Books, the bookish, the book; there’s never been a better time to talk about them. Not sitting here there hasn’t, anyway. Indicators are everywhere: books are in flux. Turnover in book publishing is growing slowly, but exports are accounting for a bigger share of the market. Micro-publishers are flourishing yet so are Ebooks. A decline … [Read more…]
Is Birmingham a city where it is easy to collaborate with others? I arrived in Birmingham in the summer of 2006, tasked with preparing Town Hall for its anticipated re-opening, due to happen 18 months later at the end of 2007. Although I had lived in the Midlands during my school years, I didn’t really … [Read more…]
The film below was shot at the St Patrick’s Parade in Digbeth earlier in the month. Due to the flickering in the timelapse photography technique used, it’s probably best avoided by anyone with photosensitive epilepsy. ————— By William Fallows William Fallows documents Birmingham through video and photography at vimeo.com/newfolder and flickr.com/newfolder.
It reeks of tired group halls full of the bingo playing near dead, bad murals by neutered ex-graffiti artists who have swapped credibility and self respect for a rainbow on the wall with ‘diversity’ written across it, and of sickly orange Reef and the juices of bored teenage girls letting themselves be fingered at the … [Read more…]
Andrew Dubber, Jon Cotton, Robin Valk, John Mostyn and Lisa Meyer were all kind enough to share their perspective and ideas for this post – I’ll publish their comments in full on my blog so none are wasted. I also drew, with permission, on the Birmingham Music Network’s recent 10 Questions survey. Unparalleled Riches The comments on the current state of … [Read more…]
My friends can’t understand why I live in Birmingham. My friends live in places like London, San Francisco, New York, Hong Kong; to them, Birmingham might as well be Accrington. It’s a place they won’t think about for the rest of the month. As a writer on the subject of contemporary art, to me Birmingham … [Read more…]
Last year I was lucky enough to be selected by the Cultural Leadership Programme to spend a year on a professional development and work placement down in Bristol. So I put my usual job of making new theatre performances on the back-burner and headed down the M5. My year was spent working as part of … [Read more…]
On April the 1st this year I will be embarking on a yearlong sabbatical from the company I co-run, Stereographic, in order to concentrate on my music and arts projects. I have my personal reasons for taking this step now but many of the broader reasons are valid for anyone deciding to undertake a sabbatical. … [Read more…]