April 12th, 2010 §
Joint Artistic Directors of Fierce Festival, Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison invite you to Fierce Start Party!!! |||| What’s a Start Party? It’s the beginning of an exciting journey. What will be there? Fierce Festival artists sharing tasters of their work. When’s the next festival? We’ll tell you the shape of Fierce’s next year |||| A.E Harris Building,128 Northwood Street, Birmingham, Jewellery Quarter, B3 1SZ |||| Save the Date!!! |||| Thursday 15th April |||| visit our new blog at www.wearefierce.org for additional details about the Start Party|||| Doors open from 3pm. Words at 7pm. Party from 9pm.||||
March 6th, 2010 §
Underneath Eastside’s arches you’ll find a whole host of organisations making and presenting film, music, visual arts, digital media, craft, literature, and photography – and some great pubs and cafes too. We Are Eastside is a guide to some of these hidden treasures.
We are Eastside is made up of;
7 INCH CINEMA – BIRMINGHAM JAZZ – CAPSULE – CRAFTSPACE – THE CUSTARD FACTORY – EASTSIDE PROJECTS – GRAND UNION – IKON EASTSIDE – PROJECT PIGEON (Photo featured above) – PUNCH – RHUBARB RHUBARB – THE EDGE – TINDAL STREET PRESS – THE LOMBARD METHOD – VIVID – VRU
A couple of exciting developments in the We are Eastside camp in Digbeth, Birmingham is the addition of a new photographic gallery space called Rhubarb East Gallery situated in the Rhubarb Building and a performance by Japanese artist Atsuhiro Ito.
Vivid and Capsule are combining forces to present Atsuhiro Ito. Atsuhiro uses a fluorescent light with pick up mics attached, and alters the voltage applied to tubes causing the lights to flicker. Microphones pick up electromagnetic noise perfectly synchronised with the flickering lights in a light/noise/electric eye festival at only a fiver it is well worth a look next week on Wednesday 10th March 2010, more information can be found here.
December 17th, 2009 §
Here is a collection of alternative Christmas gifts available from creative folks in and around Birmingham. Firstly a Christmas type mix of records from me. Feel free to wang this mix on whilst wrapping your presents or mulling your pies… enjoy!
At the top of the page we have the infamous Spinwell Bobble Beanie – which had almost sold out from this Birmingham based cycle blog, before the delivery had even arrived. Thankfully some are still available and now in stock ready for Christmas, very reasonably priced at £15 a pop. You will look hot when you are cold.
Spinwell Projects No.1 will be the Spinwell Bobble Beanie. Limited to 30 pieces and available in two colour options – Red/Grey/White and Grey/Red/White ( unfortunately not the colour pictured, this is my special sample! ).
Current State is the work of Birmingham based designer and illustrator Jane Anderson. Current State do lovely bold prints and are often feature in Fused Magazine. You can purchase postcards and Eco bags from Studio 4 Gallery aka The Framers along with a whole bunch of other stylish prints, postcards, bags and stickers from other artists and designers. Picture of Current State’s Eco Bag below - online shop and information here.
Mouldy Loaf is an independent company and brand which stocks the best in men’s and women’s wares. We have created an innovative and alternative brand which provides a great change to mainstream, high street fashion.
I say amen to that! Mouldy Loaf also run We Create* in Oasis Market. To go peep their wares just head down to the Custard Factory or look online here.
From mouldy bread to tasty and mouldy (if you so please) cheese! I love cheese and I love this shop! Newly opened in Kings Heath with a tasty collection of cheese, deli goodies and chutneys.
Capeling and Co is a specialist cheese shop and delicatessen on York Road, Kings Heath. We sell a large range of artisan cheeses, charcuterie, olives, antipasti, chutneys, vinegars, oils and lots more!
You can find out more here and become a fan on facebook. Support your local independent cheese retailer!
Merry Christmas!
Best Believe xx
November 5th, 2009 §
Inclusion Inspires – music making a difference a free conference delivered by MusicLeader West Midlands, Youth Music and Symphony Hall on Monday 16th November.
For teachers and musicians leading music with young people who have special needs, physical and learning disabilities.
Learn about the best techniques and technologies, share skills and stories and try out the Patrick Music and Multimedia Studio and its equipment. For anyone working with music in school, mainstream or special, youth clubs, health settings, support groups.
