If you’re all about local music acts and live events, then feel free to busy yourself by going to Oxjam Brum, this Saturday:

Oxjam began in 2006, with the aim of creating a network of music-loving people across the UK, all united by a shared goal – to raise money to fight poverty and suffering around the world. 9 years on we’re still going strong, with hundreds of incredible gigs taking place each October.

Oxjam introduces and supports a range of local acts, as well as working in partnership with other Birmingham based organisations. Oxjam Brum is set to feature across various music and independent event hot spots; The Sunflower Lounge, 6/8 Kafe, Island Bar, Left for Dead Records, Frederick Canal Barge, Talk, The Oobleck and The Flapper – some of which you may already be familiar with if you’ve attended events such as Flatpack Film Festival and Fierce. You can access a detailed timetable and line up here.

Tickets for Oxjam Brum Take Over are available here – and just  £10 in advance, giving you all day access from 12pm on the 18^th of October until 2am on 19^th October. The first 150 people to pick up their wristbands on the day will gain access to the canal barge, curated by Croft Sessions.

They’re presenting a rather stunning (if I do say so myself) selection of raffle prizes, raising money for Oxfam. You can purchase your raffle tickets on Saturday from any of the participating locations, priced at £1 each. Who doesn’t love a good raffle? Here’s what you can win:

• 2x Cadbury World Tickets
• 2x sofa tickets to Electric Cinema
• 2x tickets to Little Dragon at Institute
• 2x tickets to Band of Skulls at Institute
• 2x Two Towers Brewery Tour
• 2x Afternoon tea at Centenary Lounge
• 2x Tickets to All Years Leaving festival
• 4x Independent Birmingham card

For further information about Oxjam Brum as well as links to their featured performers, you can visit their website, or take a look on their Facebook page and having a good nosey through their photos and updates.

For general enquires then please email: oxjam.birmingham@gmail.com.

Last Wednesday I was invited to visit ‘Bryant Priest Newman Architects‘, located at 3 Mary Street in the Jewellery Quarter. Sleek and striking, the building has played host to a series of Birmingham based artists including; Ed Wakefield, Jane Tudge, VOID Group Show, Stuart Layton, Sam Brookes and will soon be expecting Karen McLean. These artists were all selected to take part in a program set up by ‘Three’ , generously funded by the Arts Council England, this flourishing 9 month project has provided a succession of wonderful exhibitions.

Sam Brookes is the fifth artist to take part in this exciting program and has been making use of Three’s studio space having presented his exhibition, ‘The Soft Machine’ on the 24^th of April, which will be running until the 9^th of May. Having read about his intricate illustrations I was excited to see the complex figures up close. Peering around the corner of Caroline Street, BPN Architects’ large glass window glistened at me to come over and with the reference to Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ already ringing in my mind I started wondering through ‘The Soft Machine’, looking forward to meeting and interviewing Sam Brookes.

JD – “How do you feel about the way you’ve exhibited your illustrations and that they are without a written narrative?”

SB – “I prefer it. I like the way that there is no narrative, but people can kind of build a narrative as they see it. Whatever I might have been thinking about at that time becomes totally different once it’s out of my control. It’s not in control of anything and the work is just at the whim of everyone else. Everyone has their own thing that they might see, think about or even just be interested in some part of it. It all might be similar to me or different, but I think that’s what is interesting really.

I struggled doing images with words. I found it difficult and in some ways it felt a bit stifling but I think it was probably a bit of anxiety whilst at Uni, working alongside deadlines, but it was good to do because it allowed me to develop technical skills and practice them a lot. Spending time in the library was also good because I got to read a lot of different books and I found a lot of influences there.”

JD – “So there’s a reading process behind it that is still important to you?”

SB -“Yeah, I don’t always read a whole book – I’ll read say bits and then that’ll work its way into the work. So with William Burroughs; with his bugs, centipedes and insects – things like that there is the imagery that comes up anyway. I don’t understand him too much because he’s very complex but you have to go with it, with ‘The Cut Up’ writings.” (The Cut Up trilogy consists of; ‘Soft Machine’, ‘The Ticket That Exploded’ and ‘The Nova Express’)

“But yeah, it influences it but it doesn’t take a huge control over the work. I don’t read something and really concentrate on a part of it; it just maybe vaguely influences it.”

JD – “When did you first define what you do as illustration?”

