Starting today we’re setting up a project @ Punch HQ called “Counter / Culture” studying those who’ve begun changing the nation from our city’s streets; radicals, chartists, abolitionists, suffragettes, artists, rockers, bhangramuffins, rastas and punks.

If this inspires you, get in touch. Consider this a manifesto

The inspiration for this is the Urban Curators from Providence, Rhodes Island. The aim of their project is to:

engage the public in the celebration of the decaying urban environment, recognizing its inherent aesthetic qualities as well as the important role that it plays within our cultural habitat

Which they do by:

literally hanging gold, gallery-style frames in derelict spaces within the city, framing objects and views that are of aesthetic or cultural value

Their full mission statement is on the very fantastic Wooster Collective blog. As Ammo said, if this inspires you, get in touch.

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Post tags: ammo talwar, counter/culture, punch records, urban curators, wooster collective

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The latest from Kate Beatty:

I shot a body of work a few years ago which looked at the decline of independent business called ‘Dying Breeds’. The other is a little personal project that I have called ‘Birmingham artists’ but it’s really about Birmingham people.

These boys Steven and Nathan are PolarBear Records, an independent shop on York Road

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To parrot the official blurb:

Screen WM’s Festival of Film gives you the chance to enjoy free screenings of sensational films that have been inspired by, produced or filmed in the West Midlands

It runs from 16-29 November at venues around the region. Here’s the main list of films, and here’s what’s playing when and where in Birmingham:

• Tormented – 16 Nov, AMC Broadway Plaza
• Almost Adult – 20 Nov, The Drum
• Faintheart – 21 Nov, AMC Broadway Plaza
• The Children – 23 Nov, Electric Cinema
• Road to Guantanemo – 25 Nov, Electric Cinema
• Confetti – 28 Nov, AMC Broadway Plaza
• Nativity – 29 Nov, AMC Broadway Plaza

The other films showing around the region are Special People, Clubbed, The Mandrake Root, 1 Day and Straightheads.

Snap up tickets here.

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Post tags: alexandra theatre, arts council, ego theatre, game central, inclusion inspires, itv fixers, loaf, musicleader west midlands, outside in, robin valk, shona mcquillan, symphony hall, ub40, youth music

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A nice project from the CBSO, Street Maestros will allow people to bid (via eBay for Charity) for various experiences with the world class orchestra.

The chance to win a conducting masterclass with the Andris Nelsons (CBSO’s Music Director) is a pretty big deal, and those who can play violin, viola, double bass or cello might fancy playing on stage with the main orchestra.

Bidding opens on 19 November. Here’s a teaser vid which raised a few smiles:

Spotted via @AnnaAmbrose

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• First Bite Festival. 12 November. AE Harris. Tickets on the door. £5 (£4 concessions).
• Taking part – The Other Way Works. Friction Theatre. Others (Update – see comment for full line-up. Thanks Katie!).
• Two of the pieces will be selected for commission by mac and Warwick Arts Centre.

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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.

There’ll be two exhibitions at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery:

• 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

More info on the Brilliantly Birmingham website.

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Well, I wasn’t at The Big Debate on Monday, so I can’t tell you what the answer was. Here’s a list of ideas that came out of the event, although if that’s anything to go by the answer was “no, we need to sort ourselves out before telling the rest of the country what to do”.

That may not be an accurate summary though.

If you want to find out for yourselves, the live stream and blog are both archived on the Birmingham Post website. I hear Charles Leadbetter was good.

Personally, I was impressed by the series of blog posts that preceded the main event:

• The Post’s own Marc Reeves wrote an excellent piece criticising the “erratic approach to creating ‘quarters’ across the city” and addressing access to finance saying “Put simply, many in the creative sector need to grow up, put on a suit, and get to know how finance works”. Well worth a read
• Fullrange’s Lee Kemp was persuasive on regional work projects being reserved for regional (in his view a very bad idea)
• Screen WM’s Jason Hall talked about how to prove the impact of creative stuff. Answer – join a network. If there isn’t one for you then start one.

