Created in Birmingham

Ikon‘s Autumn Almanac, from 17-20 November will be:

a four-day celebration of Birmingham’s creative life showcasing the city’s artists, filmmakers and musicians. Ikon’s gallery spaces will exclusively exhibit works created in Birmingham, also hosting some of our best-known music festivals and organisations in a programme of live performances

The list of people involved includes Oliver Beer, Stephen Earl Rogers (below is a painting from his What To Do In An Emergency series of paintings), 7 Inch Cinema, Moseley Folk Festival (presenting Treetop Flyers), Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Capsule and others. There’s a PDF press release with more info here.

икони на светци

• Marc Reeves: Why ‘business as usual’ is a fatal response to Birmingham’s riots
  If you only read one thing in this round-up, make it this
• ACE dancer Letty on new challenges « ACE dance and music
  A nice peek behind the scenes
• Birmingham Hippodrome Autumn Season 2011
  A few musicals (Top Hat, Evita, End of the Rainbow), some dance (plenty of BRB, Some Like It Hip Hop, Burn The Floor), opera (WNO doing Don Giovanni) and acrobatic craziness (Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China and Cirque Eloize). All to be squeezed in before the panto
• BCMG Concerts, Workshops and Events Sept 2011 – Jan 2012
  A new season brochure’s out for you to browse if you fancy
• 70-Eight.com
  Or 78. Maybe even Seventy-Eight or 7eventy Eight. The replacement for the Medicine Bar at the Custard Factory opens this weekend
• Bring Out Your Dead
  “We are working with Grand Union, an artist-led studio and exhibition space, that support the development of artists and aim to establish a dialogue between contemporary visual artists and art organisations”
• 7 Inch Cinema – Event – Adventures in freelancing
  “At this free one-day event you can explore what it takes to be a freelancer in the film and moving image industries, getting inspiration and advice from professionals in a huge range of fields – from art to animation, from gaming to graphics.”
• Heritage Lottery Fund workshop | The Moseley Exchange
  “To find out more about Heritage Lottery Fund grant schemes, top tips for filling in the application form and a chance to meet the HLF Development Team come along to a workshop at the exchange on Tuesday 4th October – 10am til 12.30″ You’ll need to register for this.
• Birmingham Ballroom Wall Of Fame Open Day – Saturday 3rd September
  “Following the unrest not only in the second city but throughout the UK, we were very sad to announce that the original date for the Open Day had to be re-scheduled, however we’re very happy to inform you all that the show is now most definitely going on and we will now be opening the venue to you all on Saturday 3rd September to welcome you all back to the bosom of Dale End once more!”
• transmissions from the hub
  “A volunteer based radio venture homed in the Our Place Community Hub, Sutton Coldfield” Volunteers wanted
• News from Writing West Midlands
  Plenty of good stuff in their newsletter
• Home of Metal Black Country Weekender
  On the first week in the Sept the folksters will be in Moseley for the festival, the metalheads will be in the Black Country for this
• Programme Support Scheme Awards 2011/12 « Museum Musings
  Some museums have gone some money for doing some things

On the last Wednesday of each month, VIVID hosts The Neighbourhood Watch, an open submission film night devised and developed by The Neighbourhood

Which makes the next one Weds 29 June.

With thanks to the 7 Inch Cinema mailing list (which you should definitely sign up to – in the sidebar on the left-hand side of their site) for flagging this up.

Ian and Pip from 7 Inch Cinema/Flatpack Festival have been nominated for The Hospital Club 100 which is:

a search for the most influential people in the creative and media industries, with the emphasis on current contribution and importance, not just the size of someone’s celebrity status, profile, bank balance, titles or past reputation

I’ve no idea what the award would mean but they say it’ll make their mums proud, which is good enough reason for me. Besides, Ian and Pip are good souls who do some good work. Speaking of which, they have some events coming up.

Trawling down the other nominees, I spotted Sue Collins in the ‘Art’ category. The blurb says this about her:

She has recently just completed a her first solo museum show at IKON in Birmingham, and in response was dubbed by the Mirror as the ‘worst artist in Britain’

Which was enough to secure my vote.

I’m disappointed I missed a talk by Birmingham Opera Company‘s Graham Vick at the Barber Institute yesterday lunchtime. I need to keep a closer eye on what happens over there (and maybe, y’know, get round to visiting at some point).

Anyway, Ian from 7 Inch Cinema went along and has blogged his notes. Lots of good things there, including:

The arts in the UK are blighted with fearfulness, conservatism, reactionary ordinariness. Our job is to build a more exciting, bolder future than the past has been. There is no such thing as tradition. The earth never stops moving. Stasis is a delusion. Be open to changeability.

