Revolutions 10-13 // A Certain Sensibility: Films from the English Underground
Thu 06 – Sat 22 June, open Thu-Sat, 12-5pm
This new exhibition draws together works from filmmakers key to the more radical trajectory of the English underground movement of the late 70s/early 80s.
Drawing on the ‘New Romantic’ and avant garde cutup/collage aesthetic, Vivid Projects presents key works from Richard Heslop, Marc Karlin and Derek Jarman.
Is it always good to talk? A Small Hiccup is a travelling exhibition, events programme, publication and online commission of new work exploring diseased language curated by George Vasey.
Featuring new work by artists:
The powerhouse trio of Stephen O’Malley, Oren Ambarchi, and Keiji Haino perform a very special show at CBSO Centre on Tuesday 9th July. This is going to be loud. Nazoranai is psychedelic avant doom from “three undisputed masters in their field”.
Art Bus
Thursday 16 May, 5–9pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
Now celebrating its 10th year the Art Bus now travels between six of the city’s
leading galleries. With free entry at each of the participating venues; the Barber
Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Eastside Projects, Ikon
Gallery, mac birmingham, and the RBSA Gallery it’s a great way to see the range of
visual art on offer in the city.
Due to popular demand, this year’s route has changed to maximise the enjoyment
of visitors. Each bus route will take in three of the galleries, with Ikon Gallery in
Brindley Place acting as the central ‘depot’ for the evening.
Art After Hours
Friday 17 May, 5—9.30pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
Digbeth is home to a growing number of galleries, art projects, studio groups and artists. On Friday 17 June spend the evening exploring this intriguing part of the city as many of the spaces, organisations and groups based there open their doors for the first ‘Art After Hours’ event.
Eastside Projects will open from 6.30–8pm with a performance of ‘Nuclear Family (Three Tragedies and a Satire)’ at 7pm.
Start your evening at The Lombard Method and MSFAC who will be open from 6pm and then wander over to Eastside Projects for Mr Clevver’s performance before walking round the corner to Vivid Projects, Vinyl and Stryx on Fazeley Street ending your evening at Grand Union which will be open to 9.30pm.
For the final day of ‘Puppet Show’ puppets and puppeteers, art-related or otherwise, are invited to come to Eastside Projects to inhabit the gallery, meet the residents and join the revolution. This ad-hoc afternoon of marionette mayhem will combine ‘open mike’ performance slots with informal space for puppets to be themselves.
During the afternoon there will be two performances, at 1pm and 3pm, of ‘Nuclear Family (Three Tragedies and a Satire) written by Heather and Ivan Morison and performed by Owen Davies.
Between these times we will have a number of fifteen minute ‘open mike’ slots for puppets and puppeteers to perform within the gallery. If you would like to book a slot please email [email protected]
Puppet Assembly
Saturday 18 May 12–5pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
Volume: Birmingham’s Art, Book and Print Fair, 5-7 December 2013 has been created as a unique event for the Library of Birmingham Discovery Season by Capsule. Working with Writing West Midlands, Birmingham Zine Festival, An Endless Supply, The Baskerville Society, Grand Union and Eastside Projects, the event will celebrate the very best in independent publishing. Volume will open with a keynote speech from artist, musician and writer, Bill Drummond.
“Scottish artist Bill Drummond (1953) has used various media in his practice including actions, music and words. His actions too numerous to list, some more infamous than others; his music from the multi million selling KLF to the choral music of The17; the words have accumulated into a pile of books. His work of the last twelve years is catalogued atwww.penkilnburn.com.”
Drummond’s World Tour Retrospective ‘Bill Drummond: 25 Paintings’ starts at Eastside Projects, Birmingham in March 2014
Nuclear Family (three Tragedies And A Satire)
Friday 17 May, 7pm
Saturday 18 May 1pm and 3pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
The first preview performances of a new group of plays written by Heather and Ivan Morison for Mr Clevver, a traveling sculptural artwork in the form of a puppet theatre. An evolving work about lives lived at the edges of society, Mr Clevver has travelled from Tasmania in a 1960s agricultural truck drawing a hand-built box office. Mr Clevver is based on the travelling puppet shows from the unsettling novel, Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, that is set in a post-nuclear holocaust Kent. Owen Davies will perform Nuclear Family before Mr Clevver takes a wandering tour around the remote settlements of Wales this summer.
