The theme for ArtsFest 2009 has been announced and is: Anniversaries and Celebrations. The festival will recognise major anniversaries taking place this year such as:
- The bicentenary of the death of Matthew Boulton.
- The bicentenary of birth of William Penny Brookes.
- The bicentenary of birth of Charles Darwin.
- The 50th anniversary of the Mini
- The 50th anniversary of Motown.
- The 50th anniversary of Barbie.
These big anniversaries link in with other recent arts exhibitions Dreams of Science: The Life of Charles Darwin in the Russian Imagination at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Story of The Supremes at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. If you can think of any more big anniversaries or celebrations please comment.
Do you think Capsules 10th birthday counts;)
1999 – 2009
heres also the tercentenery of the birth of Samuel Johnson,(of dictionary fame). WE recently played at an event celebrating this, and organised by the library so I’m surprised they missed that one!
Lisa – definitely!
2009 also sees the 175th birthday of Town Hall Birmingham…
Moor Street Station is 100 this year.
Such great themes though:
1_ex slave trader
2_founder of the biggest corporate corruption in sport
3_OK we’ll let that one go
4_Is the motor trade on its knees?
5_What about Factory or another British Label – bandwagon or what – sorry about the pun
6_ I give up. I mean, come on please…
Looking forward to seeing the balloon animal making clown though…
Doesn’t the city have any women to celebrate ? Save for Barbie ?
Come on – are we already back in the 1950’s ?
Roger Shannon
All the themes seem a bit odd, Boulton you could make a Brum-centric case for, but ‘Barbie’? Seesh.
I shouldn’t worry too much about them in any case, since Arsfest doesn’t really do any curatorial selection of acts or any direction how will (or would) any themes be realised in the programme?
Nice to see the coming together of Birmingham’s creative community once again.
If we’re not whinging about ArtsFest, it’s CiB, or 4iP, or Creative Republic, or the Jazz Festival or something…
Personally I’m starting to get a little sick of it.
Surely if more of us spent our time coming together to do constructive things in our sector, Birmingham and the Midlands would be taken more seriously by the rest of the UK for our art and design output.
Hmmm – is this REALLY the creative community of Birmingham? There are only 5 comments after all. I know that there are many readers but come on…(and no disrespet to the eminences herein).
Likewise, some distinction needs to be made between whinging and debate. Constructuve criticism and debate are part of a healthy creative community – they have defined the great historical groups of artists, makers, doers. Do away with this in favour of complaints that it is just whingeing and you become corporate cheerleaders…Is that what you want? Coz’ that’s what’ll happen.
If you want to be taken seriously then you have to talk seriously and candidly rather than guard what you say because it might offend or suggest that the ‘community’ is not united. Plenty of creative activity is confrontational and challenging, just as much of it is smug and conservative.
As pointed out elsewhere in CIB, evidence of this anti-debate is in full effect on Dave Harte’s blog for good and bad.
And another thing…after Shannon… Barbie? And he’s right… no women?
Part and parcel of the depolicitised creative sector approach I guess.
I think that this last post and the responses from the mass creative community assembled and evidently whingeing about Artsfest pinpoints some major points.
He’s calling your pint a puff and you’re standing for it!
Or is anyone listening?
I agree with most of the points about the seemingly random anniversaries that seem to be being shoe-horned into becoming themes for Artsfest. And will any of it have a noticeable effect on the work which is programmed? Fundamentally, I think there’s one thing wrong with Artsfest and that’s the obsession with making it ‘the biggest free arts festival in the UK’. It’s quantity over quality and I for one would much rather have ‘the best arts festival in the UK’ and performers actually paid for their hard work.
I don’t know how far into the planning stages Artsfest are into, but hopefully the organisers shall take on board these more Brummie celebrations into the mix. I think it is another case of a innocent brainstorming session making it’s way onto their website before enough research has been done and final decisions made.
I really like the overall theme but as a festival that attempts to combine so many different cultures, practices, partners and venues surely it shouldn’t try incorporating all of these seemingly tenuous links. One consistent theme or rule to the events might give the clarity it has been lacking in previous years.