Green Coffee is a “physical forum” for exploration of techniques and ideas set or led by workshop participants. It is hosted by Louise Katerega, Foot in Hand’s Creative Director, and DanceXchange.
These quarterly, FREE workshops for experienced disabled and non-disabled dancers will take place in DanceXchange’s studios from 1pm – 5pm on the following dates:
• Sunday 29 November 2009
• Sunday 7 February 2010
• Sunday 16 May 2010
• Sunday 12 September 2010
To book your place, please call Louise on 07971 441 749. For more information and to read The Green Coffee Manifesto check here.
Flip is an eclectic mix of all things animation. Based in the heart of the Midlands the festival provides a wide range of experiences from educational workshops for young people to experimental animation for grown ups; from industry led panels to feature film screenings and from international showcases and retrospectives of short films to spotlights on animation studios.
Flip is on from the 5th-7th November, with the whole programme available to peep online here including details of the Flip Animation challenge…
This year the festival has become a bit more hands on giving people the opportunity to write scripts and make films. Here’s the challenge: on the 5th November, Flip will host a one day scriptwriting for animation workshop leading each participant to produce a 60 second script. These scripts will be posted to the Vimeo group at the end of the day and passed onto animators in residence at the festival. You will have a day and a bit to turn a script into a film, the deadline for posting your films on Vimeo will be 12noon, 7 November. They will then be screened later that afternoon.
Naz Koser is the Artistic Director of Ulfah Arts based in Birmingham. She has kindly written this post for Best Believe giving an insight into her recent month long trip to the states on a programme for arts workers entitled ‘Promoting tolerance through Arts in the USA’.
Very few journeys in a person’s life leave an ever-lasting mark on one’s memory. I’ve just been on one and even though I enjoy coming back home after long travels, the emotions are much more mixed this time. My name is Naz Koser and I’m the Founding Director of Ulfah Arts a social enterprise based in Birmingham but working internationally developing artists and arts practices by engaging communities that don’t engage with the arts.
The journey in question is my recent trip to the Unites states of America as a part of an international programme – Promoting Tolerance Through Arts organized by United States department of State.
This three week program included meeting leaders of major art institutions, community arts organisation, museums and independent artists in Washington, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Texas and Los Angeles Starting in Washington on the East coast and finishing in Los Angeles on the West Coast, my journey lasted almost a month but felt like a lifetime of learning.
I was part of a 20 member strong contingent made up of other arts professionals , each representing a different country . There is no arts council in USA and no public funding so all arts organisations’ have to find other ways of existing and doing their work. There was one good practice/excellence I saw in each city however majority of the time I ended up sharing my work based in Birmingham and received recognition for the contribution I am making. New York based City of Peace project developed a youth theatre production with young kids from foster care, giving an insight as to why some children end up in care. It was one of the best youth productions I have seen, with a quality and humorous script, and having seen a Broadway show the day before I recognised some of the formula used and the potential of this work. This stirred the ongoing debate in mind around how to close the gap between community/professional arts.
I’m convinced there are ways in which both the need for quality of art achieved through arts for arts sake and social change using arts as a tool can combine to have really powerful impacts on the various levels and audiences. This is one of the driving forces behind my work in bringing different groups of people, perspectives together. Just thinking about this makes me so excited and almost being in the USA made it feel so easy and achievable. Having come back to Birmingham I’ve realized that power and influence are also things needed to really help arts make an impact. It requires a degree of working outside of my comfort zone in building a profile and associating myself with people who have power and influence who may not necessary know about the power of the arts. It’s a conflict because I personally want my work to speak for itself rather than me talking about what I’m going to do. I do it and it speaks.
For the first time I’m thinking about place and whether there is a place that is more conducive for people like me. Where a city supports great ideas without compromising the artist, a place where exploration is appreciated and valued as even in the arts their are conventions and conforms that restricts creativity and it becomes exclusive. The LA Gallery walk is one of my favorite memories. Artists are invited to showcase their work in empty shop windows, other unusual spaces as well as restaurants and shops, everything from performances to visual artists in the process of making work. The atmosphere was inspiring and as an artist contagious! It really felt like a city encouraging ideas and creativity. There were thousands of audiences walking around the rough streets of LA. A bit like Birmingham’s arts fest but less corporate and more rooted from an organic growth.
