Birmingham studios

Just a little light reading as a quick follow-up to the studio conversation to tide you over until Self Service releases the official summary…

The Birmingham Post has followed up on the debate at the event with an article about studio spaces in Birmingham.

Here are a few extracts that stood out for me and an indication as to possible routes for discussion/action to take as a response (sorry it’s quite cryptic but I’m away from home at the moment and not really in the right frame of mind to write anything more substantial):

Birmingham accepts the principle in its published creative strategies and ought, on the face of it, to be well placed to work with artists in helping to lift vast, run-down areas like Eastside. But for some reason it seems to have more difficulty in translating theory into practice than its rivals.

Terry Grimley on regeneration and competition between cities to attract investment and footloose young professionals

Jumping off points:

• Working with artists.
• Following up on pledges put into print.
• Attracting new people into the city in contrast to that of keeping hold of the people who are here already. (The issue of graduate retention is briefly mentioned later on in the article.)
• Rivalries between cities?

The studio situation is really difficult. The council says it wants all this stuff but you have to create structures to support people. It’s completely out of kilter with every other major city for the council not to be making empty buildings available.

quoting Ruth Claxton, artist

–verb (used with object)
1. to bear or hold up (a load, mass, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for.
dictionary definition for ‘support’, my emphasis

Artists are key cultural assets for any city. Whenever a trade delegation visits Bristol nowadays, they are always taken to Spike Island. Artists need places to make work, and we have to address the whole question of artists’ workspaces. I feel it’s a joint responsibility between the city and the Arts Council.
quoting David Drake, Head of Visual Arts at ACE West Midlands

Jumping off points:

• Using a bottom-up approach (with suitable top-down support at times).
• Artists need places to make work – it’s not all about galleries and exhibitions and showcase events.
• “Birmingham will get a reputation as a vibrant, creative, international city when it becomes a vibrant, creative, international city”. (Attempt at paraphrasing a commenter somewhere on CiB, I think).
• Fundamental changes vs glossy patches.
• Creating flexible frameworks around which people can build their own activities and value as appropriate to the work that they do and the way that they do it.

buy, buy, buy!

Just in time to coordinate with the Artgos exhibition/event the invisible hand is now back open for business.

I experimented with a print-on-demand service earlier this year and, having just received a trial print of the new genzaichi/you are here T-shirt, I’m happy to say it passes the quality control test and the shop is now live and open for business!

The incentive for the invisible hand came about after increasing frustration that I’d already put all my own spare money into a few major projects – thus leaving me reliant on external funding for upcoming ideas I wanted to develop further. This is ok for some things, but I’d rather not be completely dependent on Arts Council and the like anyway, and sometimes you just need to be able to access some cash on a timescale of less than two months.

This has increasingly been the case as my practice simultaneously moves further into areas that are difficult to describe in a funder-friendly manner (what exactly are the outcomes going to be?) and that need me to be responsive to things happening around me.

The invisible hand was therefore developed as a way for my practice to become more self-supporting. Rather than selling actual artworks (I don’t usually produce objects), I’ve gathered together some of the core ideas that run through my work and I’m now selling products that relate to those. It will also come into play during 2008 in relation to a few publishing projects I’m working on. Watch this space…

So, if you fancy a t-shirt with an obscure Japanese railway reference (niche market?) or some badges bearing manifesto-esqe statements, the invisible hand is the retail outlet for you!

Payments are all handled via PayPal and absolutely all of the profit goes into a pot that will only be used in the production of art works. I’ve indicated by each item approximately how much from each sale goes into the project fund.

I’m in two minds about whether to develop any invisible hand branding or not, but I’m thinking it would be really nice to be able to add an invisible hand logo alongside any others that may have supported a project. I want to be able to say somehow that “this work wasn’t all funded by government hand-outs y’know!”.

What do you think?

Artgos

Starting today and running until the 15th of December, Artgos will be at the Merrion Market in Leeds.

This Christmas artsparkle presents Artgos, a new catalogue store in the heart of Leeds’ shopping district! A collaboration between Artsparkle and theartmarket, Artgos will be selling work by big name artists alongside fresh talent working with multiples, those fabulous, affordable artworks that make such great stocking fillers. Come along to the catalogue shop for a unique shopping experience, see performance artists in full flow, and kick-start your contemporary art collection for as little as £1!
Artgos website

Counsel for the Artist will be there in the form of some packs of postcards made especially for the event.