This event is free to attend.
For further information contact 0121 236 7978 or west-midlands@musicleader.net
Visit this site for more information…
November 4th, 2009 §
Here are a bunch of fireworks displays in and around Birmingham over the next few days. I suggest that you check the details yourself before heading out as some of the events are ticket only. Be careful with them sparklers too and although it may be fashionable to wear 80s clobber these days – please remember the danger of wearing man made fabrics, most especially ’shell suits’ around gun powder and naked flames. It may also be useful to remember the Swine Flu pandemic when bobbing for apples with strangers.
Pype Hayes Park, Birmingham / Fireworks Spectacular / Thursday 5 November
A traditional bonfire night including a spectacular fireworks display and a great fun fair. Visitors are advised not to bring their own fireworks / sparklers. More information
Tamworth Castle Grounds – Bonfire Night Celebrations / Saturday 7th November / More info
The firework show will be put together again by the award winning Dragon Fireworks who wowed the crowds last year, alongside the fireworks, the fair will be in town and there will be numerous entertainers walking around the crowd including jugglers and fire eaters as well as a treasure hunt for the kids.
Ironbridge Gorge Museums – Fireworks Night / Saturday 7th November / More info
Blists Hill Victorian Town will open its doors on the evening of Saturday 07 November for a spectacular Family Fireworks Extravaganza. Visitors will be able to enter Blists Hill at 6pm on the evening of the fireworks event to see the streets illuminated by gaslight as they would have been in the 19th century. The town’s shops, cottages and workshops will be open for visitors to enter and talk to the ‘resident’ Victorians, dressed in the costume of the day, who will answer questions about life in the late 1800s.
Kings Heath Sports Club – Fireworks Extravaganza / Sunday 8th November / More info
Gates open at 5pm at the cricket ground, located on Alcester Road South, with a fun fair, live music from Birmingham Conservatoire musicians, a licensed bar plus other refreshments and food and a variety of stalls to keep everyone occupied until the launch at 7pm.
The fireworks display is again being conducted by the West Midlands’ award-winning Jubilee Fireworks, who currently have two British titles to their name and were the first UK company to win the world championships.
October 23rd, 2009 §
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.
September 30th, 2009 §
Kate Beatty is a photographer based in Birmingham, in this post she speaks to Best Believe about her work, influences and current projects.
Winner of the Move Me Award 2008 and Fuji Fashion Award 2001, Kate’s influences range from traditional reportage like Henri Cartier Bresson and Dorothea Lange to the more challenging and diverse work of Zed Nelson and Nadav Kander. Kate seems genuinely charmed by the people she meets and captures them in a truly sincere and compelling way. Her many commissions have enabled her to meet people from all walks of life whilst giving her the opportunity to travel to America, Cuba and the Balkans.
I draw inspiration from real life the people around me, city living and country air at the same time. I am a big people person, love meeting people, talking to them and photographing them too!!! Another big inspiration is music – helps feed into my creativity!
Kate understands what it is to work in a culturally & geographically varied region like the West Midlands and has a portfolio of work and clients that reflects this diversity, ranging from the NHS – a campaign photographing staff and patients, to a project with the BBC and young people in Telford to an exhibition inside a cattle market capturing local market goers.
I have just finished working on the Chamberlain Awards – a Birmingham City Council initiative. It’s an amazing job as I am spending 1/2 a day with people from all walks of the council ranging from dinner ladies and park rangers to top lawyers who are changing anti-social behavior laws in parliament.
Educational work ranges from BBC and The secret City Project and more recently Creative Partnerships where I have been working along side a visual artist and animator to explore the theme of science in primary schools. It’s incredibly inspiring working with primary school age as they are SUPER imaginative and creative.
Her personal work is a mixture of reportage and fine art, more recently taking a very feminine approach – exploring the theme of love, the highs and lows.
For many artists working in Birmingham, the pull of the ‘big smoke’ can be irresistible. I asked Kate whether she feels that you can be a ‘big fish in a small pond’ here in Birmingham and how she views the amount of opportunities in comparison to other cities.
Yes I do think you can be big fish in small pond in Brum but I also think you are not restricted by being in a place. You can grow, create, and innovate wherever you are.