Meanwhile, since the event, Paul Bradshaw has countered those who complained of too much talk and too little action. Dave Harte has done likewise while attempting to lay a few other myths to rest. Rebecca Sykes and Andrew Brightwell have put their thoughts down too.

If anyone was there it’d be good to get your thoughts on the event.

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As part of the redevelopment of Digbeth coach station, National Express are working with EC-Arts on the Digbeth Public Art Project. It’ll be launched in December and will feature three permanent commissions:

• Boundary – “In essence the boundary fence of the Coach Station will be public art in both form and function”
• Irish Quarter Visual Art – “designed by artist Dave Sherry… The visual art installation will represent the Irish Quarter and encapsulates the history and vitality of the area, creating a landmark for the Irish Quarter and the City”
• Short Film – made by a group oy young people, this “will document the public art process, community engagement, artist interviews, workshops, events and the fabrication and installation process”

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Birmingham’s People comes from the folks at Birmingham Photospace and is a continuation of the portrait project they carried out over the Artsfest weekend in September.

The website has been featuring the portraits taken, including the latest of ‘Radway’ (below) who, unless I’m mistaken, is none other than Violet Attack from the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames.

The project will be exhibited at The Drum from 7 December 2009 to 29 January 2010. You can also sign up to attend the (free) private view and artists talk on 9 December.

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It’s actually a little tricky to find out about local music around the city, I find. This is the stuff I know about, feel free to add other stuff in the comments.

News

Brum Notes is the website for the free, monthly music and lifestyle magazine (Nov issue out now, Oct one online here).

The Birmingham Post have news and reviews here and the Birmingham Mail do rock/pop news.

Fused Magazine’s site does the odd bit of music news, as does the website for sister magazine Area.

Surge Music takes a wider, Midlands-wide view of things, with articles and lists of gigs, bands and venues.

Cul-de-Sac turned out to be a false dawn for this sort of thing, but may come back one day.

@birminghamlive and @brumpunks are good sources for concert info too.

Reviews

Birmingham Live is the obvious choice here – someone from their ranks of volunteer reviewers and photographers will be at a gig in Birmingham pretty much every evening. Steve Gerrard organises this one (Lee Allen and I have also chipped in occasionally).

The Hearing Aid is a blog by someone called The Baron who goes to an impressive number of local gigs.

The Birmingham Mail do gig reviews too.

Get-togethers

The Birmingham Music Network meets monthly at the Department of Technology, Engineering and the Environment (T.E.E.) at Millennium Point. Their website has a good range of resources too.

Audio

I’m on shakier ground here – which radio shows promote local talent There’s Brumcast on Rhubarb Radio and Introducing on BBC WM. I don’t know enough about the shows on New Style Radio, Aston FM or any others.

Are there any Birmingham-based mp3 blogs worth talking about?

Anything else?

Let me know in the comments. Just to be clear, we’re not looking for bands/venues/promoters to plug themselves but if that’s you, where do you look to get featured?

Oh, and see also Birmingham listings.

(pic – The Editors by Steve Gerrard from the opening night of the new Academy)

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Kirsty Davies got in touch the other week. I asked for a little bit of information about herself and this is what she said:

After finishing a HND in jewellery and silversmithing I went on to work with a jewellery and manufacturing company within the jewellery quarter for 3 and half years. From there I went onto completing in degree in jewellery design gaining first class honours.

I have now set up a jewellery and accessory company under my name Kirsty Davies.

My aim as a designer is to create items that are inspired but not dictated to by fashion by creating beautifully different pieces.

My products are fresh, fun and exciting and as well as using precious materials, experiment with unconventional materials such as neoprene usually reserved for wetsuits.

An exciting piece I that I’m launching for spring summer is the make it, wear it, love it neoprene jewellery accessory, which is assembled by the consumer and customised as a corsage, necklace, head piece, bag accessory….the list goes on.