SB – “I don’t know if it’s defined as illustration… because I did a degree in it I was taught in that certain way, so I was surrounded by it but I don’t know if they are strictly illustrations – they border it a bit. It’s hard to define. There’s an overlap of all practices; so graphic design, fine art, illustration and photography and then there’s middle grounds where they integrate. Its’ hard to really tell which one is which. The place where I studied was very renowned for children’s books and I just couldn’t do it – which was probably detrimental to me!

I couldn’t do children’s books because every time I tried to draw something, I ended up doing something that looked pretty gross! It was also difficult because there were so many opinions from a lot of people, as well as tutors and it was hard to decipher what to do with it… but I should have really followed my own intuitions because at times you get so anxious about what’s right or wrong you kind of forget that that doesn’t really matter. I didn’t like that part of illustration. With this work there’s no right or wrong way, it’s just what it is.”

JD – “You said that a lot of the illustration that you saw at University was for children’s books. Were there any illustrators or books that opened you up a little or that you liked?”

SB – “When I was at Uni I was really obsessive with detail, I needed to loosen up… but once you become obsessed with something it’s hard to distance yourself. Then in first year, we went to visit a group in ‘Big Orange Studios’. We saw someone called Paul Davis and I really liked his way of working. I also like David Hughes, he has a crude and quite violent style of working. I liked his technique; it was very scratchy. They were caricatures done with pen and ink, very crude but they were also funny. Now really, I like Julie Mehretu. Her way of working is based upon mark making – the variation of marking and the way in which each mark feels. She does these huge abstract paintings. She calls them paintings, they’re kind of drawings and paintings – absolutely massive layered architectural drawings. She creates this chaotic atmosphere with the marks and it’s like the movement within a city or a space – but with marks made with ink and paint. She’s amazing and I really enjoy her work.

I like lots of things that I see or read (such as) films and Polish Surrealist poster art. I’m interested more in now working with the figure and (gestures to the illustrations around us) how some of them are much more final, they look like creatures within themselves – I’m interested in the shapes of the body. Say you draw two overlapping figures, how the lines are crossed form new shapes and the space around the shape of the body is changed by directions. I start thinking about lots of different things at once.”

JD – “But you’re able to record it all?”

(He reaches over to his coat and produces one of his sketchbooks. Here I get a chance to see one of his works in progress. He gestures to more pronounced areas of the drawing whilst explaining how he felt towards the shapes on the page. The drawing appears to portray moving figures, showing a continued use of black ink markings, creating stark contrast and shading against the white of the paper)

SB – “This piece that I’ve been working on is going down this new route and process. So, finding bits that are more pronounced, taking some parts out and then forgetting them – seeing what these different shapes are doing.

Once they overlap like this it’s interesting to see how it obliterates it – the image completely changes after you’ve overlapped it. I want to use velum; it’s a type of tracing paper that you can see through better. You can get marks to overlap but still see through it. I want to find a way to develop a depth within the drawings, without just drawing straight over them.”

JD – “There’s obviously a lot of movement in this piece but at the same time the image is also obviously very static. So you can already see the layers.”

SB – “It’s like gestural drawing. That’s what’s kind of weird isn’t it? It seems like there’s movement but when in actual fact it’s such a static way of working. It’s very methodical and very time consuming.

That does give it a ‘stillness’ but it also looks like there’s a bit of movement. That’s why I need to get these more gestural; quick, impulsive marks within the work. I’d like to make more use of the lines of red, as they affect the way that the eye scans across the work and use masculine/feminine lines too.”

JD – “Once up close to the pictures, you notice all the dots and the detail. Are the dots important to you?”

SB – “It makes me sure that I’ve been working hard. I really need to get away from the dots. They give an interesting quality but they are punitive, they punish you. After a while they aren’t enjoyable. With that one (picture below) I enjoyed the viciousness of breaking the pens, the more uncaring marks. There are parts that I like and others that I don’t. Not the hand so much but I do like the legs or at least what’s left of them. There are parts that work, that are more developed.

JD – “Are there other mediums and materials you’d like to use with future series?”

SB – “I’d like to use Indian ink, different colours of ink like red with black. That’d be nice. I’d like to use more colours but it’s just my fear of using them. I need to break my working patterns down and reassess what I’m doing. Not destroy them – that’s wrong. Bringing in other things to it, other depths to the work could maybe make it more interesting and give it a different movement/look.”