Each pack contains one postcard for each of the following statements:

• Make exchanges with spaces
• Strive to achieve modest connections
• Set your own agenda
• Add to a culture of learning and experimentation
• Get the message across
• Meet a new network
• Resist the ascribed role of witness
• Circumnavigate predictability

When I’ve shown them before I’ve been struck by how much these have resonated with other people – not just artists – so with any luck this will be a good opportunity to get the statements circulating into some interesting places.

There’s a veritable flotilla of links relating to the Artgos event, including the main Artgos website here.

If the Flickr stream is anything to go by, a lot of work has gone into preparing the space:

I’m digging the order forms! Hopefully some images of the opening party will also be added later.

If you can’t get along to The Art Market in person, I have limited numbers of map-wrapped Counsel for the Artist postcards available through the invisible hand shop.

pub(lic) conversation relocated

Update 02/12/2007: and now we’re pushing the capacity of VIVID too!

Demand for places at this event has been very high. If you have already booked and happen to have a fold up chair or cushion handy please feel free to bring it with you as we may be slightly short on seating.

There are (very) few spaces left, BUT BOOKING IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY, PLEASE EMAIL selfservice@hotmail.com ASAP TO BOOK

PLEASE DON’T JUST TURN UP – WE CANNOT GUARANTEE WE WILL BE ABLE TO LET YOU IN IF YOU HAVEN’T BOOKED.

Self Service mailing list

We’ve had so many people book places for the upcoming Pub(lic) Conversation about studio provision and support for artists in Birmingham that we’ve had to find an alternative venue.

Shame, because the Lamp is a crackin’ good pub.

The open discussion will now be held at VIVID. For those of you who haven’t got experience of Digbeth warehouse spaces, make sure you wrap up warm.

Unfortunately the new venue does not have a bar so you may want to bring your own (in addition to the extra jumper) if you feel you can’t wait until after to visit one of the local hostelries.

There may be a small budget for refreshments, and possibly a tea urn too!

Same as before though, please email selfservice@hotmail.co.uk to book a place.

PUB(LIC) CONVERSATION ABOUT STUDIOS AND ARTISTS WORKSPACE IN BIRMINGHAM

Tuesday 4th December, 7.30pm
VIVID,
140 Heath Mill Lane,
Birmingham.
B9 4AR

Guest speaker and host, Lucy Byatt, Director of Spike Island, Bristol.

In December, after a six month stay of execution, Birmingham Artists will lose the subsidy for their studios at Lee Bank. This space was the only Birmingham City Council subsidised artists’ workspace in the city. Meanwhile other studios (including those the majority of Self Service members inhabit) are in privately owned buildings that are often cold, damp, insecure and uninsurable.

Self Service feel this most recent withdrawal of support for artists’ practice, should act as a catalyst for a wider discussion about the lack of affordable, fit for purpose studio provision and production facilities in the city

• How should artists in Birmingham respond to the council’s action?
• Could artists be doing more to demonstrate the intrinsic value of arts practice to the city?
• Are successful models for studio provision just about providing artists with space to work?
• Is the Creative Industries agenda at odds with the realities of most artists’ practice?

With these, and many more, questions in mind we have have invited Lucy Byatt to host a pub(lic) conversation around this issue.

Everyone is welcome, though as we are limited by space, booking is essential.
PLEASE EMAIL selfservice@hotmail.co.uk TO BOOK A PLACE.

Spike Island is a national centre for the production and exhibition of contemporary art. Located in Bristol, Spike offers excellent studios as well as project and exhibition space for the making and showing of ambitious new work. Spike Island emerged from an artist run initiative developed in the late 70’s, Bristol Art Space. Whilst it is no longer ‘artist run’ the values of support to artists and those developing their career within the contemporary visual arts remains a high priority.

