Nicky over on Digbeth is Good has picked up on some Digbeth-themed animations by some BCU students.
This is Voices of Digbeth by a few people who have modestly decided not to put their full names to it:
And this is Wasted Digbeth by Keanu Jones (I liked his Attack of the Dinozilla too):
We Grow Cherries is:
a talent pool of graduates from the BA (Hons) Visual Communication course at BIAD, BCU. Our Visual Communication graduates span Graphic Communication, Illustration, Photography and Moving Image
Over at CMYKern James has been picking out his highlights.
Tomorrow afternoon at Zellig (the new Custard Factory bit – that name’s still not sitting right with me) there’s an event for creative freelancers called Know Your Place. Those who are well tuned in to this sort of thing will know that a similar thing ran at Fazeley Studios a few months back (I even spoke at it). It seemed to go well and is now back by dope demand. It’s free but I’m not sure whether there are places left, so be quick.
Speakers include Andy Hartwell (Substrakt), Helga Henry (Fierce Earth), Eryka Isaak, Julia Higginbottom (Aquila TV) and Alexa Torlo (BCU).
There’s a little more besides so head for the website and the Facebook event for details.
Its coming to that time of year again, where students everywhere are violently thrashing canvases, filming anything that moves and putting final touches to conceptual installations. Art degree show season is upon us; a great time to go out and see some really refreshing work by the UK’s best and brightest, as well as sample some of the cheapest wine available to man, of course.
Degree shows are a great place to invest a relatively small amount of money into the art world, support upcoming artists and to pick up something you’ll enjoy for years to come. I am hoping to take a trip to this year’s shows in galleries, Uni’s and empty shops and bag myself something nice. Over the coming weeks I will keep you informed of those all important private view dates.
Firstly, BCU’s private view at Vaad Gallery, Custard Factory.
Eleven of the hottest new talents in contemporary art emerge this spring with an ambitious debut at the Vaad Gallery. Final year students from Birmingham City University will showcase their work in what will be an eclectic display of multi-disciplinary artworks that promises to show the diversity of practices born from a broad education in the visual arts.
Private View: Monday 27 April 2009 6-8pm
Media Talent Bank is a collective of creatives, media organisations and freelancers. Through this robust online database of individuals, employers can source the hottest creative talent around through personalised profiles.
This project is funded by Digital Central and managed by Media Content Lab part of Birmingham City University with the aim of galvanising the West Midlands creative and media communities into a strong and sustainable sector
It’ll be interesting to see how this takes off. If you’re a creative type then I’d say it’s probably worth a couple of minutes of your time to fill out a profile – you never know who might be looking to give you some work.
Another site maybe worth checking is Behance. It’s not for everyone though – you have to ask to be invited – but it aims to be a (fairly prestigious) platform for the world’s leading creative professionals. There’s a few folks from Birmingham on there but of those, only Suzie Webb (website) has had a mention here before.
There seems to be a few jewellery-related things on at the moment. Brilliantly Birmingham is ongoing until 21 December (although it’s a little hard to tell what’s happening and where from the website) and now there’s a new website for BCU’s School of Jewellery.
It looks like this:
Couple of things:
A neat little item this – Tales of Creativity is a collection of video and written profiles of graduates from the various courses run from Screen Media Lab that hopes to give readers an insight into the everday reality of working in the creative industries.
There are 18 profiles from a whole host of disciplines to browse through, with examples of everyone’s work. There’s the odd advert for BCU’s MA in Media Enterprise but the profiles of people getting on and doing their creative thing in Birmingham are really quite interesting. They’ve certainly never been mentioned on CiB before so I might pull a few out on a slow news day.
Another week, another MA show with a pleasingly cheap & cheerful approach to internet promotion. This time it’s the turn of BCU’s Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Products MA Show 2008.
This year the emphasis has been on extending the conventional boundaries of jewellery and silversmithing. 48 WEEKS… LATER demonstrates a variety of approaches to the subject area, including installations, animations, laser technologies and explorations of colour and scale.
Join us on the evening Tuesday 9th September 6-8pm at the School of Jewellery, Vittoria Street, Birmingham for the opening of the exhibition where 14 students will showcase their exciting new collections. The exhibition will be on display until the 26th of September.
For further info fun there’s a MySpace page and a Facebook group.
BIAD’s MA students will be showing their work at the School of Art on Margaret Street from 29 August to 7 September. There’s a delightfully hectic website (or tumblr for those who’re fussed) featuring many examples of the work that’ll (presumably) be on show. To see that just click this link – Margaret Street MA Show 2008.
Meanwhile, this excellently succinct description/call to arms for the launch party:
PLEASE come to the annual Margaret Street MA show (Fine Art etc) Private View. Free Booze.
appears on the Facebook event. The private view is on Friday 29 August from 6-9pm. There’s also this ‘tacky retro animation’ (the MA Publicity peeps’ words, not mine):
Additionally, Creative Republic have arranged to jump on the RSA Fellows‘ trip to the show on Tuesday 2 September at 5.30pm which will include a welcome talk from Prof John Butler, a tour of the building and a look around the exhibition. Have a look on the Creative Republic website for more info.
This weekend a few events are being staged around the city by BCU students doing MA’s in Event Management.
First in my inbox was news of The Fresh Air Kite Workshop on Sat 21 June in Victoria Square:
The workshop will aim to teach children how to put together their very own ‘almost guaranteed to fly’ kite kit, and let them personalise their designs with their favourite colours and patterns
Which sounds fun. All proceeds will go to the British Heart Foundation.
The other event is called Streets Alive and is being run in conjunction with the Custard Factory’s Sunday Flea Market.
We will be exhibiting a number of street entertainers and performers including juggling, dancing, diablo, music and lots of others. The event will be free and there will be a number of taster sessions on different street performances which will cost from £1.
All proceeds from that one will go to the Acorns Trust.