Toolkit: Going for Gold
Wednesday 15 May, 6.30–8pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
£4 / £2 conc. / Free to ESP members
This informal toolkit will cover various aspects of application-making and presenting work and yourself in the context of an interview. The session will be led Ruth Claxton, artist and Associate Director at Eastside Projects and Zoe Lippett, Exhibitions and Artists’ Projects Curator at The New Art Gallery Walsall, who will draw on their experience both of applying for opportunities, and appointing artists and curators for residencies, projects and jobs.
They will discuss good practice for presenting yourself, your experience and your work in written applications and formal conversations at a range of levels.
The toolkit will be guided by you so come equipped with examples and questions to make the most of this session and Ruth and Zoe’s expertise.
To sign up for this email [email protected]
Capsule and Vivid Projects present a night of amazing footage from the Alan Lomax archive and Mississippi Records, featuring rarely seen film shot during Alan Lomax’s North American travels between 1978 to 1985 and Mississippi Record’s own enormous library of folk blues, gospel, esoteric, international and punk music. I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE takes place on Wednesday 26th June at Vivid Projects.
Eric Isaacson of Mississippi Records will be present and will screen a film of musicians associated with the Mississippi Records label such as one man band Abner Jay, angel channeling Bishop Perry Tillis, Rev. Louis Overstreet and his four sons, legendary folk singer Michael Hurley and many more. Each film segment will be introduced with brief stories about the musicians. There will also be a short slide show that tells the story of the underground music industry and Mississippi Records.
“Alan Lomax (January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was one of the great American field collectors of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a folklorist, ethnomusicologist, archivist, writer, scholar, political activist, oral historian, and film-maker. Lomax also produced recordings, concerts, and radio shows in the U.S and in England, which played an important role in both the American and British folk revivals of the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s. During the New Deal, with his father, famed folklorist and collector John A. Lomax and later alone and with others, Lomax recorded thousands of songs and interviews for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress on aluminum and acetate discs.”
“Eclectic independent record label named after the record store located in Portland, Oregon,Mississippi Records specializes in vinyl reissues of American roots, blues, gospel, art punk, and world music, among other recorded obscurities. “
This event takes place on Wednesday 26th June at Vivid Project. Tickets are £5 and available via
Highlights of the new Library of Birmingham’s four-month Discovery Season, which will run from the opening on Tuesday 3rd September until 31st December, are announced. The season is curated and produced by Capsule, Arts Council England support for the Discovery Season was confirmed earlier this year.
Taking its inspiration from the Library’s internationally-important archives and special collections, the Discovery Season will include:
Playground of Discovery – a specially-commissioned Cabinet of Curiosities created by multi-award- winning artist, Morag Myerscough, housing a rolling programme of creative residencies throughout the Season. Capsule are taking applications for the residency programme until Monday 29th April, learn more here. The Commentators from Stan’s Café, the Birmingham-based artists’ group, will be broadcasting from the Playground of Discovery, as the first of the creative residencies, in the opening week.
Capsule have announced two call outs for artists to produce exciting work for the Library of Birmingham opening season. We are looking for artists/organisations to take on week long residencies within an exciting space designed by Studio Myerscough (draft image above), and we will also commission an artist/illustrator to create new work to sit in the new Children’s Library.
See below for more information and details on how to apply. You can learn more about the opening season for this exciting new public space in Birmingham via www.capsule.org.uk/project/library-of-birmingham-opening-season
Curators’ Introductions
Thursday 21 March, 6.30–8pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
Join Celine Condorelli, Tom Bloor and Elinor Morgan for an informal introduction to, and conversation around, our new exhibitions‘Puppet Show’ and ‘While it Lasts’.
In ‘Puppet Show’ Eastside Projects is finally revealed as a ‘puppet state’, an art organisation taken over by impersonators, impostors and transvestites, a collection of characters that criticise, debase, mock, undermine or protest in the place and voice of others.