Meanwhile, BOC are a currently rehearsing a new mini-production of Stephen Oliver’s ‘A Man of Feeling’.

Ian from 7 Inch Cinema correctly guessed that this video might be up my street – a collection of images they’ve compiled for Birmingham Seen which opens at BMAG today and runs until 3 January 2010.

Ian also sent over a biog of Derek Fairbrother (1931-99), whose images they are. The following is an extended copy and paste job:

In the 1960s and 70s research chemist and amateur photographer, Derek Fairbrother, made over 20 photographic time-lapse sequences showing the demolition of old buildings and their replacement by new buildings and new road systems in Birmingham city centre.

The completed sequences, often running to some fifty images taken over a period of five or more years, were then connected together in a narrative sequence in the form of a strip of postcard sized prints. Fairbrother intended to use a cine camera to photograph each sequence, thereby compressing years of work into a series of short films. However this ambition was not realised in his lifetime.

After his death in 1999, his widow Gaynor gifted his prints and negatives to the photography collections at Birmingham Library.

These short films, which will be shown for the first time in the exhibition Birmingham Seen (Gas Hall, 31st October 2009 – 3rd January 2010) have finally enabled Fairbrother’s work to be seen in the way he intended.

• stitches and hos October 09
  The ‘little knitting hootenanny’ is back at the Hare & Hounds on Tues 27 October. Wool and needles provided, everyone’s welcome and they insist you don’t even have to be any good
• Snowman Colouring Competition winners
  Congratulations to the winners of The Rep’s competition
• 7 Inch Cinema » Living and listings
  The film folks’ latest round-up of good stuff happening around Birmingham/the West Mids in the next few weeks
• Birmingham Library tender reignites free pitching debate | News | Design Week
  “Birmingham City Council is the latest public-sector client to come under fire for asking for unpaid creative work in a tender”
• Fused Magazine – SXSW MUSIC MISSION DELEGATES WANTED
  “Fused Magazine along with UKTI are organising a mission to SXSW Music 2010. The visit is being organised by UK Trade & Investment and FUSED”
• Birmingham Post – News – 60th anniversary of Cluedo, a worldwide hit invented in Birmingham
  “Anthony Pratt, a clerk from Kings Heath, Birmingham, devised the game which was originally called Murder and designed for eight players”
• claire hartley
  “Hello. I’m Claire Hartley, a graphic designer and illustrator”. Claire has a new portfolio
• National Restaurant Awards 2009
  Birmingham did well in the NRA’s top 100 UK restaurants. Congrats to Simpsons (24), Purnell’s (34) and Turners (85)
• West Midlands Open 2010: Artists wanted
  “Artists can submit up to three original works, made since January 2007, in the form of 2D (any medium), 3D (sculpture or construction, but not furniture or crafts), or time-based and digital work. First Prize is £1,000, Second Prize £500 and Third Prize £250″
• Peter Watkins Photography – americana
  Peter Watkins has been taking photos around the West Midlands that evoke the idea of Americana (via http://brokenbottleboy.tumblr.com/)

7 Inch Cinema’s family-friendly Travelling Picture Show has been chugging around the region since July and will be pitching up for its gala finale at the Electric Cinema on 25 October from 6-7.30pm.

There’ll be cartoons from around the world, a pair of comedy classics with live piano accompaniment and the premiere of The Magic Box.

The Magic Box has been created by children at workshops held across the West Midlands – it’s a kind of animated Consequences.

One for the kids then, but I’m willing to bet there’ll be plenty for the grown-ups too. Grab tix from the Electric’s website.

I’m still getting up to speed on what’s happening around town but thought it’d make sense to go through some of the main sources of arts/culture/ents info out there. Next up: listings websites. There are loads of em and theoretically they should all have the same information on them. Here’s the ones I know of:

• All Brum / Art Brum / Live Brum – there’s a whole family of these sites now, all feeding into All Brum which tends to be my first port of call if I’m at a loose end. Stuffed with nice features too.
• Birmingham Alive
• Birmingham City Council
• Birmingham Gig Guide
• Birmingham Listings
• MyVillage – they’ve gone for a social network flavour but
• Scene Central – Audiences Central’s offering with a West Mids-wide scope
• Skiddle – as you might expect from Skiddle there’s a greater number of club nights than on many other sites but there’s a fair amount of other stuff too
• Visit Birmingham – the official tourist information visitor website
• What’s On In Brum

NB – The following aren’t really listings, just good sources of info:

There’s also Russ L‘s monthly ‘Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands’ series which tends to feature theatre, gigs, the main festivals and boxing/mixed martial arts (NB – don’t try and submit stuff to him or you’ll find yourself excluded).  The 7 Inch Cinema newsletter is always stuffed with interesting local events too – sign up for that on the 7 Inch website.

