ArtsCulture » event

Pop_up events and first birthday bash

artsculture — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:21:03 +0000

Pop_up, the creative arts evening of networking and sharing ideas is in Exeter on Thursday, November 10.

The Exeter event takes place upstairs at the Oddfellows Bar at 6.30pm.

Two week’s later, Pop_up’s in Taunton, at the Cosy Club in the town on Thursday, November 24 at 6.30pm.

And doesn’t time fly! The organisation is celebrating it’s first birthday on Wednesday, December 14 at the Barrel House, Totnes, with party games and prizes galore. The fun kicks off at their preferred time of 6.30pm.

Follow the goings on with the Pop_up family on their website, Facebook and Flickr pages

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Emerging artists take over Plymouth College of Art in E L E V E N

artsculture — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 15:48:09 +0000

Emerging artists on first year degree programmes at Plymouth College of Art have curated their first exhibition which took place at Plymouth Arts Centre on Looe Street.

The project, entitled E L E V E N, involved a team of 11 students getting to grips with curatorial strategy as they planned the exhibition from start to finish in a timeframe of just 11 weeks.

The students’ work represented a range of disciplines including Fine Art, Photography, Illustration and Applied Arts such as glass, ceramics and metal work. All the work was brought together under the central theme of ‘time’, which was primarily a response to the curatorial framework within the British Art Show 7.

The opening evening at Plymouth Arts Centre was packed with around 100 visitors, representing a fantastic opportunity for the students to talk about their work and network with other creative practitioners. Their work was then exhibited for a further five days with students taking it in turns to invigilate.

Plymouth College of Art Lecturer Maddy Pethick is immensely proud of her students and. She told ArtsCulture: “The students were really buzzing with their success at the opening evening and with so many visitors there was a vibrant and exciting atmosphere.”

Throughout the project students were able to develop their skills of collaboration, compromise and marketing whilst gaining a greater understanding of the hard work that goes in to putting on an exhibition.

Maddy said: “The students have successfully built links and tapped into the creative ecology of Plymouth, which is of huge significance.”

Caroline Mawdsley, education and outreach Curator at Plymouth Arts Centre, enjoyed the opportunity to work collaboratively with Plymouth College of Art students. She helped the students see the project through saying: “11 weeks ago the students began by mapping out their fantasy project and some of the students managed to achieve this. Even though several students were displaying their own individual work, the whole group pulled together to operate as a team, each bringing their own unique skills to the project.”

The students exhibited their work alongside other artists working in the UK, Canada and Netherlands (as curated by one of the students) and throughout the project the students were in dialogue with Project Space 11, CCANW, Take a Part and U:1. One student created a catalogue of all the students’ work in the form of a ‘zine’ while another student focused his work around the memories of people who remember the old Plymouth Zoo.

There is still the chance to see the fantastic work of these students at the Plymouth College of Art Summer Show. This is taking place at the main college site at Tavistock Place from June 20 to June 29. Weekday opening times are 9am to 8:30pm and on Saturday the show will be open from 9am to 4.30pm. Admission is free and more information can be found at www.plymouthart.ac.uk/Summershows

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Pop_up creative networking events in Taunton and Totnes

artsculture — Mon, 23 May 2011 10:44:12 +0000

The Pop_up creative networking event has spread into Taunton from Totnes – and there are events coming up at both venues in the coming weeks.

The next Taunton Pop_up is on Thursday, May 26 and Pop_up pops up again in Totnes on June 2, at the Barrel House.

Showcase your work/ ideas in the pop_up flickr group and on the big screen at the event. You can submit screengrabs of your blogs, photography, graphics, video or anything at all as long as we can project it .

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Ancient rites, art and festivals combine in the Green Man’s visit to Exeter

artsculture — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:06:22 +0000

Art, ancient rites and festivals combine in Exeter on Monday, March 21 when the Green Man makes his way into the town to bring in the spring equinox, leave original art work, and give people the chance to win tickets to events at the Exeter Phoenix.

The Green Man-spotting event, which will take place between 5.30am and noon on Monday, March 21, ties in with the community radio station in Exeter, Phonic FM, and the city’s music festival, Vibraphonic.

The Green Man’s journey will be followed closely by DJ Sketch and Dr Site during a radio special on Exeter’s favourite community station phonic.fm. Studio guests will provide expert knowledge and discussion about the Green Man’s history and appearances across the centuries. Listeners can also join in the chase by phoning or emailing the station to report sightings of the Green Man throughout the morning.

Dr Site told ArtsCulture: “The stonemasons who built Exeter Cathedral were very familiar with the Green Man. There are more images of the old fella carved into the Cathedral than
there are of superstar saints. Green Man seems to know this place very well.

“These are vernal times. March 21 will once again become a significant date on the city calendar. If the Green Man gets a good welcome he may become a hardy annual visitor.”

See the story on the People’s Republic of South Devon for more information.

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Encounters Shop at the Dartington Gallery aims to stimulate community exchange

artsculture — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:13:23 +0000

The Dartington Hall Trust has commissioned a participatory arts company Encounters to host a project at Dartington that explores how change and transition can affect and potentially transform individuals and communities.