The second gallery hosts ‘While it Lasts’ a screening programme curated by Elinor Morgan. Selected films explore: the production of digital realms, film as a space in which sculptural forms can be presented and the impact that the internet has had on the way that we interact with information, imagery, one another
Film Toolkit: fun with file types
Tuesday 26 March, 6.30-8pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
£4 / £2 conc. / Free to ESP members
Are you having problems with losing quality when you export your digital films? Do your works come out squashed or widescreen when you burn them to DVD and you have not idea why? If so this is the workshop for you…
Artist Reuben Henry (of Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry) who has experience of making large-scale artist video commissions will lead this practical workshop on the technical aspects of importing and exporting digital video. He will cover: file types, formats, bit-rates, compression and export settings and will explore what video codecs are and which to use for different scenarios. Henry will share tips and discuss good practice in making and showing digital films, and how to get the best out of your footage whether for a mobile device or the big screen.
This session will be guided by you and what you want to find out, so come armed with your questions and confusions.
Exhibition Launch
Friday 22 March, 6–8pm
Puppet Performance 7pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
Please join us to celebrate the launch of ‘Puppet Show’ a group exhibition which sees Eastside Projects finally revealed as a ‘puppet state’ and includes work by film-makers and artists including Edwina Ashton, Spartacus Chetwynd, Geoffrey Farmer, Pedro Reyes, Pierre Huyghe, Simon Popper and Simon Starling.
In the second gallery ‘While It Lasts’ brings together moving image works by David Raymond Conroy, Benedict Drew, Hannah Perry, Matthew Ferguson, Joanne Masding and Matthew Noel-Tod.
For the third iteration of Flatfile Meghan Allbright and Emily Musgrave have been invited to make a new collaborative work in response to this unique space.
A special performance of ‘Empire of Dirt’ by Heather & Ivan Morison will start at 7pm.
The moment has arrived…
The Flatpack Festival programme has gone live and tickets are now on sale!
It’s time to feast your eyes on the full 11 days of films, exhibitions, installations, shorts, animations, AV spectaculars, live music, restored classics, claymations, parties, walking tours, local history, world premieres, music videos, documentaries, 3D thrills…and…well, what are you waiting for? See for yourself!
The programme is available online HERE
See you there!
15 Feb to 16 March, opening times Thursday to Saturday 12–5pm
Grand Union has worked with graduates Sophie Bullock, Corey Hayman, Rashid Khan and Stuart Layton to create new work for this exhibition that playfully explores aspects of perception and memory from four very different approaches.
New Art West Midlands showcases the best new and specially commissioned work from West Midlands graduates.
The exhibition continues at:
BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY
15 February to 19 May
THE BARBER INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS
8 March to 19 May
Capsule are delighted to be partnering with Birmingham 2022, Fused Magazine and IdeasTap for an exciting opportunity as part of the opening season for Library of Birmingham.
Do you want to help generate alternative visions for the future of arts and culture in Birmingham? Draw up an arts strategy for the year 2022? Work as a team to create a publication for the new Library of Birmingham’s Discovery Festival?
Then read on.
September 2013 sees the much-anticipated launch of the new Library of Birmingham: the largest public library in Europe. To celebrate the iconic building, the Discovery Festival will host cultural events, activities, projects, and performances on the theme of Discovery, including the publication of a new magazine all about the festival.
We’re using this unique opportunity to generate visions for the future of arts and culture in Birmingham for the year 2022, created, written and produced by young creatives.
This brief closes on Friday 1 March at 5pm and is open to IdeasTap members aged 16 to 24 and living in the West Midlands.
For more information and details on how to apply visit IdeasTap
Birmingham 2022 is in partnership with IdeasTap, mac, Fused Magazine, The Library of Birmingham, Capsule and funded by Arts Council England.
Capsule are delighted to embark on a new partnership with the University of Birmingham, supporting an artist to make and display work in response to the university’s fascinating and varied collections.
Sound artist and Lombard Method member Sarah Farmer will be working with both the Lapworth Museum of Geology and the Winterbourne botanical collection through spring 2013. Farmer will explore the collections, spend time with the curators and staff, and will create sound based works in response to her time there.
This a new artistic venture for the university, and an exciting opportunity for Capsule to further our artist support programme.
