Launch party Thursday 24th June from 5pm Sauce Gallery, Custard Factory Birmingham.

Merz Party, Eastside Projects, Saturday 12 June, 1-4pm, FREE.

Merz Party is about everyone making collage. With an exciting array of printed material waiting at Eastside Projects to be cut up, and stuck back together, it uses a group dynamic to generate new ideas by swapping, sharing, obliterating and adding to each others’ work. Bring your best scissors and help artist Elizabeth Rowe bring a collage revolution to Birmingham!

Lead by award winning saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch and featuring a stellar rostra, The Flyover Show returns to Birmingham with dynamic and challenging performances on the 29th May. Now in its third year the unconventional inner city festival transforms the grey space beneath the Hockley Flyover into an oasis of cultural expression, celebrating generations of black British music and art. For the first time this show explores the specific theme of black female identity.

This year’s Flyover Show is a week on Saturday, in Soweto’s words it is about ‘Jazz and Poetry and Hip Hop’ – well worth going to and free might I add, for more info check here. For the revolution see below…

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.

Monday 26 April 2010 6pm – 7.30pm @ Symphony Hall, Birmingham  

 This free seminar discusses the issues that women from an Islamic background face in the urban arts sector. Are they under represented? The speakers will discuss the cultural barriers that have may have prevented them getting involved in the sector, with debate around whether this is changing through a better understanding and shift in attitudes towards contemporary music.

 There is no cost but places are limited and are offered strictly on a first come first served basis. 

 Anyone interested in attending must register for a place by emailing sophie@punch-records.co.uk clearly stating your name, email address, telephone number and the title of the seminar you wish to attend.

For more information please call Punch on 0121 224 7444 or visit our website www.punch-records.co.uk, where details of confirmed speakers will be announced.

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.

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 15^th 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.||||

This is very exciting! On Thursday 4th March The Electric Cinema will be screening Beyond Biba a portrait of the life of 1960s fashion legend Barbara Hulanicki. All information can be found here with tickets available from The Electric.

Our first screening in Birmingham. We’re screening for one night at the Electric Cinema, Birmingham. The cinema is the oldest working cinema in the UK first opening on December 27th 1909. The building is now home to luxury sofa seating, waiter service and a full bar.

There will be a post screening Q&A with Director Louis price and Producer James Collie, which will be hosted by Tom Lawes, owner of the Electric Cinema.

Special edition DVDs signed by Barbara Hulanicki will be available after the screening.

6 February – 23 May / Waterhall Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

Since the mid-1960s Bridget Riley has been celebrated for her distinctive, optically vibrant paintings that actively engage the viewer’s sensations and perceptions.

The exhibition is a first in a new series of solo artist’s exhibitions from the Arts Council Collection; it includes the iconic Movement in Squares (1962), which Riley credits as the beginning of her breakthrough into abstraction.

The exhibition also includes paintings and over 30 works on paper from the artist’s own collection that have never been exhibited before.

A Hayward Touring Exhibition from Southbank Centre

Admission Free