Bright Space recruiting youth bloggers for new arts and social media project
Bright Space is launching a new and exciting social media project entitled Platform(www.projectplatform.org.uk) for 16-19 years olds living in Birmingham. Platform will be a blog featuring articles, reviews, events listings and much more, written by young people for young people and will represent a unique perspective on arts activity in Birmingham. Bright Space is now looking to recruit 15 young people who are interested in reporting, reviewing and attending the many cultural events in and around the city. This includes theatre, dance, exhibitions, launches and gigs. Deadline for applications is Monday 19th July 2010.
Successful applicants will receive a £200 bursary and the opportunity to attend a week long intensive summer school, which will highlight the many techniques and skills they will need to become fully fledged Platformbloggers. During the week they will take part in workshops led by industry experts including; journalists, photographers, bloggers and film-makers. Subjects covered will include:
Journalism, writing, reviewing and interview techniques
Podcasting with audio and video
Photo blogging and social media tools
Events management, promotion and marketing
The Platform bloggers will then organise a live launch of the website to their peers, parents, friends and mentors. The group will meet regularly throughout the project with continued access to and mentoring from industry professionals who will support them in creating content, researching articles and building their on-line readership.
The core group will improve skills in; ICT, literacy, independent learning and critical thinking. The project will also support those wishing to pursue a career within the creative and cultural industries.
The aspiration for Platform is to amplify young people as unique, dynamic, cultural commentators that successfully communicate, inspire and engage other young people, while at the same time propose significant debate about their cultural offer. It is also hoped that Platform will become a vehicle that cultural organisations, venues and promoters connect with to ensure their programming reflects the breadth and individuality of young people in Birmingham.
How to apply:
Applicants need to write a 200 word article on a creative passion that they have
Include their name, address, date of birth and contact details
Send the completed article with all the necessary contact details to: Bright Space, Studio 222 The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Birmingham, B9 4AA
Bright Space (www.brightspace.org.uk) is committed to developing and encouraging activity that helps young people find creative progression routes in and beyond the arts. Bright Space works actively to encourage sustainable cross-sector partnerships that broaden the horizons and opportunities available to young people.
Bass Festival has come around again this year’s theme is DNA…
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) forms the building blocks of life and controls the development and functioning of all known living organisms. But what does DNA mean to us individually in the 21st century? Identity, test tubes, control, heritage, science, ID cards, family, databases, samples, genomes, protest?
The fifth BASS festival will explore how DNA varies and develops, whether caused by external forces, or by personal development, enabling us to rethink our evolving identities.
There is a full programme of events and exhibitions celebrating black culture and creativity, take a peek at the flyer and website for all the details.
Just peeped this over at Ideal Skate Supply, looks like they have secured a screening of the Vans film just out. This is a high coo by any standard. The film will be shown at the shop down at The Custard Factory on 24th April, for all the info peep here.
…Just had Kris Vile in the store and we worked out a date for a Birmingham premiere of the Vans Europe DVD. We are going to hold it in the Cinema space at 5.30pm on Saturday the 24th of April. Tickets will be on sale in the store this weekend and for a measly £2 you will get to see Chris Pfanner, Danny Wainwright, Ross McGouran, Flo Marfaing, Sam Partaix and more in the first video to come out under the Vans banner. And of course you will be able to shake Kris by the hand and congratulate him on his section which, so I have heard, is rather good.
Said with a face full of fashion-irony…” This is what you need to be looking at…”
Über Brum is Birmingham’s first and only street style blog. The aim is to find the beautiful people of Brum and document their style for all the world to see.
Pioneering typographer, sleeve designer and artist Swifty will be setting up shop at the Sauce Gallery in Birmingham’s Custard Factory from Saturday 12th December. Everything from originals and one off prints to T-shirts, skateboards and stickers will be for sale in The Swifty Pop Shop.
The Pop Shop, which is being brought to Birmingham by Sauce Gallery and Punch Records, will feature Swifty’s Newsagents installation. This life size shop front was partly inspired by Peter Blake’s ‘Toy Shop’ and the artist’s fond memories of a local village newsagent in Lancashire. The Shop will also be home to the A-Z of Swifty Show, including pieces based around everything from Action Man to Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout.
The Pop Shop is the latest branch of Swifty’s expansive career. Having studied design at Manchester Polytechnic, at the age of 21 he trained under Neville Brody at The Face magazine. His work at The Face and later led him to be recognised as one of the top new talents in the specialist world of typography.