Kate is based at Fazeley Studios in Digbeth, more of her work is viewable on her website here.
September 30th, 2009 §
Music industry folks and companies from the West Midlands are invited to apply to Fused Magazine to gain a place on a UKTI (UK Trade & Investment) funded visit to SXSW Music 2010 in Austin Texas from the 17th to 21st March 2010.
SXSW Music 2010 features hundreds of musical acts from around the globe on over eighty stages in downtown Austin Texas. By day, conference registrants do business in the SXSW Trade Show at the Austin Convention Center and partake in a full agenda of informative, provocative panel discussions featuring hundreds of speakers including; Artists, music supervisors, branding executives, digital media gurus, activists, label owners, festival bookers, bloggers and publicists. Previous speakers have included that guy Tom who invented Myspace and big shots from the world of music distribution and marketing.
The aim of this trip is to take a group of companies representing music in the region in order to network, develop partner relationships, increase international trade and meet companies interested in developing opportunities and investment in the West Midlands.
Fused Magazine along with UK Trade & Investment are organising this trip which covers up to 50% of your costs, to apply please email kerry@fusedmagazine.com for an application form or you can call Kerry or David on 0121 246 1946 for more information.
September 29th, 2009 §
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.
September 21st, 2009 §
October is Black History Month and in Birmingham and the West Midlands there are a bunch of things going on to celebrate Black History, many of the events do so organically and also regularly and don’t necessarily need a specified ‘month’ to do their thing. Here are some of the events that I think would be worth checking out…
Black History is important to Birmingham because of the significant contribution made by Black people to the socio-economic and political foundation of this city and as an Afrikan saying goes: “A people without a history are like a tree without roots”. Birmingham Black History Website
Exhibitions
The Drum presents BirminStrong by Damian Brown // Mon 14 Sep – Fri 4 Dec, Mon – Fri // 10am – 6pm // Admission free
This photographic exhibition captures the essence of Black artists through a series of portraits, which documents their everyday lives, living and working within Birmingham. BirminStrong is a major new exhibition commissioned by The Drum as part of the BirminStrong and Black History Month Season.
In a culturally diverse city like Birmingham, the impact and positive contribution that African, African Caribbean and Asian artists have brought to the city and also to the arts fraternity has been eminent. From the music world right through to the theatre world, Black British artists have transformed the different artistic genres and made it their own. Giving us a flavour of what it means to be Black and British through their creative ideas and bodies of work in today’s society.
The New Art Gallery Walsall presents Thursday Affair – Sing It Black // Thursday 1 October 2009 // 6pm – 9pm // A special free event to launch Black History Month in Walsall.
Nominate your favourite black music track of all time to be part of the night’s play list. Songs that mean something to you, your generation, songs that are integral part of Black heritage and traditions or associated with major moments in history.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Motown, Mel Day will perform some of the most representative songs from that golden era accompanied by relevant film screenings and activities.
To tell us of your favourite track email Ioannis Ioannou on ioannoui@walsall.gov.uk by Friday 25 September.
Free food and a free drink on the night and another opportunity to have a look at the Gordon Cheung, Neal Rock and Steffi Klenz shows!
To find out more about Black History Month events in Walsall check here.
Gigs
Nu Century Arts presents… Femi Temowo
Sun 18 October // 7.45pm // Nu Century Arts // £5 (£3 concessions and members) // Hare and Hounds Kings Heath // 0121 523 5551
Appearing here as part of the Live Box anniversary tour, Temowo is also a key figure in the Soweto Kinch Quartet - who shared Mercury Prize nomination glory for Kinch’s debut album ‘Conversations with the Unseen’. The producer and guitarist has performed with George Benson, Cleveland Watkiss and Jason Rebello, and was a musical director for Amy Winehouse.
Film
Retrofilm.biz and The Drum presents Burning An Illusion
Wed 21 October // 7pm // £4 (£3)
A young British-born Black woman finds her aspirations of comfortable, respectable married life called into question when her partner is sent down for assaulting a police officer. Her political consciousness grows as she finds strength through a Black women’s group, asserting her needs while supporting and planning a future with her partner.
Dir: Menelik Shabazz (1981)
Running Time: 101mins
Certificate 15
Some other gigs worth a look are:
