Due to new challenges over the last 2 years, Rhubarb-Rhubarb has found it necessary to enter a period of transition. The core ethos of the company will remain at the centre of what we do. We will continue to offer support to established photographers whilst also nurturing both regional and world wide talent.

Rhonda Wilson is taking a sabbatical. In her absence a temporary board has been set up to steer the company whilst the management of Rhubarb-Rhubarb has been put in the very capable and safe hands of Lorna-Mary Webb.

The focus of the company for the next twelve months will be with Rhubarb East which will be launching a new web site. This will not just provide our usual information but will develop, as a priority, an online photographic community that networks the photographic client base with image makers.

As this priority demands much of the team’s time in research and development and will use new technologies to offer photographers links with the wider world of image buyers, it is more financially viable to procure this than run this years Rhubarb – Rhubarb festival. We look forward to reigniting the festival in the future when it can run parallel to the online platform.

Rhonda Wilson extends her thanks and gratitude, firstly to her team and temporary board. She also sends out thanks to Arts Council England and of course to the many supporters and friends that have helped Rhubarb-Rhubarb over the course of its inspiring journey.

All the best to Rhonda, Lorna and the rest of the Rhubarb-Rhubarb team.

Rhubarb Rhubarb‘s one day artist development event, The Crossing, is being brought to Birmingham, after the success of it’s London event back in October.

The Crossing: WM will be taking place in The Theatre at The Custard Factory on 26 March, and asks photographers one question – “Are you going to stay where you are, live in the past, or cross over into the new world offered to you through technology, tenacity and a mind shift around money, dependency, what is possible and how it can be achieved?”

With speakers including London based agent David Birkitt, mobile media maker Christian Payne, photographers Ed Clark and Michael Donald, and Benjamin Chesterton & David White of DuckRabbit, the event will cover sessions on ‘Cashing In…Not Selling Out’, ‘Shifting Terrain’ and ‘Photography Still Moving’.

Tickets can be booked online, and are £10 for West Midlands attendees, with transport provided if you’re traveling from Wolverhampton, Walsall, Coventry, Stoke and Hereford. For outside attendees it’s £20.

Arts Council England West Midlands’ Digital Content Development (DCD) Programme is a three year programme of investment which aims to catalyse the creation and creative use of digital content platforms for arts organisations across the West Midlands region

The website went up recently and the map on the homepage shows some of the projects, along with how much money they received. Further information is due on the website at some point, but if you look at the page source then you can glean a little more. On the basis that you probably don’t want to ruin your eyes, here’s what I found:

• Birmingham Repertory Theatre – Towards the development of an online multi-user playwriting resource (£27,884)
• Pesky People – Development of a multiplatform approach to venue access information (£25,000)
• Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum – PostCart: creative digital access of art gallery and museum collections (£24,750)
• Library of Birmingham – Development of an Alternate Reality Game for young people (£23,750)
• Talking Birds Theatre Company – Development of The Difference Engine – a multiplatform real time access tool. Some mention of it here (£1,500 + £20,860)
• The Play House – Develop an online resource to match the company’s participatory ethos (£22,349)
• Eastside Projects and Birmingham City University – Piloting a 3D online art gallery (£22,000)
• The MAC – Playground: exploring the use of digital technologies in a new-built art centre (£20,500)
• Royal Shakespeare Company – Creation of a new digital arena for the creativity of the RSC. Pretty sure this was Such Tweet Sorrow (£20,000)
• Audiences Central – To develop a web platform and plug-in for cross regional arts marketing (£18,000)
• B Arts – Development of a new form of arts centre/collaboration (£17,380)
• Rhubarb Rhubarb – To create an online evaluation tool (£17,000)
• Shropshire County Council – Citizen Journalism (£15,612)
• Rideout – To explore the production of creative digital content engaging youth crime statistics (£15,000)
• Radio To Go – A collaboration with the British Library to pilot an online music archive. Called The Pilot Project (£13,750)
• Rosie Kay Dance Company – To create an online version of the touring production, 5 Soldiers (£12,500)
• Indigo Ltd – The development of a pilot online platform exploring new forms of crowd-source fundraising in the arts (launching soon and called Angel Shares) (£11,750)
• Wolverhampton Arts & Museums / Black Country Museums – Research and Development of a collaborative online resource for the Black Country Museums (£10,550)
• Black Country Touring – Exploration of enhancing a site specific, theatrical experience through live streaming (£10,348)
• Multistory – To create a new media platform for celebrating local stories as part of place-making (£10,235)
• Fierce Festival – Towards a Viral Online research game (£8,253)
• Birmingham Opera – Exploring new models of ownership and sales of published works (£6,737)
• Borderlines Film Festival Ltd – Experimenting with mScapes technologies (£5,600)
• Orchestra of the Swan – Research and development towards a strategic plan (£5,000)
• Capsule – To support digitally enhanced new marketing and distribution opportunities (£4,880)
• Welsh National Opera – research and development of phase one of iMaestro. To allow Welsh National Opera to research digital copyright law and the possibility of exploiting full-length opera samples under the Creative Commons license (info about that here) (£4,600)
• Ikon Gallery – Towards the development of a social media project (£3,500)
• The Other Way Works – Professional development around Augmented Reality and Transmedia (£2,575)
• Ex Cathedra – Market development, engaging an online music aggregator (£1,323)
• Dance Consortium – Exploring social media in relation to contemporary dance marketing (£1,000)
• MADE – To explore the use of digital platforms in placing making (£1,000)

As well as these projects, the programme supported a range of other activities including workshops, innovation labs and other events.