With all the build-up and enthusiasm for dance performances during IDFB I feel well and truly ready for BE Festival 2014. Having not personally attended BE Festival before I was a little unsure of what to expect, and so took the opportunity to visit the 2014 launch at Birmingham Rep on the 16^th April. I was quickly immersed into a world of acting, exciting workshops and performers.

BE Festival has been hosted in Birmingham since 2010 after responding to an Arts Council-hosted conference entitled, ‘The Challenge of Change: How can we make a better future for theatre, here in the West Midlands?’ in 2009.

5 years on, the realised dream of BE Festival still continues. Having invited performers from 11 different countries to take part in this years’ amazing selection of 22 performances, the festival has already attracted a large following.

This year The Rep will open their doors to BE Festival, with the main stage itself set to feature a pop-up restaurant. There they will be serving delicious interval dinners to artists and audiences so that they can have an opportunity to eat together each evening. The menus include vegetarian options and advance bookings for this are now available through box-office.

You’ll now be able to see all of the wonderful events planned which include visual arts and talks, workshops, performances and even musical post-show events, finishing with an Awards Party on the 12th of July.

Even better, if you’d like a chance to be involved with BE Festival, meeting the performers and organisers behind the action then you might be interested in their volunteering opportunities. Open until the 12^th of May, volunteering opportunities with BE Festival also include 6 positions for aspiring stage managers/technicians to form part of the Production Team.

If you would like to volunteer please send an email detailing your interest, any relevant skills, experience and CV to emmahalsteadbe@gmail.com. Volunteers will be needed in May and then throughout June and July.

For the full 2014 programme please see HERE.

We are all very excited to tell you about the return of the International Dance Festival Birmingham 2014! You will be able to experience a range of performances from ballet to large non-choreographed social dances. With so many brilliant performances to talk about, the following will just be a selection of my top picks for the festival.

For Starters, ‘Three Short Works’ 24th – 26th April

The International Dance Festival Birmingham 2014 kicks off with ‘Three Short Works’. From the Birmingham Royal Ballet, a selection of performances called Quatrain, Kin, Les Rendezvous and Façade. Les Rendezvous will be available to see from 24th–25th April, with Quatrain and Kin continuing to be shown alongside Façade on 26th April.

QUATRAIN

Inspired by the fantastically exciting and vibrant tango rhythms of Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Season’s of Buenos Aires, Company First Artist Kit Holder creates his third ballet for the Company. Following the success of his previous work, 9-5, which featured in IDFB 2012, these premiere performances of his latest work are keenly anticipated.

KIN.

An exciting new ballet from Royal Opera House Choreographic Affiliate, Sadler’s Wells New Wave Associate and former Birmingham Royal Ballet dancer, Alexander Whitley. The ballet, to music by young American composer Phil Kline, will receive its’ premiere at IDFB 2014. Not to be missed!

LES RENDEZVOUS

A huge hit when it was first performed in 1933, Les Rendezvous was the first ballet in which Ashton put aside the comedy for which he was known and concentrated on pure technique. Loosely based round a group of friends meeting up in a park, the ballet is a series of fiercely difficult divertissements which give the whole cast the chance to show off their virtuosity.

FACADE

Finally, based on Edith Sitwell’s deliciously nonsensical poetry, Façade embraces the fun of it all with whole-hearted and wilful abandon. Be entertained by a series of delightful characters dancing tangos, foxtrots and waltzes, all with their tongues firmly in their cheeks. Choreographed in 1931, Façade was Sir Frederick Ashton’s first big hit, and is full of the gentle comedy he is known and loved for – an enjoyable break from the sanity of everyday life!

World Premier, ‘Headphones’ 30th April – 4th May

Promising to provide us with a fresh organic series of performances, Corey Baker brings us ‘Headphones’. In keeping with Corey Bakers’ ethos of producing engaging and unique productions, ‘Headphones’ will allow the audience to direct part of the dancers’ choreography. Set to hide ‘undercover’, the performances will be surprising and unpredictable with elements of comedy.

You can watch this trailer to get an idea of the fun performance, as well as directly suggest moves by tweeting @IDFB #headphones.

‘Lord of the Flies’ 14th–17th May

Mathew Bourne has invited 24 young people to join his latest hit production ‘Lord of the Flies’ based on the classic novel written by William Goulding. There are 8 professional dancers within the cast, to work alongside the newly recruited dancers to give a unique opportunity to young dancers in each city that the production is set to perform in. Because of this the theatre performance has already gained great publicity. The combination of mentoring and unity has made the project a wonderful success already and should be a great motivational piece, especially for young people who with a passion for dance.