This Sunday…”Ink will Spill”. This is the qualifier, for the background story read here.
Eastside Projects is an artist-run space as public gallery and incubator of new ideas for the City of Birmingham and beyond.
Eastside Projects is a not-for-profit organisation, working in partnership with Birmingham City University and STATE Enterprises, revenue funded by Arts Council England West Midlands; it aims to commission and present experimental contemporary art practices and exhibitions and fully participate and support the cultural activity of the city both inside and out.
Eastside Projects was conceived by artist-curator Gavin Wade and is organised by a founding collective comprising Simon & Tom Bloor, Celine Condorelli, Ruth Claxton, and James Langdon.
Abstract Cabinet Show // 26 September to 8 November 2009
Part of The Birmingham Comedy Festival 2–11 October and The Event 4–8 November. Featuring Laureana Toledo & John Taylor, Mithu Sen, Support Structure, Para/Site Art Space, Heather & Ivan Morison, Magnus Quaife & David Osbaldeston, Shedhalle Zurich, Michael Takeo Magruder, Bedwyr Williams, Grizedale Arts, The Hut Project, Malgras & Naudet Contemporary Zurich, Stan’s Café, Freee, Daniel Salomon, Juneau Projects, Stone Canyon Nocturne, DJ Simpson and Clarke & McDevitt.
Featuring the Premier of a new multi screen film, sound, bass amp and newspaper publication project, CORRESPONDENCE/ CORRESPONDENCIA, made collaboratively by Mexico City based Laureana Toledo and Duran Duran Bassist John Taylor. Toledo and Taylor’s Super-8 footage of Birmingham and Mexico City (with Taylor filming Mexico and Toledo filming Birmingham) - is a “meditation on local and international constructed space and identity, the sound of cities and an inquisitive meeting of difference, coincidence and shared passions”.
Typography and lettering is an expressive part of Birmingham’s visual identity. Islamic calligraphy, neon signs, tags, mysterious handwritten signs in Mandarin stuck to dirty windows and the fallen glory of broken shop lettering – which now reads ‘Ma l ather s ores’. The aim of ‘Graphic DNA’ is to document these letterforms and to trace the changes to the city’s graphic DNA brought about by regeneration, recording the evolving lettering landscape before the opportunity is lost for ever.
Graphic DNA is a long term project which aims to delineate and profile the graphic character of Birmingham through photographing, gathering, curating, cataloguing and describing the letterforms found in the city’s urban and civic environment. The Project is led by Type with the able assistance of Alexander Barton, Hilary Lovell, Matt Murtagh, Veronika Pechova, Hannah Wood all students at the Birmingham Institue of Art & Desgn.
Why Birmingham?
Birmingham is in a state of metamorphosis, evolving from a city dominated by manufacturing to one led by the creative sector. Industrial Birmingham is being redeveloped and regenerated and a new city is emerging: letterforms that have been obscured for decades are being temporarily exposed before the developers move in, and new letterforms are being added daily. Further more, Birmingham is a hybrid city that for centuries has been home to immigrants from across the country and around the world. The history and evolution of Birmingham’s immigrant populations are relvealed in the letterforms on its streets and the marks left by the city’s multicultural society will be documented and curated by the project. The project is in part graphic rescue.
Why lettering?
Street lettering is an artistic amalgam of letterforms mixed with substrate, language, placement, and proportion. Letterforms are excellent vehicles for demonstrating how the environment, human judgement, necessity, and repetition can add visual music to the streets. This project will capture, catalogue and curate images of letterforms culled from Birmingham’s streets - both past and present – to show the city’s unique graphic character.
To read more about this project check here. If lettering and design is your bag then you may fancy a look at Helvetica a documentary film by Gary Hustwit.
Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.
Picture credit: Blacksmile from Spinwell.