I’ve heard of one or two of these projects, but the vast majority are new to me so it’ll be interesting to hear a little more. I should probably also add that I’m involved in the Rosie Kay Dance Company project – that’ll launch next week so I’ll blab a bit more about it then.

The days were getting longer, which was probably just as well for Rhubarb Rhubarb, who seemed to doing loads. Birmingham presented its final bid for the City of Culture and we crossed our fingers. Temper filled the streets with fashion icons. We looked at the trailer for Soulboy and discovered the blog for Reuben Colley Fine Arts.

The Arts Council announced a 0.5% cut in funding to RFO’s. Boo. We found some familiar faces in Synth Eastwood’s video tomfoolery from the Flatpack Festival. Treasured at the MAC looked good.

Bright Space started looking for people to get involved in Platform and I asked ‘Does Birmingham Future interest you?‘ and got a fairly resounding ‘Um, who?’. Theatre folk came together and spoke easy, the newly opened Zellig hosted the Bass Festival’s Fight The Power exhibition and there was talk of verbalising and visualisation.

Creative Republic launched Invisible City and Marketing Birmingham released a new promotional video for the city that featured a host of creative talent.

Pete took a break from the CiB Shop to give an update 2 weeks in, The Photography Collective formed and held their first meeting and We Are Eastside launched linking up Eastside’s creative organisations. Project Brutal was announced too.

The Bulls Head shared a few mixes from some of their guests and residents, Tindal Street released Alan Apperley’s Indeterminate Creatures, we had a look at As One’s work (as it seemed to be springing up all over the place) and Juice Aleem asked us to rock his hologram, with the video being filmed at Boxxed.

Anyway, I’ve had an invite to the launch of a publication celebrating the ‘vitality, innovation and diversity’ of this group that comprises:

• Bass Festival
• Birmingham Book Festival
• Birmingham International Jazz and Blues Festival
• Fierce Festival
• Flatpack Festival
• Rhubarb Rhubarb
• Supersonic Festival

[* not sure what I’m implying here]

**UPDATE**

Ah, it is a Proper Thing, I’ve found a blog post about it and a picture too:

We’ve never had a caption competition on CiB as far as I can remember. Just a thought…

**Another UPDATE**

Ask and you shall receive – this was submitted to the CiB email address:

Splendid.

Held at New Art Gallery Walsall, AIRTIME is open to practicing visual and applied artists in the West Midlands who are looking for advice on professional matters such as insurance, promotion and funding, along with developing networks and collaborations with like-minded people.

This is a chance to gain information and tips from artists, arts organisations and other experts, including Hencilla Canworth Insurance Brokers, representatives from AIR, a-n, Companis, Coventry Artspace, Craftspace, DACS (Design and Artists Copyright Society), NAN,  New Art Gallery Walsall, Rhubarb Rhubarb, Trove, Walsall City Council Creative Development Team and other arts organisations from the region.

The events are busy and fast-paced, so make sure you have in mind the kind of information you want to get out of this unique opportunity. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come-first-served-basis, with some reserved especially for final year and graduating design students, so pre-booking is essential.

RSVP your name and address to airevents@a-n.co.uk with AIRTIME Walsall in subject box.

The Photography Collective and Birmingham Photospace have teamed up in association with Rhubarb Rhubarb, to bring us Contact. From 3-18 September the Rhubarb East Gallery will play host to a collection of seven emerging photographers working in the West Midlands.

Curated by Kathryn Kliszat from Light House, exhibiting artists are gwbenson, Ian & Mark James (Jimmy Photo), Hannah Rumsby, Jo Hallington, Jasroop Grewal, Rita Fletcher and Matt Murtagh.

The variety of styles and formats challenges the viewer to consider how contact is made between objects both animate and inanimate, between the past and present, between analogue and digital and between photographer and subject.

The exhibition will be open Thursday – Sunday, 11.00am – 5.30pm, and there will also be an Artists’ Talk on Thursday 9 September, at 6.30pm, allowing members of the public to meet the photographers and discuss the stories behind these powerful images.

I was sent this one which publicises Grand Union‘s thing with Justin Carter:

And I picked up this one which is stuffed with the mind-bogglingly long list of events Rhubarb Rhubarb are doing/associated with over the next few weeks:

Btw, if you want half-price tickets to the Photographic Seminar on Thurs 29 July – Where Social Media Meets Fine Art… Or Not – then there’s an offer over on the Birmingham Social Media Cafe website.