‘Lord of the Flies’ will be performed at The Birmingham Hippodrome over 4 days with tickets available now.

‘Spill: A Playground of Dance’ – 25th May

DanceXchange is housed within Birmingham Hippodrome, both of whom have worked together to produce the 2014 International Dance Festival Birmingham. Owning 3 dance studios and The Patrick Centre (a 206 seat studio), DanceXchange strives to support the dancing community and enable their dancers to showcase the best of their talents. ‘Spill’ was first shown in 2012, and is an outdoor production that will be performed in the beautiful Cannon Hill Park. Choreographed by Australian Artist Shaun Parker, of Shaun Parker & Company, it should be a playful piece using street gymnastics and location based props of swings and roundabouts.

With so many different events and performances there is bound to be something for everybody and you can view IDFB’s 2014 staff picks here to find some first hand recommendations!

“Born of a passion and a belief that opera can speak directly to all kinds of people, Artistic Director, Graham Vick, set out to create a company that the people of Birmingham – a city of many peoples – could be proud of…

…We’ve got more exploring to do to discover where opera can be performed. How to perform it. How to re-write the rules of engagement between audiences and performer. How to experiment with space and acoustics. Who can we make it speak to?”

Birmingham Opera Company would like to invite you to their production of Khovanskygate: A National Enquiry.  You may have already heard a sneak preview at Springhill Tesco Superstore, where professional soloists Joseph Guyton and Stephanie Corley were accompanied by Sergey Rybin on piano. The singers performed a selection of opera favourites from Tosca, Madame Butterfly and Othello, demonstrating their talents whilst preparing to play the roles of Prince Andrei and Emma in this latest production.

The opera will take place in a big top tent at Cannon Hill Park, with performances at 7pm on the 22nd, 24th, 28th and 30th April before a final performance on the 2nd May.

The story depicts Russia in the midst of a division between powerful conservative forces and growing Westernising influence. Musorgsky paints a devastating portrait of a nation on the brink of collapse; torn apart by state corruption, religious fanaticism, social inequality and ethnic cleansing.

The unique setting and involvement from local performers already sets the bar for an interesting series of evenings. Birmingham Opera Company released an open call for singers with varied to little experience in performance, asking them to join in with rehearsals several days a week. If you’d like to become involved with Birmingham Opera Company’s projects yourself, then please contact them at getinvolved@birminghamopera.org.uk .

We wish the cast and Birmingham Opera Company the best of luck for the shows. For telephone booking information please call 0121 246 6632 Monday – Friday 9:00am-11:00am or use the following link for further information and online booking.

From 15^th March – 14^th June 2014, Eastside Projects will be proudly exhibiting the work of Bill Drummond, with a special preview evening starting from 6pm – 8pm tonight (14^th March.)

The team at Eastside Projects have been working hard, preparing to host the first stage of Bill Drummond’s World Tour (2014 – 2025), ‘The 25 Paintings’. Prior to tonight’s preview evening, Bill Drummond has made the voyage to Birmingham, arriving yesterday (13^th March) via a raft made from his own bed along the Grand Union Canal, beneath Spaghetti Junction. On this journey he brought with him four hundred and forty bunches of daffodils, and four hundred empty jam jars. Drummond will continue to live in Birmingham for 3 months before embarking onto the next stage of his journey.

Part of this journey will be detailed in ‘The 60 Posters‘, an evolving selection drawn from the over 500 Penkiln Burn Posters which will also be on display during the exhibition.

The central motif of the exhibition is the ’25 Paintings’ alluded to in the title, but Drummond describes his work as sculpture. The sculpture ‘The 25 paintings, begun in 2001, and will be complete on 28 April 2025 at the end of the ‘World Tour.’

The exhibition includes the ’25 paintings’, ‘The 60 Posters’, ‘The 25 Sixty Second Films’, three publications – the exhibition catalogue ‘The 25 Paintings’, ‘MAN MAKES BED’, and ‘MAN SHINES SHOES’ – and ten lectures, including three at Eastside Projects entitled ‘Art Versus Money’, ‘Painting Versus Sculpture’ and ‘Life Versus Death’.