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This is for the Birmingham Art Zine (BAZ) launch night, 5 November at The White Swan in Digbeth, 6-9pm:

BAZ are well aware that a room full of people reading a small pink text heavy magazine – looking to see if their names are mentioned – is not really a recipe for a great night out so we’ve gone for a short opening so you can all get on down to Mark Essen’s gig at The Anchor afterwards

They’ll also be taking part in Grand Union’s artists’ publishing fair as part of The Event on 6 November 12-9pm.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff to explore on BAZ’s website, PDF’s unfortunately, so I only made it through a few. Titles like ‘Ikon sculpture tried to eat my missus‘ are pretty compelling though. The intro to ‘The Editorial‘ gives you a good flavour of the sort of thing:

It’s been another hectic year in the Birmingham ART World: the emergence of a hard-line rap and gangster culture amongst feuding art institutions; the ensuing war and bloodshed, punctuated only by games of Institutional Cricket; the rise of Northfield as the cities ‘real’ creative quarter; Berlin trying to steal our ART scene; the building of the worlds first ART themed adventure park in Ladywood; The Public being converted into the world’s largest public toilets; and the rapid spread of wild animals in Birmingham ARTISTS studios.

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So, in chronological order…

At the end of June this year, Terry Grimley revealed that a feasibility study was being undertaken into developing such a museum. The Arts Council and AWM had each chucked in £90k and the city council have apparently also contributed £200k ‘to enable Ikon to mount a programme of high-profile events in Eastside as a test bed’.

The idea for this was first mooted in 2006, around the time Ikon Eastside was first opened. Unfortunately I can’t find Terry Grimley’s article from back then.

Coun Martin Mullaney was quoted saying:

I’m keen to support this. We want it to be on a par with Tate Modern and the Guggenheim in Bilbao

and suggesting the site of the wholesale markets as the location. The Birmingham Central blog picked up on this, adding:

With the Wholesale Markets moving and a large space being created it would offer a central focal point to attract visitors to the Southside area and build on the creativity of Digbeth.

The idea was discussed by a panel at The Art of Ideas II – A New Museum for the 21st Century on 8 July, but I’ve no idea what was said. Does anyone know if there was a recording?

A few weeks later, The Guardian’s Matt Price asked ‘Does England really need another contemporary art museum?‘ He put some bones on the proposal:

From the public discussion earlier this month, it was clear that Watkins (Jonathan Watkins, director of Ikon, and the person leading the proposal) is thinking big: he wants vast spaces capable of presenting large-scale sculptures and installations, with an acquisitions policy aiming to collect the most celebrated artists currently working around the world

He also pointed out some of the rationale behind the project – that many towns:

don’t actually own much of the art they show; public collections of contemporary art around England simply aren’t as good as they should be. Arts Council England acknowledged this in a 2006 report, bluntly asserting that “regional collections in England do not represent the visual art of our time”

Providing some balance, he goes on to point out that many West Mids museums have good, specialist collections of contemporary art and that developing these might be worthwhile (not to mention cheaper). However, the conclusion to the article, and so Matt’s answer to the question, is ‘yes, it could be really good if it works’. Well, yes…

Curator and writer, Charlie Levine, chipped in with an article ‘Tricky: A new museum for Birmingham?‘. Although initially convinced by the arguments espoused at the Art of Ideas II, she sounded a few cautious notes and wondered whether it would not be better to invest in and support local, emerging artists ‘to create a successful and supportive art economy’.

Which leads us to the item that sparked this post – a news piece on the Arts Council website proclaiming that ‘Our chair welcomes plans for Birmingham contemporary art museum‘.

Arts Council chair Liz Forgan, at Ikon’s annual dinner this week, said:

It is truly ambitious. I know that it is early days, and the feasibility study is only just being developed. But Birmingham needs the visual arts to flourish in the city; it needs to realise its aspirations for the visual arts that it has already achieved in other art forms. People may say that it’s not an auspicious time to raise funds for such an ambitious project. But I say ambition is good!

We at the Arts Council support ambition and excellence and we will do our utmost to support you in this endeavour. Of course I can’t make any commitments, and I am sure you wouldn’t expect me to – not here, not tonight anyway! But I do want to say that we have supported you, we are supporting you and now we are keen to try to apply some of the innovation we have talked about tonight to find new ways of supporting you.

Although she also made some odd claims about Ikon’s existence halting the proliferation of lap dancing clubs in the city. You can download Liz Forgan’s speech here.