In 1989 he joined the team at Straight No Chaser, a publication aimed at the jazz, jive and soul community. As art editor he drove the creative style that went on to embody the magazine as a whole. At the same time he established his own font company, Swifty Typograpfix, and spread himself between the magazine and producing fonts, record sleeves, club flyer designs and many other sidelines. Swifty dominated the scene, being the designer of choice for nearly every acid jazz label.
Punch Director Ammo Talwar said:
“Swifty is a design legend whose work cuts across all typography boundaries. Bringing the Pop Shop to Birmingham is a real scoop for the city, and will give visitors a rare opportunity to see many of Swifty’s personal projects first hand.”
The Pop Shop will be open to the public at the Sauce Gallery, 5 The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Digbeth from 11th December to 10th January 2009. For more information visit www.punch-records.co.uk
It would seem that Birmingham could be the Vintage Fashion capital of the Midlands with the arrival of the new (but old) ‘Vintage fair‘ which is already successfully running in Sheffield and Manchester, making my count of vintage enterprises in the city to more than 8. The vintage movement is a way for us fashion forward folks to put a middle finger up to the relentless high street brands that keep rearing their ugly heads in Birmingham City Centre - more commonly known to outsiders as ’shoppingham’. Vintage lets you embrace a unique and individual style, not to mention a more ethical approach to apparel too, as you are giving new life to the threads of yesteryear.
With Spring/Summer 2010 catwalk shows revealing 80’s silhouettes and 1940’s floral numbers, vintage fashion has wedged itself firmly within popular culture and does not seem to be showing any signs of retiring. Your body shape can determine which eras and styles suit you best. Slender boyish types look amazing in 20’s and 30’s styles, and voluptuous hourglass ladies are incredible in 50’s outfits. 40’s looks tend to emphasise the shoulders and waist, as does the 80’s but look fabulous on a range of body shapes.
At this point I would like to point my male readers over to my boy Kevin at Proppergander – a Birmingham based style blog that features many an article on men’s fashion.
So here is a round up of all the places in Birmingham that you can get yourself fully hooked up on a purely vintage tip.
Vintage Fair // The Library Theatre at Custard Factory – Starting 21st November – ‘The Vintage Fair now in our 2nd year hold exciting vintage fashion fairs in Sheffield, Manchester & soon to be Birmingham! Our vintage fairs are crammed with stalls of affordable vintage fashion from the 1920s – 1980s, reworked, handmade and eco clothing, cool jewellery , yummy cupcakes and much more from local to national designers and traders! So come and join us for some affordable shopping, a vintage tea party, offers on the bar and some vintage tunes whilst you shop’.
General Stores // Custard Factory - General Stores houses a collective shopping experience including spaces hosted by Diamond Togs, G & B Creative, Nattys Vintage, Coco Black Vintage and veteran-vintage-vendor Urban Village.
Cow // Digbeth High Street - The big yellow place – good for accessories.
Top Banana // York Road, Kings Heath- Good for man gear.
Vintage Fair // Hare & Hounds (Monthly) – ‘XMAS VINTAGE FAIR Ladies & Men’s clothes, accessories & jewellery FAB INDIVIDUAL PARTY DRESSES AT LOW PRICES UNUSUAL XMAS GIFTS FROM ONLY £1 AT THE HARE & HOUNDS PUB HIGH STREET, KINGS HEATH B’HAM. B14 7JZ 11am – 4.30pm FREE ADMISSION ON SATURDAY 7th NOVEMBER 09 SATURDAY 5th DECEMBER 09′.
Flea Market // Custard Factory Flea Market (Saturdays) – ‘The Custard Factory Flea Market is offering a free stall for 6 months to entrepreneurial university students in Birmingham. Birmingham based students are being asked to submit a business plan explaining their creative talents what they want to sell at the market. If successful The Custard Factory Flea Market will provide the five candidates with 6 months free stall rent worth over £500′. For more details read here.
Rag Market // Birmingham City Centre – ‘A place with all genres of taste and fancy, from women’s clothes, fabric stalls and even those lusted after magazines you can’t justify purchasing, just for a pound. A market that has been through Birmingham’s best and worst since the start. Pay it a visit and keep the Bullring’s true roots alive!’.
Following on from my last post, we hear from Nicole Scribbel a visual artist from Wolverhampton who is contributing to the literary landscape of the city by leaving word play all over the streets of Birmingham. Her “Spontaneous Art Shows” are a type of mysterious street art that is deposited for passersby to glimpse, or take home and enjoy. In an exclusive interview with Best Believe she explains how her passion for words and lettering started at a young age.