This large collection itself will only be a small representation of Bill Drummond’s extensive life-long investigation into the world around him, and it is at this point that I will mention how difficult it is to shortly summarise his career. Very short (62 words), short (288 words) and very long (10, 565 words) biographies can be found at penkilnburn.com, detailing his work as a writer, musician, artist and just about everything else in between. The website is an excellent archive of Bill Drummond’s work and I would recommend looking through it to get a sense of his work before visiting (although it isn’t essential!)

Eastside Projects can be found in Digbeth, near the Custard Factory. They are open from Wednesday – Saturday between the hours of 12pm – 5pm. It’s free admission, and as well as the exhibition, there are a range of other talks and visiting artists that be seen here.

All pictures taken by Tracey Moberly.

Today (14th February) sees the start of New Art West Midlands 2014. It was announced in December that 24 emerging artists from our own regional universities would exhibit their work within four different galleries across Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

A Turning Point West Midlands initiative, New Art West Midlands exhibits the work of 24 artists, all of whom have graduated from one of the region’s undergraduate and postgraduate fine art degree courses in the past three years: Birmingham City University, Coventry University, Staffordshire University, University of Wolverhampton and University of Worcester.  Encompassing four nationally important galleries plus five universities, it is the largest partnership of its kind in England.

Who are the Artists?

All of the artists have recently come from undergraduate and postgraduate courses. There really is a great range of different artists here, with their work ranging from sculpture, film, photography, performance to painting.

• Morna Lockie Anrig  (BCU)
• Csilla Farkas (University of Worcester)
• Cheryl Howard (University of Worcester)
• James Birkin (Coventry University)
• Lucy Hutchinson (Coventry University)
• Gregory Dunn (BCU)
• Barbara Witkowska (Staffordshire University)
• Anna Smith (Wolverhampton University)
• Santhanha Nguyen (BCU)
• Sikander Pervez (Staffordshire University)
• Ali Reed (Staffordshire University)
• Anna Horton (BCU)
• Hannah Sutherland (Coventry University)
• Leah Carless (BCU)
• Glen Stoker (Staffordshire University)
• Caroline Ali (Wolverhampton University)
• Chris Wright (Staffordshire University)
• Sade Buckle (BCU)
• Wendy Ann Titmus (BCU)
• Bethany Fisher (Staffordshire University)
• Sharon Farrelly (BCU)
• Emily Mulenga (BCU)
• Amelia Greville (Staffordshire University)
• Sarah Sehra (University of Worcester)

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts

The Barber Institute Steering Committee is chaired by the University of Birmingham’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Michael Whitby as well as representatives from the University’s College of Arts and Law, the Henry Barber Trust and the Friends of the Barber Institute. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts owes its existence to the vision of Dame Martha Constance Hattie Barber (1869–1933). First opened by Queen Mary in 1939, the art deco building owes its design to architect Robert Atkinson (1833-1952) and has since been a home to major art collections, a public gallery and the original concert hall for the University of Birmingham. Their collection includes paintings by Old Masters including Botticelli, Rubens, Gainsborough and Turner, as well as Impressionist and other 19th and 20th-century masterpieces by Monet, Degas, Renoir and Magritte.

The Barber Institute will be exhibiting the work of Caroline Ali, James Birkin, Sade Buckle, Leah Carless, Cheryl Howard, Sikander Pervez, Glen Stoker, Wendy Ann Titmus and Chris Wright from the 14^th February – 27^th April. Is open from Monday – Friday between the hours of 10am – 5pm and on the weekend it is open  11am – 5pm.

Grand Union

First opened in March 2010, Grand Union is directed by Cheryl Jones. Based at 19 Minerva Works in Fazeley, Grand Union is an exciting artist-led project space that houses 8 purpose built studios (and they really are lovely!) which were designed by designer Matthew Higginbottom with Queen & Crawford. As well as exhibiting the works from the Turning Point West Midlands artists, Grand Union will also be hosting a talk on the 17^th February from 6:30pm till 8:00pm featuring artists Leah Carless, Sarah Sehra, Anna Smith, Glen Stoker and Hannah Sutherland.

The exhibition is on between 14^th February – 15^th of March. Grand Union is open from 12pm – 5pm on Thursday – Saturday.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery opened on 28th November 1885. Birmingham’s citizens had campaigned for a Corporation Art Gallery for over 40 years. The generosity of manufacturers such as Thomas Clarkson Osler, Richard and George Tangye, and Mayors Joseph and Richard Chamberlain, secured the art gallery for the town. Now funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England and Birmingham City Council it now boasts over 500,000 objects to make up the numerous collections that originate from each of the continents and dating from 200,000 years ago to the modern day.

