JamFactory aka Gavin Strange is a brilliant designer from Bristol, but he’s launching his new vinyl toy collection, Droplet, here in Brum which gives me a good excuse to write about him here!

I first discovered JamFactory on Flickr, I think after one of his ‘Free Art Friday‘ pics showed up in Flickr’s interesting pages and have been following him ever since. I had seen the above flyer come through on an RSS feed of my Flickr contacts’ photos, but dismissed it at the time thinking it must be a Bristol-based event. Anyway, serendipity fans, I also happen to be subscribed to a feed of all Twitter ‘tweets’ (posts) that mention Birmingham and while doing a very rapid skim read of that, JamFactory’s name jumped out because he was talking about visiting Birmingham. So I didn’t miss out on him coming to Brum :)

Free Art Friday btw is an excellent idea, hint hint, Brum creatives!

After a decade of stop-you-in-your-tracks live art events and performances FIERCE is trailblazing once more giving you, the audience, the power to program your own festival!

We’ve reserved a range of spaces from theatres to pavements, broom cupboards and dressing rooms. You decide what goes in them.

* Read the artist pitches
* Choose your top three performances and vote!
* Come back to build your festival line up and use the leader board to help you.

Shows with the least votes will be eliminated; the most popular shows will be performed LIVE during Fierce Festival at venues across the West Midlands 23rd – 26th May.

They has a blog too :)

Island Bar is holding an all-day acoustic festival from 1.30pm on Easter Sunday (23rd March).

The feature is a handy round-up of the bands to watch as well as local promoters, venues, club nights and record shops.

via Rich Batsford

The Flamenco Birmingham site now has details of the performances and workshops that are part of the first International Dance Festival Birmingham. Performances include The TG Collective on Saturday 3rd May and En Sus 13 on Tuesday 6th May, both at Town Hall.

The site also confirms that there will be another Emoción Flamenco Festival later this year, following the success of the first festival last November. The line up and artists for this festival will be announced over the coming weeks. The site has an RSS feed (yay) so it will be easy to keep up with the news, however (note to their webmaster) I was unable to link to specific pages of interest as the site uses URL masking.

From the Press Release:

Birmingham City Council Creative Development Team and Audiences Central are premiering a short film directed by BAFTA Award Winning Director Natasha Carlish on Tuesday 11 March at The Electric Cinema, Birmingham. Birmingham: The Creative City celebrates some of the personal stories and amazing work delivered as part of the Equal II: The Last Mile programme in Birmingham over the last two years.

The Equal II: The Last Mile programme was established to develop the Creative Industries as a route to employment in Birmingham. This creative business support project was established in 2005 to develop the creative industries as a route to employment for creative talent and arts professionals in Birmingham.

Co-ordinated by Birmingham City Council’s Creative Development Team and funded by the European Social Fund, the Equal II: The Last Mile programme has engaged over 400 individual artists and creative businesses and 18 partner organisations across Birmingham. The programme, and the creative industries, have made a significant contribution to Birmingham’s economy through employment and improved quality of life.

The film, Birmingham: The Creative City is testimony itself to the wealth of creative talent within the region directed by one of the region’s BAFTA award winning directors, Natasha Carlish and Dreamfinder Productions and created with partners including John Mostyn who worked with music for film debutant Bass Flo, Quench Design who titled the films DVD menu and cover artwork and Supercool Design who worked on brand and design elements.

Director Natasha Carlish said: “Nurturing and developing new creative talent in our city is something I feel extremely passionate about. So to be asked to create a film to illustrate just one area of work that is focusing on this very important issue was a real privilege. I was really inspired by the contributors to the film, their determination to success and their stories and I was really lucky to work with some great collaborators such as Endboad, Quench, John Mostyn and Bassflo’, the Audiosuite, Aquila Film and Television and Shefali Oza.”

Talking about the impact of the Equal II: The Last mile programme overall, Paul Cantrill, Head of Creative Development at Birmingham City Council said: “The creative industries are one of the key sectors of growth and expansion in the region. In partnership with 18 organisations across Birmingham, the Equal II: The Last Mile programme has created many opportunities to enrich and support the wide diversity of talent located in this unique city.”

To find out more about the amazing journeys that the beneficiaries and partners have undertaken as part of Equal II: The Last Mile visit www.creativecompass.co.uk.

Unfortunately invitations for the event are now closed. However you can watch the film online.