During school I developed my own style of handwriting (quite possibly influenced by the music I was listening to, and the records I was buying at that time). It was a subconscious thing and looking back now, I realise it was my way of expressing myself.
Around the late eighties to mid nineties, I would spend time admiring the graffiti that was happening in my area and would often doodle out my own words three dimensionally in different styles. Heavily into music, I would also listen carefully to lyrics and scribble them down on record sleeve inners in order to try and decipher what the artist was trying to say.
Later down the line, after some formal training as a “Fine Artist”, the battle of not wanting to be moulded into a pretentious Art Twit with an A, and undoing a wee bit of confusion, I have reversed back ten to fifteen years, working with letters and words once more.
In my eyes, letters are line drawings, and in day-to-day life we use these alongside signs, shapes and symbols to communicate with one and another and they help give us guidance. And depending on who we are and where we are from, they may differ slightly.
My Slogans or “Word Art” are an attempt in some cases to communicate with people and make people think and re-asses their priorities in life but also a form of self-expression for myself. It’s where I am able to release my frustrations and celebrations.
Words are powerful, and by even reading a single word, it can trigger many thoughts and/or images in your mind.
I currently adapt well-known nursery rhymes into thought provoking statements, which perhaps reflect the more serious side to my personality. In contrast, I also make my own rhyming slang as a more humorous way of communicating my thoughts. For me personally my work acts as a kind of diary, as it documents certain moments in time.
And as Sister Corita Kent once said “I am not brave enough to not pay my income tax and risk going to jail. But I can say rather freely what I want to say with my art.” And this I can relate to.
Eeeek you only have a few hours left to check out the ‘Pop-Up in the City’ shop previously blogged about here featuring independent designers including Steel & Jelly and Marvins Magical Mini Mart (poster designer for the Capsule peeps). All temporarily housed in the old Jade shoe shop on Corporation Street in the city centre. Best Believe will be interviewing Amy Lappin the designer from Steel & Jelly next week to see how it went and to hear more about her work. The ‘Pop-Up in the City’ shop closes at 6pm today so go pop in.
We all know that the first rule of fight club is don’t talk about fight club but nobody said a girl can’t blog about it. Birmingham’s answer to fight club uses pens and poscas rather than bare knuckles and fists, but is just as underground and sometimes just as moody.
Secret Wars has been a revelation – A cultural movement that is spreading across the globe! Started in March 06’ (By Monorex kingpin, Terry Guy in London UK) as a testing ground for artists to show the public what they can do. The idea quickly evolved into a knockout cup style contest that now attracts huge crowds of people anywhere it is held.
Seeds, Slobz and Keefy run and maintain the Birmingham rounds.
Secret Wars is the world’s premier live art battle, and in Birmingham…. things get very live.. Illustrator vs graf writer vs comic book writer vs street artist vs toy maker vs animator vs graphic designer etc etc etc …
This dissident group of artists meet regularly at The Rainbow to battle one and other, the rules are simple:
- 90 MINS ON THE CLOCK
- BLACK PAINT ONLY – ON WHITE WALLS!
- NO SKETCHES / NO PENCILS
- INVISIBLE MIDDLE LINE WITH AN ARTIST EITHER SIDE
JUDGED USING A 3 POINT SYSTEM – 2 GUEST JUDGES AND A CROWD VOTE (USING A DECIBEL READER)
GO BIG OR GO HOME!
Much like the 1984 comic Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars the key players from the scene, both evil and good get summoned to the planet “battleworld” in a distant galaxy (The Rainbow in our case) to duel to the death. I wouldn’t like to speculate on who the heroes and their opposing villains are in the Secret Wars Birmingham series but just like in the comics, world domination is getting to look quite attractive. The boys in charge have decided to put together a crack team of artists that can compete in battles throughout the UK and Europe.
Representing our city will be a squad of 5 artists, made up of previous winners Phill Blake and Newso with all round heavy weights in the field of graffiti illustration; Chu & Agent.
With four already in the crew the hunt is on to find the 5th member, this place will be given to the overall winner of the mini series that kicks off at The Rainbow on Sunday 4th October at 4pm, then on every Sunday through October and November. The official draw was pulled on the Secret Wars radio show on Rhubarb Radio and is as follows: AS-ONE / MIKEY BRAINS / POSH-ONE / ROO / SOL1R / SYLPH / TITLE / TX
For all the info on round one check the facebook page …Let the battle commence!