Having recently held the successful Photorealism Exhibition (still open until 30^th March) they will be exhibiting the Turning Point West Midland’s Artists from the 14^th February – 18^th May.

BMAG will be exhibiting the work of Gregory Dunn, James Birkin, Csilla Farkas, Anna Horton, Cheryl Howard, Lucy Hutchinson, Lockie-Anrig, Santhanha Nguyen, Sikander Pervez, Ali Reed, Anna Smith, Hannah Sutherland and Barbara Witkowska. Opening times are between 10am – 5pm all week apart from Friday when they open a little later, 10.30am – 5pm.

Wolverhampton Art Gallery

WAVE is a collection of buildings. The group includes not only Wolverhampton Art Gallery, but also Bilston Craft Gallery, Bantock House Museum and Wolverhampton City Archives. Wolverhampton Art Gallery has a range of collections and regularly exhibits new works, including contemporary pieces as well as grand paintings dating back as far as the 18^th Century.

Not only is Wolverhampton Art Gallery a great resource for artworks, they are also involved with their community, regularly running events and workshops that are open to the public.

Wolverhampton Art Gallery is open from Monday – Saturday between the hours of 10am – 5pm. They will be exhibiting the work of Sade Buckle, Sharon Farrelly, Amelia Greville, Emily Mulenga, Sarah Sehra, Anna Smith and Wendy Ann Titmus. Their exhibition of Turning Point West Midland’s art will run from the 15^th  February – 10^th May.

So who are Turning Point West Midlands?

Turning Point West Midlands is funded by Arts Council England and is also a member of the Contemporary Visual Arts Network. It is a 10 year strategy that began in 2006 to promote and support artists in the West Midlands. In partnership with Birmingham University, Professor John Butler acts as chair for TPWM with other organisations and individuals whom support Birmingham’s growing art community.

These members include; Arts and Heritage in Wolverhampton, Craftspace, National Trust Midlands, Ikon Gallery, New Art Gallery Walsall, Juneau Projects, Coventry Artspace, Eastside Projects, Birmingham Museums Trust, Grand Union as well as independent Consultants, Curators and Artists.

This is a great opportunity for our local artists and hopefully will open up many more opportunities for our creative community.

To keep up to date with all things New Art West Midlands, visit their website.

Festival of Imagination begins Wednesday 5^th February at Selfridges Birmingham.

There is a programme of events containing further information including the times/dates of the various events that will be hosted at Selfridges over the next few weeks.

If you’d like to attend any of the talks or events then you need to email FOIBirmingham@selfridges.co.uk to book a place.

Here are a few highlights, more info on the FOI website:

Lightning Talks

To kick-start the festival is Lightning Talks, a series of speakers presenting in Pecha Kucha style format; 20 slides in relation to their chosen topic of discussion, with only 20 seconds to present each one. Presenting at the first event are artists Grace Williams, Sophie Hedderwick, Jacqueline Taylor, ‘Antiquarian Horologist’ Rebecca Struthers and Director of the Dome Club, Mario Di Maggio. Titles of their chosen discussions can be seen on the events list.Lightning Talks will take place on the 13th and again on the 20th February.

Fantastic Planet

Fantastic Planet gathers film gems from Russia, Taiwan, Ireland and the USA, specially curated by Flatpack Festival.

Transforming the festivals’ ‘Imaginarium’ into a cinema, we will be screening our Fantastic Planet programme throughout the festival. Suitable for all ages, it will take you on a magic carpet ride across the globe.

Great to have a little taste of film before we get stuck into the 10th annual Flatpack Festival in March.

Extravagant Freaks and Great Cosmic Journeys

If you are looking for a little more scientific discussion, on 5^th of February there will be Lucy Hawking’s ‘Imagination: Extravagant Freaks and Great Cosmic Journeys’ from 6:30pm till 7:30pm. Lucy Hawking (daughter of Stephen Hawking) comes equipped with not only a fantastic approach to explaining and exploring science, but also genuine enthusiasm that has been shared in her writing and previous talks.

The Instruments of Perception

‘The Instruments of Perception’ event lead by the Birmingham School of Architecture will take place on the 14th of February, and will allow the audience to interact with a range of extraordinary devices and structures created by students who are exploring the transformation of the Blythe Valley, as the government deliberates the HS2 train line that is likely to intersect the land.