Have I missed anything decent from that list? What do you tend to use?

‘Codswallop’ by The Brothers McLeod has been nominated for a BAFTA in the category of Short Animation, pitching them against Aadrman’s Christmas TV big-hitter ‘Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of of Loaf and Death’.

The short had it’s first screening at a 7 Inch Cinema event back in September. Ian gave some context to the film:

Codswallop is based on a series of postcards Greg McLeod sent to his son, and it’s similar in atmosphere to their Spamland shorts. Some nice mucking about with splitscreen and stereo sound too, so we’ll have to make sure we don’t get our left and right mixed up.

Also, Ian Ravenscroft interviewed Greg McLeod for 4Talent and they discussed Codswallop.

If you want to see the short for yourself, go along to The Victoria on 14 March for the next Animation Forum WM event, Shorts on Walls (always recommended), taking place as part of the Flatpack Festival.

Here’s the film’s trailer:

It’s a heck of an achievement, so all the best to the Brothers on the night (8 Feb).

(Via Louis from Dice Productions)

• CiB needs votes
  Drat, we’re languishing in 2nd now. Please vote (again, if you already have). If CiB has ever promoted anything of yours, please could you return the favour?
• Art Stalking: One Day Comic & Feature: Architecture
  “Works by Henrik Schrat (with guests) & Shezad Dawood form an installation at ESP that feels very different from the opening exhibition there”
• It’s behind me. Twitter pantomime, a social media experiment
  Jon Bounds rounds up and generally tries to explain what Twitpanto, the Twitter pantomime, was all about
• Laundry – an association of multi-disciplinary artists
  Members of Laundry have visited “Hania, Crete, to negotiate and plan a Creative Laboratory with the Etz Hayyim Synagogue, as part of the Intercultural Dialogue project with Borderland Foundation and New Culture Foundation”
• 7 Inch Cinema » The Way We Were
  Ian rounds up an interesting and varied 2008 when he should be writing the Flatpack brochure
• Media Talent Bank – January member of the month
  Garazi Gardner is member of the month for January and is “a freelance photographer based in Birmingham who specialises in fashion, portrait and both live and promotional music photography”
• Enduring America
  Enduring America is a blog about US politics and foreign policy straight outta Birmingham Uni. Contributors include Scott Lucas, Prof of American Studies, and PhD student Mike Dunn

Flatpack 2009 will launch at Town Hall on 11 March with ‘Curzonora’, a show featuring ‘musical whirlwind’ The Destroyers and celebrating Mr Jeffs’ legacy and that of 1900s film-shows in general. Here’s the poster:

The Mr Jeffs referred to is film showman, and patron saint of Flatpack 3, Waller Jeffs who, from 1901 to 1912:

introduced hundreds of thousands of Brummies to the delights of cinema through his annual seasons at the Curzon Hall, Suffolk Street, with light opera, military bands, live sound effects and intriguing novelty acts

Nicky from DiG has been keeping a better eye on the Flatpack website and blog than I have and reports:

The festival, taking place 11-15 March, is set to make the most of Digbeth and Eastside ‘in venues ranging from Floodgate Kino, a warehouse in Birmingham’s Eastside district which will be transformed into a picturehouse for the weekend, to art project spaces IKON Eastside, Eastside Projects, The Edge and the Electric…’ It also looks like they’ll be bringing the poor, neglected Curzon Station to life.

The Undercurrent is:

several voices from Birmingham’s Creative Community, with disciplines spanning Music to Design, Photography to Fine Art, collectively exploring the idea of an online magazine in the form of a blog…

Many authors, bringing their own fresh perspectives…

Those authors include 7 Inch Cinema, Capsule, Geoffrey Dolman, Lucy McLauchlan and Surely? At the moment it seems to be aggregating content from their existing blogs (from what I can tell – probably using WP-o-matic, blog fans). It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.

7 Inch Cinema are coming to the end of their current season and will be back in the new year (and with the Flatpack Festival in March).  Here’s their most recent newsletter with info about their final event of the year and suggestions of other things to do in the meantime.

You can sign up to get this (and I’d recommend you do) at http://www.7inch.org.uk/.