The project is based in the old grocery shop – now The Gallery – on the Dartington estate. The Encounters ‘Shop’ is intended to provide a friendly and informal space for Dartington staff, visitors and the local community to share their thoughts about Dartington’s past, present and future.

Encounters specialises in working with communities at times of transformational change and this will be the seventh ‘shop’ space that the company has set up across the UK since 2003.

Encounters creative director, Ruth Ben-Tovim, told Artsculture: “We’re temporarily returning The Gallery at the heart of the estate to its original function as a ‘shop’. However, rather than money and goods exchanging hands, the shop has become a space for the exchange of dialogue, memories, stories, experiences and ideas about Dartington – and a way for the community to come together in that exchange.

“The Encounters Shop will be open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11am to 5pm (7pm on Wednesdays) until April 18 for people to drop in. There will also be a mobile version of the ‘shop’ that will visit different community groups and local events. The outcome of the Encounters project will be a living installation built around the contributions and stories of those who have taken part.”

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Get crafty and animated at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery for Animated Exeter

artsculture — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:18:43 +0000

The Thelma Hulbert Gallery has joined forces with Animated Exeter for an unusual, entertaining exhibition which promises to unravel the boundaries between craft and animation.

A public participation artwork will be constructed and filmed during the Crafty Animators, show which is running and the resulting animated short will be shown as part of the festival on Saturday, February 26.

Crafty Animators at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery runs until March 5 and features animations which are linked by the broad theme of craft. Skills such as knitting, lace-making and clay throwing have all played their part in some of well-known animated shorts. It’s even been known to work the other way, with crafts people using animation to create stunning and intriguing contemporary pieces.

Visitors of all ages will be able to get crafty themselves at the gallery during the exhibition by participating in an ever evolving stop motion film being made in The Special Projects Room, which is sure to bring a smile to everyone’s faces during the bleakest part of the year.

A free family animation workshop is planned for Wednesday, February 23. The gallery also has Catherine Cartwirght from Double Elephant as an Artist in Residence during February and you can pop along to see her turn her prints into animation.

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RAMM’s £17,000 lacquerware bowl to go on display at talk on the museum’s collection

artsculture — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:23:44 +0000

Golden Fields of Rice: Exeter RAMM will display its Golden Fields of Rice during a talk on its collection of lacquerware

Golden Fields of Rice by Mutsumi Suzuki and other items from RAMM’s lacquerware collection will be displayed at a talk on Japanese lacquerware at St Nicholas Priory on Wednesday, December 8.

Golden Fields of Rice is an intricately crafted modern lacquered container with gold motifs. RAMM won the exquisite £17,000 bowl in May 2010 at COLLECT, the Crafts Council’s international art fair.

The lacquerware display will complement a lunchtime talk by Dr Monika Bincsik from the Art Research Centre at Kyoto’s Ritsumeikan University.

Dr Bincsik is one of the foremost authorities on Japanese lacquerware. Her talk will trace the history of Kyoto lacquers from the Edo period (1615 to 1868) through to contemporary masters. She will focus on the art of Mutsumi Suzuki (1942-2009) who created innovative lacquerwork inspired by the traditions of Kyoto, always one of the most important centres of lacquer production.

Entitled Lacquerwork from the Ancient Capital of Japan, Dr Bincsik’s talk starts at 1pm. £3 tickets are available from Exeter Visitor Information and Tickets, Dix’s Field, Princesshay, Exeter EX1 1GF. Tel: 01392 665885.

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make-shift networked performance premiere to go online

artsculture — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:34:10 +0000

make-shift live, online, interactive performance event that explores connectedness... and don't forget the plastic!

There couldn’t be a more appropriate time for the make-shift performance to hit the airwaves and the psyche. With the issue of remote working revisited after the bad weather, make-shift takes the idea one step further to provide a live and interactive performance straight onto your laptop on Sunday, December 5 at 3.30pm (GMT).

The performance will take place online and be led by Helen Varley Jamieson at the Magfest in Turin, and Paula Crutchlow in Beaford Arts Centre, Devon. Each venue will have a live audience and people can pop in to have a look and take part on the internet, too.

It’s billed as part recital, part discursive salon and the performance uses online audio-visual conferencing, chat and performance tools to connect two ordinary living-rooms and their audiences across geographical and cultural distance – ‘it’s about getting together with others and having a rant’.

The premise of the event is that each artist is hosted in a separate house or domestic-type space to perform for an audience gathered by the host. There will be audience participation and discussion ‘facilitated through provocations’ and suggestions from the performers and enabled through the technologies.

The actions of performers and audience in each house will be brought together in a third online space which will be visible and audible to the proximal audiences in each house but also available as a stand-alone work to be viewed by online audiences in Upstage.

Helen and Paula met in Wellington’s theatre scene in the mid-90s. After Paula returned to the UK in 1999 they remained in contact, and last year began to conceive of a collaborative work that they could develop within the realities of their lives.