Lucy Byatt has been Artistic Director at Spike Island in Bristol since September ‘02. In her five years at Spike Island her role has been to build the vision and create the organisational change required to enable her to deliver the recently completed £2.25m capital development. Spike Island has retained its generous number of low cost studios and created new space within the building to establish the Associate Programme so providing access for many more people developing a path within the visual arts. The galleries, right at the heart of the building, now refurbished, are amongst the most exciting spaces in the UK. The much improved residency studio space has enabled Spike Island to enlarge the International Residency Programme so creating a web of networks across Europe and beyond.

Previous to this she was based in Glasgow, where in 1993 she did the MFA at Glasgow School of Art, and Concordia University Montreal. In 1995 she joined Visual Art Projects as co-director, balancing her own practice as an artist with the demands of working with this newly formed arts commissioning organisation. During her four years at VAP the agency became influential, commissioning some of the most ambitious artist’s projects in public space in Scotland. In 1999 she left VAP to establish The Centre also based in Glasgow, an agency again focussed on artists working in the public domain, The Priority for The Centre was to build a critical context for this work through discussion, collaboration, conferences and publications.

For more information see www.spikeisland.org.uk

Currently Self Service is Tom Bloor, Jo Capper, Mona Casey, Faye Claridge, Ruth Claxton, Greg Cox, John Hall, Cheryl Jones, Nikki Pugh, Liz Rowe and Matt Westbrook.

For more information see www.pubconversations.co.uk

link and ShiftSpace

A ShiftSpace remix of a blog YouTube remix of the junicho renga ‘A Circle of Fire’ by Paul Conneally.

pub(lic) conversation

Update 25th Nov: we’ve had to relocate to VIVID, more details here…

Returning from a hiatus of a few months, Pub Conversations is back with a slight variation in the format in order to address the urgent issue of studio provision within the city.

I’m assuming Tindal St. and Lee Bank will have their share of representation, but there has to be more to Brum’s studios than that so it would be good to see some new faces to share their views. Likewise we’d love to hear from recent graduates who are maybe looking for somewhere to operate from – what do you want and what would be workable for you?

I’m not sure if this one will be podcast, so make sure to book a place via selfservice@hotmail.co.uk

Here’s the information from the mailout:

PUB(LIC) CONVERSATION ABOUT STUDIOS AND ARTISTS’ WORKSPACE IN BIRMINGHAM

Tuesday 4th December, 7.30pm
The Lamp Tavern,
257 Barford Street,
Birmingham.
B5 6AH

VIVID,
140 Heath Mill Lane,
Birmingham.
B9 4AR

Guest speaker and host: Lucy Byatt, Director of Spike Island, Bristol.

In December, after a six month stay of execution, Birmingham Artists will lose the subsidy for their studios at Lee Bank. This space was the only Birmingham City Council subsidised artists’ workspace in the city. Meanwhile other studios (including those the majority of Self Service members inhabit) are in privately owned buildings that are often cold, damp, insecure and uninsurable.

Self Service feel this most recent withdrawal of support for artists’ practice, should act as a catalyst for a wider discussion about the lack of affordable, fit for purpose studio provision and production facilities in the city

• How should artists in Birmingham respond to the council’s action?
• Could artists be doing more to demonstrate the intrinsic value of arts practice to the city?
• Are successful models for studio provision just about providing artists with space to work?
• Is the Creative Industries agenda at odds with the realities of most artists’ practice?

With these, and many more, questions in mind we have have invited Lucy Byatt to host a pub(lic) conversation around this issue.

Everyone is welcome, though as we are limited by space, booking is essential. Please email selfservice@hotmail.co.uk to book a place.

Lucy Byatt was educated at Brighton University, Glasgow School of Art and Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. In 1995, after working as an artist over a number of years, she joined Visual Art Projects in Glasgow as Co-Director and in 2000 she established The Centre, an independent commissioning organization where she worked with artists including Graham Fagan, Toby Paterson, Simon Starling, Siobhan Hapanska and Vong Phaophanit

Spike Island is a national centre for the production and exhibition of contemporary art. Located in Bristol, Spike offers excellent studios as well as project and exhibition space for the making and showing of ambitious new work. Spike Island emerged from an artist run initiative developed in the late 70’s, Bristol Art Space. Whilst it is no longer ‘artist run’ the values of support to artists and those developing their career within the contemporary visual arts remains a high priority.

