and in need of upskilling. Plus above all, there are many challenges facing gallery collections (from conservation to valuation to interpretation and beyond) that the additional pressure of creating new ways of accessing that information sits at the bottom of anyone’s agenda, particularly when it could just end up as a copyright/intellectual property/Digital Rights Management nightmare.
Finally, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery have been brave enough to tackle these issues head on with the decision to publicly release their world-class Pre-Raphaelite collection, the largest in Europe, becoming the focal point for this work. With assistance from JISC, BMAG appointed Birmingham-based digital agency TAK! after a five way pitch to design and develop a website application to achieve their goal. And the resulting site is a beautiful, delicate and sensitive piece of design. Visitors will be able to access high quality content which will enable schools, universities, and the general public to have a greater understanding of the collection in their own time, and in their own space – which in turn could encourage new visitors and raise the profile of the museum.
“TAK! have helped us create the largest online Pre-Raphaelite collection in the world” concludes Linda Suprdle, Project Manager at BMAG. “It’s a fantastic resource and provides an unparalleled level of access and quality to the works on display. Anyone with an interest in art should visit the site and discover the importance of the Pre-Raphaelites.”
I hope that this project will encourage other museums and galleries to consider making their collections accessible online. They have the opportunity to create such valuable learning resources which could cross so many diversity and access barriers, and it seems a shame that the majority of artworks only ever see the light of day if and when a curator deems them relevant enough. Using online technology, all collections could eventually be available to view regardless of current exhibition theme!
If and when that does happen, I will be interested to see how the role of ‘the curator’ responds to that change. The Pre-Raphaelite collection site already encourages users to create their own personal collections, so how far a leap would it be for people to share those collections and reasons for their choices with other users? Imagine an itunes playlist or an amazon reading list – but for art, complete with personal interpretations, anecdotal thoughts, factual evidence and academic input. THAT would be something I could become obsessive about!
Kate Chapman & Charlotte Goodwin - Amplifying the Map
I have to admit to be SUPER excited about the impending re-opening of the mac. So ANY news, or any work linked to the opening, in turn excites me too. In addition, my personal interests are deeply rooted in events which involve an element of participation – and with that in mind, I’m particularly excited to touch upon ‘Site and Sounds’.
“Site and Sounds offers a taste of the activities planned for mac’s re-opening in 2010 including workshops, walks and the premiere of a specially composed anthem for mac. mac’s Associate Artists Stan’s Cafe and Motionhouse Dance Theatre will also be presenting work as part of the summer programme including an adventure in the dark and some in-your-face dancing.”
There’s a substantial programme of events leading up to the re-opening – details of which can be found on the macartists website, as well as information on how to book for workshop places. I was excited to see a screen-printing workshop advertised, then realised I am sadly 16 years too old to take part. Sniffle. If you DO fit into that age category however, I think it’ll be a lot of fun!
I’m also curious about the recent theme of ‘mapping’ which keeps cropping up in projects and artist’s works of late. This time, artists Kate Chapman and Charlotte Goodwin are exploring the mapping theme by inviting people who live, work or play close to mac to re-discover familiar places and explore places they have never visited before, sharing their thoughts and observations to create an audio map of the changing landscape. All of these recordings will feed into an audio map – a web of downloadable audio tracks focusing on different locations in a mile radius of Cannon Hill Park. I’m wondering if any CiB readers have experienced any other map-themed artworks/projects of late – if so, send me an email or leave a comment.
I will also be interested to see ‘Underground’, performed by four dancers from Motionhouse Dance Theatre.
“Set within a rocking tubular structure, using physical dance, poignant imagery and surprising aerial encounters, ‘Underground’, explores the reality of train travel.”
Considering the title of the performance, I imagine it would originally by inspired by the experience of underground travel as opposed to regular trains. How this will translate both to regular train travel as well as the open space of Cannon Hill Park will remain a mystery until the performance itself, which is happening Saturday 18th July at Cannon Hill Park at 11.30am, 1pm and 3pm.
Motionhouse Dance Theatre - Underground
Following a recent announcement that BBC’s drama ‘Survivors’ will relocate to the West Midlands, Screen WM has announced today that they are investing in the next series of Kudos Film and Television’s major international TV drama, Hustle.
The investment means that Hustle will relocate to Birmingham, and the city will provide a new backdrop for the drama which is broadcast across the world. This is a major coup for the city and forms part of a wider strategy by Screen WM to secure and create a more sustainable screen media sector in the West Midlands. The series will bring an estimated £1.2 million into the regional economy and will provide jobs for local crew.
The Hustle team are due to move to Birmingham and will be living in the city for the duration of the filming. In addition to financial investment, Screen WM have played a significant role in attracting the new series of Hustle to the West Midlands, working closely with Film Birmingham, providing locations and crew support. The producers were attracted to the West Midlands on the basis of the region’s diverse locations, excellent facilities and experienced crew.
Simon Crawford Collins, Joint Managing Director of Kudos said: “We are hugely excited about Hustle’s move to Birmingham. It’s a transformed city whose cool new locations have rarely been used for TV dramas and we will hope it will become a hub for Kudos’s output for many years to come.”
