Arts & Business Cultural Champion Awards

Thursday was the Arts and Business Cultural Champions Award Ceremony.  I was very excited to attend as both TROVE and Aedas Presents' nominations had been selected to receive the award. 

Leaving the best till last, Neville Topping, Director of Elias Topping and gentleman behind the success of TROVE as he is the one who gave us the keys to the Engine Room of the Old Science and Industry Museum, which has been our home for almost 2 and a half years.

And Marcus Wilkins, Director of Aedas West Midlands, who initiated Aedas Presents and got Kate Eagle and I involved in a project, just 18 months old.

My statement about Neville

Nev and Marcus - our cultural champions!

Nev going to receive his award

Marcus' turn to take the stage 

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Marcus and Kate, Aedas Presents 

CONGRATULATONS!!!

Neville and me! 

The two teams, plus Kate's date for the evening, her dad.

There is a place... at NAG

Yesterday I popped to New Art Gallery Walsall to see the 'There is a place...' show.  The whole exhibition was fantastic, don't think there was a piece I didn't love, here's the blurb followed by some pic's. 

There is a Place...brings together a group of artists who explore our psychic connectivity to landscape.  The drawings, paintings and prints within the exhibition reveal 'a sense of place' as seemingly generic urban and suburban views evoke personal and collective memories.  The reverie of teenage hideouts, suburban housing estates and motorway junctions, each depicted in painstaking detail, are at once familiar yet unnerving for all. 

 
The artists in this exhibition capture the most overlooked and peripheral spaces of our towns and cities, those unremarkable and unclaimed spaces that we each make our own.

Lovely, lovely postcards and sketchbooks from Graham Chorlton's collection

Beautiful pencil drawings by Barry Thompson, it was so nice to see them in the flesh

Laura Oldfield Ford's drawings of Walsall

Christiane Baumgartner

My absolute favourite, Graham Chorlton 

These window paintings and prints by Paul Winstanley were lovely 

The local legend, George Shaw 

And finally, not as part of the 'There is a place...' exhibition but on the same floor, the extraordinary film piece by Zarina Bhimji 'Yellow Patch' 

Aedas Presents in the paper

A couple of weeks ago Aedas Presents was in the Birmingham Post (08.03.12).

Here's a copy of the article highlighting two of our first artists, Hannah Ainsworth and Jo Gane.

IRMINSUL at Perrott's Folly Preview

Last night was the launch of IRMINSUL: YOU ARE LOST at the beautiful Perrott's Folly.  Firstly, the building is amazing, and the little rooms each have their own amazing character.  This exhibition was very sympathetic to the site and some aspects, namely Jordan's, Underwood's and Soul-Grays, were beautiful.

There was a different female artist on each floor, with each responding to their spaces.

On the ground floor, Alexis Soul-Gray beautiful paintings

In the stairwells,  Fiona Eastwood

Second floor, Hannah Turner-Duffin & Gaetan Sigonney 

Third floor, Alex Carr's aluminium prints of ice taken through a macro lens

My essay contribution in a window

Fourth floor, Elizabeth Jordan's magical light projection

Fifth floor, Caroline Underwood

Underwood's star constellations painted onto the windows

Sixth floor, Eleanor Pearce - I loved how the owl's complemented the peeling paint

and at the top of the stairwell another piece by Fiona Eastwood.

Aedas Presents: Illuminate Birmingham - pics

Kings Cross Map App

My lovely friend and occasional curatorial partner, Minnie Weisz, has been involved in a new Guardian App about Kings Cross. On the App she talks about her gallery and its relationship to Kings Cross's history. Below's more info - I'm downloading it as I type...

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release: Wednesday 21 March 2012

GUARDIAN UNVEILS ‘STREETSTORIES’ AUDIO APP FOR KING’S CROSS

Guardian News & Media (GNM) has today launched an experimental mobile app for iPhone and Android, inspired by its London home of King’s Cross.

The free mobile app - ‘King’s Cross, London - Streetstories’ is an immersive audio walking guide with a difference; as users walk through the streets of King’s Cross, the app will automatically activate sounds, music and stories relevant to their GPS location, providing listeners with old and new tales from this part of London.

The app, which can be downloaded via 3G, features ten stories, though there is also a much larger version of the app, Streetstories Extra, available on iPhone which has over 70 stories and about two hours of audio material, downloadable via Wi-Fi. Users can also experience the app away from King’s Cross, by using it in manual mode rather than autoplay mode.

Francesca Panetta, Special Projects Editor in GNM’s multimedia department, who originated the concept, said: “Streetstories is a great way to experience an area in a new way, and we found out all kinds of things about the area during this project - Charles Dickens lived here for some of his childhood, Thomas Hardy worked as a trainee architect helping to clear bodies from St Pancras Old Church, and along York Way, where our building sits, you would have seen cattle being marched down the road from the Caledonian market, once the largest cattle market in Europe.

“With no pre-determined route and no set time length, users wander the area with their eyes wide open rather than pressing buttons, worrying if they are going in the right direction or getting out of sync with their audio tour. It’s also a great example of how technology is helping the Guardian to tell stories in new ways, in this case experimenting with non-linear narratives.”

The apps were produced in-house at the Guardian, and developed in partnership with Calvium, the Bristol-based company behind the AppFurnace app development engine. The Guardian’s UK offices are in the landmark Kings Place development in King’s Cross.

Nina Lovelace, Content Development Manager, GNM, added: “This is a great example of how the Guardian can match its high quality content with innovative technology - whether working alone or with third parties such as Calvium - to quickly create experimental products to test concepts. In this case, investigating the capabilities of, and consumers’ interest in, geolocated audio.

“We’re keen to get feedback from users, as well as talk to any potential clients keen to develop similar apps for their locations, organisations or travel routes.”

-ends-

TROVE second ALLOTMENT install

Today was the second of four ALLOTMENT Plot install days for TROVE.

Here's the TROVE team, working hard, in the Shed.

Here's the blurb about the second show:

Kate Spence has designed the second TROVE cabinet; its door, a silhouetted woman, is inspired by the peep show.  The peep holes, through which the interior of the cabinet can be viewed, are placed on parts of the body that represent knowledge, nurturing, creation and birth, but also pleasure, mystery, the unknown, as well as points of entry and exit. The audience is free to explore and discover her interior world through all of these points.  

Artists within Spence’s cabinet include LizHingley, Bharti Parmar and Helen Snell.

Two pieces, by WillKendrick, are being added to the first/Sophie Bancroft designed TROVE cabinet.

And here are images of the install.

Kate's cabinet arrives...

The cabinet is installed by Silas. 

Will Kendrick arrives with his work, me and my assistant, Lauren, help unpack his pieces. 

 Everything in situ.

Will Kendrick's pieces in Sophie Bancroft's cabinet.

A closer look through Kate Spence's cabinet peep holes reveals...

Objects from Liz Hingley's 'Objects of Heavenly Trade' collection

A locket entitled 'Mizpah' by Bharti Parmar 

And two beautiful laser cut pieces by Helen Snell.

Finally, here's Bharti looking at her piece in the cabinet.