For more information about the Pub Conversations series see www.pubconversations.co.uk

Currently, Self Service is Tom Bloor, Jo Capper, Mona Casey, Faye Claridge, Ruth Claxton, Greg Cox, John Hall, Cheryl Jones, Nikki Pugh, Liz Rowe, Charlotte Smith and Matt Westbrook

invigilator 4

Like the memorial in the park, all I really feel confident about saying regarding each of the pieces in the Invigilator series at the moment is simply that they happened.

Nuneaton: George Eliot and Invigilator were here.

my new camel

This morning I went along for an introductory visit to the local primary school where I will be doing a project with some of the students.

I found myself in the staffroom with some teachers fresh from an assembly where they’d had two dancers performing. One thing led to another and suddenly the conversation had evolved into the one about Not Getting Modern Art. You know the one – it always starts with The Bricks and The Bed.

I let it go. I didn’t have the heart to introduce myself as the artist who’d just been asked to do something with the reception class’ bricks.

Observation became participation after stepping in to perform banana-opening duties at break time and the food-related theme continued with invisible chocolate soup and an invisible glass of wine with cream on top.

You gotta love it.

4649ing

Well, I’m feeling like a proper 4649 veteran now, but it’s actually only 3 weeks today that I was first invited to join Kissa Hanare‘s project!

Taking part has raised all sorts of interesting questions: not least about my own lack of political awareness of what’s going on in my own country. I haven’t got anywhere close to answering those, but in the meantime I wanted to note down a few thoughts about my photographic contribution.

going for the chat jugular

In the introductory post I challenged you, dear reader, to take some images of the 4649 stickers that would stimulate a chat. Having already challenged myself to do likewise I had previously gone into Birmingham’s city centre and headed straight for two obviously very charged locations: the Hall of Memory and the Peace Gardens.

Yikes! Red poppies everywhere! Giant red poppies. hmmmm, not sure what I feel about that, think it’s possibly crossed a line somewhere…. (Oh, and by the way, Happy Christmas Birmingham)

Heading off somewhere equally disturbing in the opposite direction, I also suddenly became aware of how noble and, well, perfect the statues around the Hall of Memory are.

What exactly are we saying here?

… and how do I want to use the stickers to respond to it?

After a fairly predictable set of images involving statues and red telephone boxes I headed off down past the Mailbox towards the Peace Gardens – a distant memory from first-uni days and the number 44 bus up from the Vale.

public notice

This is when I started getting a bit more creative and started incorporating parts of existing signage into my images. Sod possible language barriers, this was much more interesting. I also loved the ambiguity that came from me not actually knowing what the text on the stickers says, or in what tone it says it.

What happens to 九条死守夜露四苦 when you put it next to a sign that says “For how long?”?

Anyway, I felt using the stickers to react to more subtle details in the city landscape was a lot more interesting.

round-up

I probably spent about an hour and a half taking photos and have whittled the results down to 39 which I’ve uploaded to a Flicker set.

Which ones are most successful and why? (How do you judge success for something like this?)

meanranch, while at the back…

I just want to say a big thankyou to everyone who responded to the mailout and have requested stickers either from myself or directly from Hanare.

There’s not much time left before the Monday-night event, but you can still print off a few if you’d like to contribute.

Of the original batch of stickers Hanare gave me I’ve given away 11 to people who wanted to join in and I’m now left with just one. Where should I put it? Should I go for a good photo, should I stick it somewhere it’ll get left up for a while, or should I seek out somewhere where it’s likely to be seen by people who can read the text?

Kissa Hanare and the 4649 project

Every Monday (but not holidays, they don’t like to work on holidays!) Naho, Yufuko and Sakiko transform a Kyōto living-room into Kissa Hanare – something I like to think of as Café Independence (…but I’m now told the detached-ness I was inferring from dictionary searches is just an architectural reference). Not only does Hanare provide a menu of, where possible, locally-sourced, organic food, but they also work hard to create an atmosphere in which they and their guests can freely address a range of pertinent social and political issues.

In my limited experience, I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of Japanese culture, but I have a small sense of how difficult it must be to create this type of space. (Hell, I can’t even really imagine it happening here!) What’s more, judging by the blog, I believe they’ve managed to make it sustainable to the extent that the project’s been running for at least 18 months now. Impressive!

Regular café nights are interspersed with lectures, workshops and larger projects.