Vivid Projects

Vivid Projects will once again be partnering with Leon Trimble, the face behind VJ Chromatouch, to present their work ‘Revolution 18/David Bowie’ which was previously shown in July 2013 as part of the Warwick Bar’s Summer Fete. They invite you to view their part-disco, part-documentary, multi-projection, surround-sound installation.

Outside the Imaginarium

An ongoing screening of videos outside the Imaginarium will be featuring work by the following artists whose work plays with the boundaries and aesthetics of performance and film:

With so much going on (as well as the fact that absolutely everything is free to attend!) there aren’t many reasons not to go. Take a good look through the programme and email FOIBirmingham@selfridges.co.uk to book your places.

Number 50 (Volume 2 Number 25)

‘BABEL is an ongoing series of collages, paintings, digital prints, cards, books, boxes and installations, all derived from Stewart Brown’s experiments with ‘visual language’. This new iteration of the series is displayed alongside the influences and inspirations Brown has encountered during his time as an academic at the University of Birmingham and his travels through West Africa and the Caribbean.’

University of Birmingham has been pleased to welcome back Stewart Brown to host his work once again in their Aston Webb Rotunda building. The exhibition started in December and has been extended until 11th February. The work is on show from Monday to Friday between 9:00am till 5:00pm.

Babel 44 (Volume 2 Number 19)

Stewart Brown’s first exhibition of BABEL was in 2007 at University of Birmingham. Having explored literature and visual art during his time working in various schools and Universities in Jamaica, Nigeria Wales and Barbados his practice is heavily based on his own questioning and interpretation of how we recycle and take in information around us. This playful final visual work is a representation of these two practices working together and merging to form ‘BABEL’.

Babel Box

All of Stewart Brown’s work that is available for purchase can be found listed here.

For any further information about the exhibition at the Rotunda Gallery please contact Anne Young at 0121 414 6750 or a.young.1@bham.ac.uk.

‘For the Record’ looks to be a wonderful collection of female contemporary artists that have been carefully selected to take the audience through the development of artwork produced by women. It is curated by Lisa Beauchamp (Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery) and Rachel Bradley (Freelance Curator) who together brought forward this selection of artists, sufficiently teasing most of us with sneak peeks on twitter.

Lisa Beauchamp comments; “We are delighted to be able to showcase the work of some incredible female artists in this exhibition and to celebrate the reopening of the Waterhall Gallery. Incorporating works by artists such as Ana Maria Pacheco, Mary Kelly, Emmy Bridgwater, Alice Channer and Turner-prize nominee Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, we hope this exhibition will open up an interesting dialogue between these artists and showcase the strength and diversity of Birmingham’s collections alongside some stand-out loans from the Arts Council Collection. It is great for our visitors to be able to explore more of these amazing works.”

Hopefully with some of the names given there you have either noticed an artist that you’ve already wanted to see the work of or you will be able to find out a little bit more about them and what their work has achieved.

‘SHOW AND TELL’, THE NEW ART GALLERY WALSALL, 18 April – 9 July 2011

Alongside this exhibition will be the reveal of two West Midlands based female artists Faye Claridge and Barbara Walker. Barbara Walker’s practice includes drawing and painting, and has created a series of works called ‘Show and Tell’ in which she draws portraits of young men and boys, focusing on key items of clothing that assert dominance and personality without having to depict their faces. This selective focus carries with it the significance that cultural symbolism can have by bringing about a certain image or atmosphere just by the depiction of certain types of clothes. What messages are chosen and which are incidental due to our learnt response?

Faye Claridge’s work is founded in digital media, and she creates a sense of ‘otherness’ and mythology that;

“…Explores relational subjectivity and self-awareness through the awareness of ‘the other’ and ‘the past’. With an inability to focus on the ever-shifting present, I believe we instead try to explore our identities in relation to (the distance of) others, in relation to a (performed) role and in relation to the (imagined) past. As such, much of my work looks at personal and community identity through the re-interpretation of British tradition. My photographs reference museum tableau and grand portraiture and present subjects drawn from national customs and folklore.”

Their success and strong artwork deserves to hold a place next to the collection already selected, and will bring the history of female artists within contemporary art well and truly into the present day.

For the Record opens today (27th January) and runs until the 29^th of June.