Shooters in the Pub (Birmingham)
Timely this, seeing as how Film Forum WM seems to have gone a little quiet. “‘Shooters in the Pub’ is a new casual, but productive networking night for Shooting People members”. First one will be from 6-9pm on 4 Jan.
It’s Just Noise
“It’s Just Noise were originally a collective of writers and promoters from various locations around the UK… Originally putting shows on across the country, our efforts are now primarily focused in Birmingham, supporting local and touring artists”
MAKE YOUR CITY
“The purpose of this blog is to highlight creative activity, music and other interesting stuff happening in and near Birmingham, UK. And To let the people of this city know about what they have infront of them rather than keep it quiet and exclusive”. Been quiet since Sept 09, will hopefully make a comeback
Heat And Light
“Gigs, events, art, exhibitions and creative activity from a DIY collective based in Birmingham, U.K”
The picture above is Boundary II by Barbara Walker. Looking at it on screen really doesn’t do it justice though and I wholeheartedly recommend you go along to Birmingham Seen at BMAG to see it nice and big.
It’s a great exhibition with a fair few highlights – the early photography of the city is absorbing, the Derek Fairbrother timelapse is morbidly fascinating with few sticking around to watch it a second time and the 1940′s (?) plans for the city’s civic area were .
I also loved the paintings by Paul Hill, a long-time Castle Vale resident. Unfortunately it’s tricky finding any decent examples of his work online. I also liked Michelle Lord‘s work, including this titled Ultimate City #1:
So yes, get along and see it if you can. It’s at the Gas Hall until 3 Jan.
Whatever it is about your journey, if you can tell it in six words we want to hear it.
Stories will be featured in an exhibition called ‘Home by Six’ which will take place at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in the Community Gallery from 21 November 2009 to 7th February 2010. The Community Gallery is an exciting new space dedicated to exhibitions created in collaboration with communities.
There’s a few ways to get involved in this one:
Text ‘homebysix’ plus your story, name and town to 60300 (calls charged at your operator’s standard network rate)
Another Birmingham institution makes it into double figures this month – Brilliantly Birmingham, the international contemporary jewellery festival, is celebrating its first decade from 21 November to 28 February.
FLUX, the annual selling show which attracts international entries from new and emerging designers, and
A 10th Anniversary Retrospective featuring the work of seven designers whose work has headlined previous festivals (including Mikaela Lyons, a recent MA graduate from BCU’s School of Jewellery)
The programme will also include:
Paradigma, an international exchange between Birmingham School of Jewellery (BCU) and the Escola Massana, Barcelona
A series of professional development seminars sponsored by Business Link and the Assay Office, which is also running a special open day for the public
‘Walks in the Quarter’ and Open Workshops
Exhibitions by individual designer makers such as James Newman and Sara Preisler and a collaboration with Birmingham City University’s New Generation Arts 2010
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.
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!
With all this rubbish weather hanging around over the last few weeks it has been too tempting to hide indoors on a Sunday and stay warm.
Here is a few exhibitions on around the West Mids, are free to the public and are open on a Sunday. Go on! Put on your favourite woolly jumper, brave the cold, and go get some culture.
Armando Andrade Tudela
A new series of films reflects upon a modular construction designed by French architect Jean Pierre Maneval in 1963.
4 February – 29 March 2009 Ikon Gallery
Open: Sunday 11am-6pm
In Touch
In this new interactive gallery visitors can engage in and experience a variety of works through touch, sound and light.
01 Jan 2008 – 01 Jan 2012 Birmingham Museum
Open: Sunday 12.30pm – 5pm
Fresh Out of the Box
Exhibiting artists include: Artists Anonymous, Sarah Lucas, Marc Quinn and Gavin Turk.
I wanted this to be a longer list but not that many galleries are open on a Sunday, especially the more independant contemporary ones, which seems odd. Can anyone shed some light on why this is?
Vote again for CiB – last few days
Thanks to some fantastic support CiB has a slim lead in the voting. Polls close on Tuesday 13th at 10pm. Please vote daily (and encourage others) until then
Screen WM – Birmingham filmmaker shortlisted for the Auteur Award
“Birmingham filmmaker Steven Rainbow’s short film ‘A Small Silent Film About Death’ has been selected for screening at the 6th London Short Film Festival (9th – 18th January 2009) and been shortlisted for the Auteur Award”
D’log – Henry Reed
D’log has found “a huge website in memory of Birmingham poet and dramatist Henry Reed”
CMYKern » Clusta
James has a peek at some new bits and pieces from Clusta
Capsule Blog » Home Of Metal at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
The next Home Of Metal open day will be at Waterhall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday 7th of Feb, from 11am to 4pm. It’ll be hosted by none other than Brummie of the Year, Johnny Doom
début » Local shorts – Film Club
début has a reminder that the dates for the Local Shorts Film Club in 09 are 28 Jan (theme is Art and Politics) and 29 April (Super Eclectic Mix Special)
David Rowan‘s new website has cropped up on a fair few blogs recently and with good reason. It’s real purty, with a stack of great photography on it and is dead clever to boot.
David is a photographer at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and also lectures, consults and does bits of art design and graphic design.
The website was put together by Tak! and has a soundtrack provided by Chris Herbert which is remarkable because it’s interactive (try moving the three lines about) and didn’t have me reaching for the mute button like most autostart music on websites.
D’log – Flogging Brum
“An overseas student recounts his first-time experience of visiting Birmingham”. There’s a 2nd post too. BMAG fares well, Think Tank less so.