So where does that leave us? Well, the feasability study’s yet to be completed and there’s been very little mention of the cost of the thing so far, which must be a big issue at the moment. There seems to be a lot of intial support for the idea though, so I guess we wait and see what that report says.

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Post tags: art of ideas, arts council, awm, Birmingham contemporary art museum, charlie levine, ikon, ikon eastside, liz forgan, martin mullaney, matt price, terry grimley

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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.

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One from many sets of photos taken when Birmingham’s Flickr Group visited Newman Brothers Coffin Works. This one is from Gethin Thomas.

The situation regarding Newman Brothers is unfortunate to say the least – AWM (having bought the building) have recently pulled funding, leaving a sensible-sounding project in the lurch and the Birmingham Conservation Trust in a very sticky situation. Here’s hoping a solution is found.

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Flash wakes up to a phone call from Angel announcing that he’s being released from prison and wants the £500k he’d left with Flash for safekeeping. Short of the full amount and pushed for time, Flash is forced to strike a deal with Evil who more than lives up to his name. 1 Day follows Flash’s race against the clock as he’s pursued by a rival gang, the police, his three irate babymothers and his granny

And here’s the trailer (warning, contains gratuitous, kinda-cool overhead shot of Spaghetti Junction):

As the Light House blog says:

1 Day, which is due for national release on 6th November has caused quite some controversy with the Birmingham Post reporting that it has been criticised for “encouraging impressionable youngsters to join violent criminal gangs” and “glamorising gun crime“  and BBC have reported that at least 2 of the big Birmingham cinemas, Cineworld and Odeon  are not going to be screening it

I’ve no idea whether that controversy is real or just marketing hype. Previous CiB contributor Danny Smith has written about his concerns – he’s coming from a position of some experience and really isn’t the timorous type. Meanwhile Screen WM are carrying an interview with director Penny Woolcock and the Guardian have profiled lead actor Dylan Duffus from Handsworth.

The film’s out nationwide next week and you’ll be able to see it at Star City, AMC Broadway and a few other places.

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Post tags: 1 day, cineworld, dylan duffus, light house, odeon, penny woolcock, screen wm

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Friction Arts have been out in South Africa since the end of September on a project run by Visiting Arts called Square Mile. They’ve been working:

with local artists and Johannesburg Art Gallery to create a series of interventions examining the areas cultural, environmental and bio diversity

They’ve been blogging regularly and it’s been fascinating keeping up with what they’re up to. Plus the most recent post features bonus photos of giraffes, rhinos and elephants.

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Anyway, two folks who have recently shed some light on the situation are Pete Ashton and Clare Edwards.

Pete went along to the Arts Council yesterday to chat about the Digital Content Development (DCD) fund. In a lovely, comprehensive post he’s found out what the fund’s for, what organisations have been doing wrong in their applications to date and what Anna Douglas and Steve Manthorp (the fund’s administrators) are looking for in applications.

Pete would also like to make it clear he’s available to help organisations (RFO’s only I’m afraid) who are trying to figure out what to use the fund for.

Clare was recently asked for advice on finding funding for a creative project. She was happy to help and thought it’d be useful to put her tips in a blog post, so here are Clare’s tips for finding funding for a creative project.

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First up, Theatricalia is the work of the ever-impressive Matthew Somerville. It’s ‘a database of past and future theatre productions’ which makes it no less than IMDB for theatre.

Already it contains archives of plays and performers from the RSC, Bristol University Archive, the Royal National Theatre and Birmingham Rep (1913-1971). You can search by play, person or place and edit entries yourself to help the archive grow.

The potential for Theatricalia is a little mind-boggling.

Black Routes is a new UK wide touring network for African and Caribbean music, with Punch Records as one of the founding partners and chair.

Punch’s Ammo Talwar wrote an article in the Birmingham Post explaining the context for the project, particularly how it fits in with what’s happening in Birmingham at the moment.

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Post tags: ammo talwar, birmingham rep, black routes, matthew somerville, punch records, theatricalia

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Ooh, nice.

More info (but only a little).