4649 and Article 9

4649 (representing “yoroshiku” – a Japanese term I’m not even going to begin to try and translate, let alone the significance here) is Hanare’s latest project and they’d like to ask you for your support.

Since 1947, Japan has had a pacifist constitution arising from Article 9.

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. wikipedia

Its exact origin is disputed, as has been its interpretation by successive governments. As you can imagine, there has recently been increasing talk from various Japanese politicians of revising this article.

I’m not going to start passing judgement here based on a few articles I found on the internet, however what I do feel strongly about is that there should be a space for Article 9 and the potential consequences of amending it to be highlighted and discussed freely amongst people who are not politicians.

I’ve exchanged emails a few times with Sakiko recently. Here’s how she introduced me to the 4649 project (slightly edited, my emphasis):

…we are planning to have a t-shirt silk-screening party on November 12th, in which we will print images of a Japanese gangster with the statement written also in the gangster style font that opposes amendment of the Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which prohibits Japan from possessing any military force and use it to solve international conflicts.

Additional Information about Article 9

Article 9 is, in a way, an apology for neighbouring countries for what Japan did before and during WWII, as well as a promise that we will never become a militaristic country. The Japanese government has been attempting to transform the beautiful part of this constitution for a long time, yet have met huge opposition from Japanese people. Since Koizumi, though, the danger of the article being amended has been greater than ever, and we want to do something about it.

Here is what we are planning to do for the party. Prior to the party, we will print tons of stickers with the same image and send to those of you living abroad and outside of Kyoto. And I want you to put the stickers out on the street and take pictures of them and send to us, which we will project as a slideshow at the party and upload to a Flicker site. People attending the event are able to see the image in other parts of the world, and hopefully feel that we are not alone. Showing the photos is really critical because based on my experiences in Japan, we are so isolated from the rest of the world, physically, and mentally.

By showing the pictures, I want people to have a sense that what we are fighting matters, and is supported by people abroad, NY, SF, BCN, Pula, London, etc. plus, Japanese people living abroad might see the image too!

Here is an idea behind the image. In contrast to the States and Europe where there is a very sophisticated visual resistance culture, Japan lacks it so badly that young people here have a hard time getting involved with political activity. By taking the aesthetic of Japan’s gangster culture and twisting its violent and rather nationalistic representation, and saying goodbye to the conventional peace movement images like the dove, we are hoping to encourage Japanese young people that there are many creative ways to express their opinions.

Sakiko

Here is the image she’s talking about:

A challenge to you

There’s a nice quote I came across whilst Googling stuff earlier:

To reach consensus in democracy, it is necessary to guarantee a free space where even the oppressed can express their opinion without concern for logical consistency and truth. The fact that chats have been neglected as the fundamental element of democracy shows that past democracy has been only for the few who could speak logically and consistently.Polylog

It doesn’t bear close scrutiny, but there’s a few nuggets in there that resonate strongly with how I perceive Hanare. My challenge to you is to use that graphic above to make an image that stimulates a chat at Hanare (or beyond).

Remember the aims are a) to have the sticker on the street and preferably somewhere that is obviously not Japan and/or b) to demonstrate the potential of creative techniques to express an opinion.

You could be provocative:

You could be subtle:

You could be surreal:

You could be terribly, terribly British (or whatever):

Useful bits of information

• The event at Hanare is on Monday the 12th of November, so that’s the deadline to aim for.
• To get some stickers you can contact Hanare at kissahanare[AT]yahoo.co.jp, they’ll take about a week to arrive.
• To get some stickers you can contact me, I’ve got a handful spare.
• To bypass the stickers and get started right away you can print the image from this file.
• Email your photos to Hanare to add to their Flickr page. (Don’t forget to tell them where the photos were taken.)
• Follow what’s going on on the Kissa Hanare blog

Can’t be bothered?

Here are some suggestions for some low-energy ways of showing some support for Hanare:

• Forward this post’s link to people you know and spread the word.
• If you have a Flickr account, add 4649 Project as a contact.
• Subscribe to the Kissa Hanare blog feed: http://cafekyoto.exblog.jp/atom.xml

I’m sure you can think of others – be creative!

update: I wrote a little about the photos I took in this later post.