Quiet time
BiNS provides an update on the previously mentioned ‘The Eye of the Storm’ project. “One hundred and fifty people from around Brum (including Clare Short) were interviewed to discover each’s individual attempts to “manage the stresses of modern living and find calm within the stormâ€.” The outdoor installation part will be in Birmingham next year
Exhibition Now Open! | Heard And Not Seen
The exhibition launched last week and the show runs daily (including Sundays) until the 28th of November. Looks like an interesting one this
Prime Objective Blog :: Special People Screening
Chris “shot stills for a feature film called Special People” back in March. The film is now touring and coming to the Electric Cinema on 24 Nov
CMYKern – Giveaway
James collected some stuff from Clusta, 4Talent and BIAD at Plus+ the other day
Art and public transport – commuter survey
“part of Transitions – my action research commissioned by Longhouse (www.longhouse.com.uk) that concerns the possibilities for creating and disseminating art in a public transport context” Please do it if you’ve got a sec
Script are a registered charity based in the Custard Factory and are:
dedicated to developing and promoting new dramatic writing in the West Midlands
For their new project they’re:
inviting writers to submit a short (10 minute) play in response to the “Beijing Map Games†exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Images from the exhibition will appear shortly on www.scriptonline.net. Writers are asked to select an image and write a 10 minute play in response to its themes. Five plays will be selected and performed at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, in front of the exhibition, on Saturday 22nd November 2008
The deadline for submissions is 24 October.
Additionally, Script are:
offering free 2½ hour writing workshops for writers in the Chinese community to provide an introduction to playwriting. The two workshops will utilize the images from the Beijing Map Games exhibition and explore the ways in which they could be interpreted dramatically
A copy of ‘Forward‘ (the council’s official publication profiling policies, initiatives and events) just plopped through my door. Let’s see what interesting event info there is and pull together some links.
Artsfest is a big sprawling beast of a festival and a difficult one to wrangle from a listings perspective. A few people have chipped in with their take on how things could/should be presented but for me, while all of them help in some way, none of them really hit the nail on the head. Still here are they:
I’m pretty sure that the small team running Artsfest wouldn’t have the budget or reach to put something like the above together, so it’s great to see the local community take it upon themselves.
In case it’s of any use to anyone, here’s what I’m planning to do. Or at least what I think looks interesting.
Friday evening
Friday’s fun takes place against the backdrop of Light Night, of course.
Stan’s Cafe are opening the doors of AE Harris Factory (110 Northwood Street, B3 1SZ) for Of All The People In All The World (6.30-9pm)
From 7pm (not sure until when) there are two interesting things happening at the Council House. Definitely worth seeing are Willard Wigan’s astounding micro sculptures. Sonia Bhamra will be Painting With Light in another room which might be worth a look if you’re there
Gallery 10 at BM&AG has Comfortism who, I think, mixes up poetry, theatre and stand-up with the odd bit of audience participation. Could be interesting
At 8pm there’s a parade from the Pavillions to Centenary Square
The Town Hall present Late Night Light Night and they’ll be open from 8pm for perfomances by Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble, Manga and Maylight (who I’m looking forward to seeing)
Saturday
Saturday’s the tricky one. There’s loads happening so the best thing might just be to go for a wander around the city centre and see what you stumble across. That said…
From 3.30pm to 4.30pm there’s Raw Magic which is “a visual installation and promenade performance built into a maze of tents, for audiences to explore and choose which direction they would like to take”. Some of the people here were involved in the very popular B1 Labyrinths from this year’s Fierce Festival
From 8pm to 10pm BRB, CBSO and Birmingham Opera Company share the Centenary Square stage for one of the weekend’s big items. Plus there’ll be fireworks.
After that it’s Project X Presents for me. It’s not Artsfest-related but it does look pretty exciting, so that’s where I’ll be.
Sunday
If I’m functioning at 12pm then I’ll want some ‘beautiful heartwarming acoustic/electronica music’. At the Custard Factory, Elliot Jack will be playingjust that.
After that I might wander into the Custard Factory Theatre for some short flicks courtesy of Shortcuts
D’Log has spotted that the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery have been given some money by the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation Improvement Fund to develop new audiences. From the BBC:
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will spend its £300,000 grant on a new gallery telling the story of the city from medieval times to the present.
ArtsFest – Short Cuts submissions to be in by 30 May
As blogged previously but I’ve just been told the submission date is 30 May. Contact Kate Sullivan (kate.sullivan[at]birmingham.gov.uk) at ArtsFest for details/submission forms.
Rhubarb Rhubarb
News of “what is now known as Europe’s premiere review of the image, bringing to Birmingham 60 of the worlds most renowned international gallerists, curators, agents, photo publishers and picture editors”.
Flip 08 – animation festival calls for entries
Flip will run over 3 days between 6 – 8 November 2008 at Light House and other venues across Wolverhampton and Birmingham. The closing date for festival submissions is 8 August 2008.
D’log – Mysterious monsters
D’log ties in the ‘Mysterious Monsters’ exhibition at the Barber Institute (free, 22 May – 14 Sept) with BMAG’s ‘Myths and Monsters: Unravelling the Truth’ show (£4, 24 May to 31 August).
O2 Undiscovered workshops at Academy 2, 24 May
Late notice but maybe worth a look if you’re an aspiring musician or if you’ve ever had a thing for Dave Stewart (I haven’t, I hasten to add).