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This looks ace:

The Event is a contemporary arts festival in Eastside, Birmingham to showcase the best in artist-led activity. Bringing together artists, curators and artist-led projects, visitors are encouraged to immerse themselves in challenging artworks indoors and out.

The Event will be delivered by some of the city’s key artist-led groups to explore a range of contemporary arts activity including visual arts, performance, live art, film, video, web-based, installation, intervention and sound, all demonstrating the diversity of the thriving arts community in the city.

The roll call of artists involved is fantastic; drawn largely from the committee behind the Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum (giving things a nice, artist-driven feel) with another five commissioned projects on top.

The Event runs from 4-8 November, with exhibitions open 12-5pm and events taking place daily. For more info, here’s the timetable.

(Pic – Marina de Stacpoole, ‘Child’s Play’. From The Space Between, Surrounds Our Desire, an exhibition curated by Mona Casey)

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Yet another 10th birthday to add to the pile – Jibbering, the multi-faceted music/art promoters, are heading into double figures and will be celebrating that fact at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath on 14 November.

Over the years, as they say:

we have staged over 150 concerts and parties presenting the finest music Birmingham has to offer and hosting some of the most exciting live bands from further afield

Details of the night (who’s playing, etc) are on Jibbering’s website and the Hare & Hounds‘ one too.

So big congrats to them. I’ll try and grab them for an interview at some point – if you’ve got any questions for them then please throw them in the comments below.

Tickets are £10/9 and available from the Ticketsellers.

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I picked up a flyer for Moda Jewellery the other day – they’ve got a jewellery sale going on at the Bond Cafe in Digbeth tomorrow (Thursday 29 October) from 10am to 2pm.

According to their blog, they were profiled in the Birmingham Mail a couple of months ago, where it was revealed that Julie and Mike, based in Hollywood, set up the company selling jewellery at parties at people’s homes. They’ve now also moved online and into the wedding, gifts and corporate events markets.

Browsing their website, they make the non-too-idle boast that they have:

the biggest selection of beads in Birmingham

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Culture Jam, now in its third year, is a cultural event that takes place in November in Birmingham. Not only will there be a photogrpahy exhibiton and a number of live bands, there is also going to be a screening of short films from Lithuania and England. We are looking for short films that focus on the cultural revolution that has taken place in Birmingham and the West Midlands since the war. If you have a short film which you would like to sumit, then please send it to:

Sam Groves
129 Northfield Rd
Kings Norton
Birmingham
B30 1EA

Here’s the Culture Jam website, but for more information specifically about this call for films, email sam.groves@hotmail.co.uk. If you do, can you ask him to turn the music off on the website – I’m sure it’s very nice, but auto-playing music on websites is really irritating.

The short films will be shown as part of an exhibition at Moor Street Station Wine Bar on 14 November, from 3-7pm. That’ll be followed by a gig at the Volt Warehouse in Digbeth, featuring Rasa Basom, Black Diamond Bay and DJ Maxwell. Tickets for the gig here.

Thanks to Dom Breadmore for spotting this – it passed me by on Arts Jobs.

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Kindle Theatre’s ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ will be at the AE Harris Building from 29 October to 8 November. I’m not quite sure how to explain this so I’m going to do the sensible thing – quote the promo blurb, post the flyer and suggest you grab a ticket.

In the last remaining corner of the human world, three cooks are summoned to create a celebratory meal using only the carcass of their once great kitchen.

…the set will be an apocalyptic junkyard made from Birmingham’s own rubbish and installed by designers Tony Appleby and Claire Wearn. Multimedia design company filmcafe will be creating photographs and lighting inspired by the work of Caravaggio, whilst regional composer-musician Phill Ward will work with Kindle performer-musicians to create a score that reinvents the decadence of the Baroque era. The company are also working food designers Blanch & Shock, to design what promises to be an unforgettable menu

Tickets aren’t all that cheap but James at Stan’s Cafe reckons it looks like being good value for money:

At first glance the casual observer may think the tickets quite dear but there is an insane amount of stuff in the plus, live music and food plus they’ve been working manically hard for ages on it, so essentially it’s three nights out in one go and thus good value I would imagine

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