Saturday 31 March to Sunday 15 April 2007
A series of artist run activities in permanent and temporary spaces throughout central Birmingham.
Launch: Saturday 31 March all venues open 12.00pm to 6.00pm
Launch Party: Saturday 31 March 6.00pm to 9.00pm
Curzon Street Station, Curzon Street, Digbeth, Birmingham B4 7XG
(opposite Millennium Point)
Participating organisations:
a.a.s., Capital Art Projects, Colony, [insertspace], International Project Space, Modulate, Periscope, 7inch Cinema, Spectacle, Springhill Institute
Over the last three years there’s been an unparalleled rise in artist-run activity in Birmingham. This has affected the culture of contemporary art in the West Midlands in a dramatic way. The number of artists choosing to stay and work within the city has increased, and an intensification of artistic production has taken place. Birmingham has a unique sense of identity, and it’s easy to see that the city holds great potential. Its ever-expanding population of artists – together with the inhabitants of the city as a whole – provides a vibrant set of influences for cultural production, and it’s primarily this situation that has started to affect the way that a new network of contemporary art spaces work and position themselves.
As the UK’s second largest city, it seemed important to highlight this increase and acceleration in activity, so in the summer of 2006 Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum (BCAF) was formed to organise a festival to celebrate and amplify this emerging culture. Discussions have recently been translated into the organisation of a set of projects under the umbrella name ‘The Event’. We are now pleased to announce that this festival of contemporary art will take place between Saturday 31 March and Sunday 15 April 2007.
Consisting of exhibitions and performances devised by ten of the brightest young visual art organisations in Birmingham, this sixteen-day celebration will focus on a myriad of event-based practices and exhibitions in such a way as to implicate the whole city into its logic. The organisation a.a.s., for example, will present ‘KR-36’, which aims to incorporate the entire population of Birmingham in an urban game so secret it can only be initially accessed through ‘The Event’s website. In turn, Periscope’s project ‘Chinese Whispers’ will take a.a.s.’ ‘KR-36’ as its starting point, and will use – like other organisations such as Colony, Modulate, Spectacle and Springhill Institute – a set of collaborative ideas to formulate new ways of presenting work within their exhibition space. Colony, for example, will present video work that tests the potential of the medium, while Modulate will host an audio art ‘sound café’ on various days throughout the festival. Spectacle will present a show of sculpture by new practitioners, and Springhill Institute will exhibit new projects alongside evidence of recent artists’ residencies.
[insertspace], 7inch Cinema and Capital Art Projects will take things in another direction. Over one weekend, 7inch Cinema will show the entire sequence of Gangsters, the 1970s TV series that was set in Birmingham, to question the transitory nature of the city’s landscape and geography. [insertspace] have asked a number of artists to make interventions and performances in Birmingham’s network of pubs, while Capital Art Projects’ ‘KIOSK’ – which has been devised as a mobile meeting place – will accommodate a wide range of uses, including audio broadcast, and the distribution of food and printed material. While the aim of 7inch Cinema’s screening is to celebrate the city’s mythical history, [insertspace]’s project intends to rejoice in the city’s fast disappearing traditional pub culture. Capital Art Projects’ venture involves the distribution of propaganda as a socially engaged enterprise within the aforementioned context of the contemporary urban environment.
The launch party will push this theme of urban drift or Situationist dérive further by kicking things off on the evening of Saturday 31 March with performances organised by International Project Space and other participating organisations. After durational actions in the city centre by Simon O’Sullivan and David Burrows, and Aaron Barschak and Mark McGowan, the event will culminate at the party within the decayed grandeur of Digbeth’s Curzon Street Station, which will include spectacular activities by the collaborative group !WOWOW!.
‘The Event’ will continue until Sunday 15 April 2007.
‘New Art Birmingham’ is a separate showcase of emerging regional, national and international artists, and takes place from March 15-18. Visit www.urban-fusion.info/nab, email newart@birmingham.gov.uk or call 0121 464 8555 for more information. New Art Birmingham is funded by Business Link, Arts Council England and Birmingham City Council’s Urban Fusion programme.
For further information, and to receive the ambitious festival brochure or a press pack please email info(at)the-event.org.