Still flushed from the finale of our Worcestershire tour, another 7inch season draws to a close this Sunday…

Sunday 30 November, from 7pm
At the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath
7INCH no.35 :: HOUSEWIVES’ CHOICE
A compendium of docs, shorts and outright propaganda from the BFI archive to round off our autumn programme, exploring the lot of the British housewife between the 20s and 50s. Ever wondered how to clean a mink stole, or make the perfect rabbit pie? Also includes music to scrub the floor to, courtesy of the ladies from Sugarfoot Stomp, and other miscellaneous shorts.
£4 on the door.
> http://www.7inch.org.uk/event/housewives-choice/
> http://www.myspace.com/thesugarfootstomp

IN OTHER NEWS

FLATPACK SUBMISSIONS
The closing date for film submissions is next Friday, 5 December.
More info at:
> http://www.flatpackfestival.org.uk/submissions
And even if you haven’t made a short, you can still submit. We’re open to programming ideas for shorts/clips/promos, providing you’re prepared to stand up and tell people why you chose it. Same deadline. Info at:
> http://www.flatpackfestival.org.uk/openseason

WORCESTERSHIRE ON FILM
On Saturday 500 people came along to our archive screenings in Pershore and Worcester. Relive the magic at:
> http://www.7inch.org.uk/project/worcestershire-on-film/tour-diary

AND SOME OTHER THINGS GOING ON
With Flatpack 3 fast approaching we vowed to kick the listings habit, but couldn’t help notice this flurry of pre-festive activity in the Midlands area:

From today at the Ikon in Brindley Place
DARCY LANGE: WORK STUDIES IN SCHOOLS
Lange was a New Zealand artist who spent some time in the 70s filming three Birmingham schools in Lea Bank, Edgbaston and Ladywood, and then using these videos to spark discussion.
> http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk

Thursday 27 November at Bar Academy in Birmingham
JEFFREY LEWIS
With support from KateGoes and others.
> http://www.thejeffreylewissite.com/

Til 27 November at the Electric in Birmingham
SPECIAL PEOPLE (dir: Justin Edgar)
Sutton Coldfield auteur’s second feature, based on the short we screened at Flatpack a couple of years ago. Also at the Electric next week: Of Time and the City; Hunger; and Heavy Metal in
Baghdad. And Waltz with Bashir is currently on at Cineworld.
> http://www.theelectric.co.uk

Til 28 November at Mailbox, level 3, in Birmingham
HEARD BUT NOT SEEN
Last days of an exhibition by Sandra Hall and Mitra Memarzia, exploring faith and spirituality.
> http://www.heardandnotseen.com

From 5 December at New Art Gallery in Walsall
OUTSIDERS
New show put together by the Lazarides Gallery, including street art type stuff by Blu, Zevs, Conor Harrington, Lucy McLachlan etc.
> http://www.artatwalsall.org.uk

Friday 5 December at Eastside Projects in Digbeth
HENRIK SCHRAT & SHEZAD DAWOOD
Opening for double solo show.
> http://www.eastsideprojects.org/

Friday 5 December at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath
CURATES EGG
Spiffy lineup for the year’s final C.E., with Damo Suzuki in cahoots with Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), Charles Hayward, Pram and Courtesy Group. With visuals from Filmficciones. £10 tickets from Swordfish, Jibbering, Polar Bear.
> http://www.myspace.com/thecuratesegg

Saturday 6 December, 11am at Birmingham Town Hall
TWEEDELEEDEDEEDEE, SIR RU BARB & THE GREEN WOLF
Family show by Paul Murphy and Frank Moon, featuring the Destroyers.
> http://www.thsh.co.uk

Sat 6 December at Bath Place in Leamington
THE SHAPES
Short-lived but fondly-remembered Leam punk band return to the scene of their crimes for a reunion gig.
> http://www.myspace.com/brianhelicopter

Sat 6 December at the Edge in Cheapside, Digbeth
OUTER SIGHT
Latest psychedelic psynema pshindig, featuring theremins and German robots.
> http://tinyurl.com/6bwadj

12-14 / 19-21 December at Warwick Arts Centre near Coventry
TREVOR GOOSE AND HIS DARK NIGHT OF LIGHTS
Alt-panto from Talking Birds.
> http://www.talkingbirds.co.uk/

Friday 19 December at Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath
SUGARFOOT STOMP XMAS SPECIAL
> http://www.myspace.com/thesugarfootstomp

• november listings « Ian’s 7inch blog
  Ian’s invaluable guide to the month’s film happenings might be taking a bit of a break with the Flatpack Festival demanding attention, so get it while you can
• Time for Birmingham to support the independent arts
  Fierce Earth’s Helga Henry asks – “creating a civic arts hub – a suitably bold and progressive move in these stormy economic times?”
• SelfCtrl
  Stef Grindley is “a designer and creative based in Birmingham in the UK. I work as Senior Designer at Made Media and I am a member of the Outcrowd Collective”
• Lost in S.P.A.C.E video
  “a short film showcasing the art on display during the Lost In S.P.A.C.E. group show from artists based at the Custard Factory that ran in the Gallery at the end of October”
• Black Velvet 58
  For the amount of effort the Black Velvet folk put in they probably deserve a bigger profile. Or at least a better online one. You can only buy this at Dale News, along from the Academy btw