Read more about the project here
Lunch Club discussion with Jo Loki
Friday 22 February, 1–2pm
86 Heath Mill Lane, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AR
Over lunch artist, Jo Loki shares her experience of an international residency at The Banff Centre, Canada. Escape your desk or studio for an hour and join us, everyone is welcome. We have an array of tea, coffee, and herbal teas – all you need to bring is your packed lunch. For more information visit www.extraspecialpeople.org.
www.eastsideprojects.org
+44 (0)121 771 1778
[email protected]
Free Family Workshop
Exploring Objects: Making Tracks
Wednesday 20 February, 10–11.30am
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
This half-term we will be running a free family workshop for children aged 5–11. Join us to take part in a hands-on, artist-led activity inspired by our current exhibition. In this fun printing workshop we will work as a group, using tyres to make a big impact. Children must be accompanied by an adult and need to be dressed to get dirty!
Places are free, but limited, so must be reserved in advance by contacting the gallery.
To book call 0121 771 1778 or email [email protected]
Hannah Perry | Artist’s Talk
Thursday 31 January, 6.30–8pm
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham, B9 4AR
£4 / £2 conc. / Free to ESP members
In this artist’s talk Hannah Perry will introduce her practice and discuss examples of current and previous works before expanding outwards to speak about influential peers, scratch video techniques and sampling in early dance and hip hop music. Using examples of artists’ films and popular music, she will explore themes in her work such as appropriation, repetition and rhythm.
Hannah Perry, born 1984, is a British artist working mainly in installation, print and video. With a continuous practice of collecting and manipulating materials: film footage, sound clips, images and objects, Perry develops a sprawling network of references. She explores personal memory in today’s hyper-technological society and systems of representation and distribution.
Perry sees her work as a series of self-consciously humorous vignettes in which personal imagery is processed and confused to make footage that looks like something from YouTube and found material is used to play the personal out through popular culture. Her work explores the complexities of living physically, virtually, intellectually and sexually.
Perry graduated from Goldsmiths College in 2009 and has subsequently shown in solo and group shows in the UK and Europe. Recent group exhibitions include: Chester, at CO2 Gallery, Rome; Happy Paralysis at Les Urbaines, Lausanne and Young London, V22, London. In 2012 Perry also had a solo presentation at the Zabludowicz Gallery, London as part of the Zabludowicz Collection Invites series and a two-person show at Arcadia Missa, London, with Clunie Reid.
This event is part of a series produced in partnership with the BA Art & Design course at BIAD.
In March Hannah Perry will show work at Eastside Projects as part of a show-reel curated by Elinor Morgan, programmed to coincide with Flatpack Film Festival 2013.
We’ve just announced a very special show to take place on Saturday 27th April. We’re big fans of Barn Owl over at Capsule and are thrilled to invite them back to Birmingham, and have them play in the stunning setting of St Paul’s Church. Playing in front of modified super 8 footage, the twin guitars of Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras intertwine instinctively, equal parts slow-burning twang and spaced-out feedback drone.
They’ll be joined by Grumbling Fur, a project by Alexander Tucker and Daniel O’Sullivan and Liverpool based Ex-Easter Island Head (for fans of Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca).
Tickets are now on sale via
Barn Owl live at Supersonic Festival 2011:
Lunch Club
Friday 25 January, 1–2pm
86 Heath Mill Lane, Digbeth, Birmingham, B9 4AR
Escape your desk or studio for an hour and join us for lunch. Everyone is welcome. This is an informal, relaxed way to meet new people and find out more about what’s happening at Eastside Projects and in the wider world of Birmingham’s contemporary art scene. We provide tea, coffee, herbal teas – all you need to bring is your packed lunch.
+44 (0)121 771 1778
[email protected]
Toolkit: Commercial as Context
Wednesday 23 January, 6.30–8pm
£4 / £2 / Free to ESP members
In this informal workshop Christian Mooney, Director of Arcade Fine Arts in London will discuss the current commercial context. Giving ESP members insight into the working life of a gallerist he will offer his thoughts on how to best approach galleries as an artist or curator and how to develop professional networks and projects within this sector.
Arcade is a commercial gallery in London which represents artists including Can Altay, Anna Barham and Caroline Achaintre. Arcade shows represented artists regularly at international art fairs, including ARCO madrid and Frieze London, as well as presenting a programme of exhibitions in the gallery with a range of artists.