Here’s part of Paula’s reflections from an early residency for make-shift. “In 1996 I went on a short course [Helen] was running on internet skills for women and I returned to England in 1999 with a brand new hotmail address (that I had to go to Streatham Public Library to access). I bought my first mobile phone, got gifted a reconditioned PC from my software designer cousin and found that I could maintain my friendships on the other side of the world with a speed I wasn’t used to. It made me miss people more somehow.”

For the performance, people have been asked to bring with them all the plastic they’ve used in the 24-hour period before the show.

“Our research has been broad and we’re now narrowing things down,” Helen said during the creation of make-shift.

“For example, I became completely obsessed about plastic, then that research has lead to the idea of disposability, and what that means in our consumerist lifestyle at the smallest domestic level as well as globally. At the same time we are exploring disposability from a more philosophical perspective.”

A key element to make-shift as a performance is that Paula and Helen can pick up, pack up and take with it with them when it’s time to move on again.

And as it can be taken away and reinstated at the drop of a hat, you could host a make-shift performance yourself. All you need is a broadband connection, space for 15 people and enough plugs (among other things).

But first, pop along to the premiere performance of make-shirt, which takes on Sunday, December 5 simultaneously at 3.30pm Beaford Arts Centre (Devon, UK) and 4.30pm Magfest Torino (Italy) and online (find the time it starts in your neck of the woods). There is information about the project on the make-shift page on the creative catalyst site, which is where online audiences will find a live link to the event at the time of the performance.

Online audiences are welcome to arrive from 3.20pm GMT for pre-show chat. There will be a discussion after the performance and the event will finish at around 5.30pm GMT

And don’t forget the plastic!

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24 Hours of Play with Strictly Collaborative

artsculture — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 12:01:15 +0000

Strictly Collaborative is calling for people to join in their multi-disciplined durational performance 24 Hours of Play.

This event will bring together performers, artists, dancers, photographers, film makers, to play for 24 hours.

24 Hours of Play is a 24-hour fundraising event to raise money for the theatre group’s new production.

The fundraising idea is based on collaboration and play between different disciplines, and at the moment the line up of events that cover open-mic, orchestra, contact improvisation, comedy, clowning, body painting, performance art, carnival activities including tarot cards, paper aeroplane contests, sports day, truth or dare, and there’s room for more ideas, too.

Strictly Collaborative is a disabled-led inclusive theatre company for 13 to 25 year olds of all abilities and brings together able and disabled performers together to share a voice.

24 Hours of Play, which will take place on October 16-17, aims to raise around £500 for the theatre company and help create the next performance, a production exploring the routine of everyday lives.

For more information or to sponsor the event, get in touch with Strictly Collaborative on their website

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Red Ball art and education installation to inspire South Devon in the lead up to the Olympics

artsculture — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:13:39 +0000

An artwork that has toured around the world will soon be taking a trip around the South West in a trial that will lead up to the 2012 Olympics.

The Dartington Hall Trust has teamed up with New York-based artist Kurt Perschke and professional coaches Neil Kirkby and Steve Williams to run a pilot interactive art and education project at Dartington Primary School this September. The pilot is the first stage of a two-tier project that will develop into a large-scale education and touring arts programme in the lead up to the Olympic Games in 2012.

The pilot education aspect of the project saw Year 5 and 6 pupils at Dartington Primary School encouraged to discover their passions and interests, encouraged to identify and nurture aspirations and guided to create an action plan for achieving their dreams.

Each child was given a box as a visual aid for the process. The pupils were challenged to decorate the exterior of the box to representation their life experiences while filling the box with symbols to reflect their ambitions.

The idea takes inspiration from the popular trilogy of the Red Rubber Ball motivational publications by the social agent and speaker Kevin Carroll.

The public art aspect of the project will see Kurt Perschke’s 15ft diameter Red Ball art installation tour around South Devon and across the South West in 2012. Since 2001 the huge interactive ball has toured to cities around the globe, including Toronto, Sydney, Taipei and Barcelona. The artist is currently based at Dartington while making a series of site visits to possible locations across the South West. This will be the first time the ball will tour a whole region. Plans are afoot to take the Ball to Weymouth in the run-up to the Olympic Games, before leaving the South West for London.

Kurt told ArtsCulture: “People respond to the RedBall in different ways. All sorts of things happen, people want to take photos, they jump against it and so on. And then there’s another level to the project, which is about imagination. On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it. It opens a doorway to imagine ‘What if?’.”

In the South West, the RedBall’s journey around the region will serve as a link between the schools taking part – an aim of the final project is to reach at least 50 schools in the South West. Much of the work with the schools will be documented and presented on the Dartington website as a resource to inspire other children from outside the immediate region and inform policy makers.

Kurt Perschke is an artist in sculpture, video, collage and public space who has exhibited work all around the world.

The innovative project follows on from last year’s TaskForce initiative, led by artist Stephan Koplowitz, which saw public contemporary dance performed in outdoor spaces throughout Plymouth.

• Read Helen Snell’s diary of being involved in the TaskForce Liquid Landscapes on ArtsCulture

Here’s Kurt Perschke talking about the Red Ball project

Find out more on Dartington’s RedBall page

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