‘Interrogation: Walsall was interesting, mind-expanding and may turn out to be transformative’ Interrogation: Walsall artist, 2009

INTERЯOGATION: WEST BROMWICH explores the impact that one artist (you) can make in one place, in one day.

The programme, organised by Longhouse and working with lead artist Anna Francis, is designed to investigate the impact of short, sharp interventions within the public realm.

The programme aims to look at what impact an artist can make by working quickly and responsively to a specific site in just one day, and provides opportunities for artists to work together within public realm spaces.

Building on the success of last year’s Interrogation: Walsall, (www.interrogation-walsall.blogspot.com) where the emphasis was on exploring how an art gallery can connect with public realm space, the concern this year will be to investigate how artists are ‘bridging the gap’ between people and cultural activity as well as gaps in infrastructure, regeneration and consultation processes.

Each interrogation day will have a specialist mentor who will have expertise and knowledge in that particular day’s methodology to help guide you through your mission.

Call to Artists:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to become a secret agent for a day in order to interrogate the public spaces of West Bromwich.

Working from a top secret base in West Bromwich you will investigate the artist’s role in the post-industrial world through one of four methods:

• INTERЯOGATION: ACTION RESEARCH (08/09/10)
• INTERЯOGATION: PARTICIPATION (15/09/10)
• INTERЯOGATION: SITE SPECIFIC (22/09/10)
• INTERЯOGATION: INTERVENTION (29/09/10)

How to Apply:

To express interest in this opportunity send:

• 300 words describing why you are right for this mission
• state your two preferred interrogation methods in order of preference e.g. choice No.1: Participation, choice No.2: Site Specific
• your C.V. and a maximum of 5 images of your current practice
• any web links

Please send your expression of interest to: chloebrown@multistory.org.uk

Deadline for Submissions:
12pm Monday 26 July 2010

(Please Note: Successful ‘agents’ will be notified on Monday 2 August 2010)

Important Information:

This is a professional development opportunity; each agent will receive a fee of £100 towards travel, time and other expenses, plus £20 on the day of the mission to cover any immediate costs incurred, such as materials for your mission

Agents must be available for the full day of the missions they select (dates are stated next to the four interrogation methods above), and for a project conference day (06/10/10), when the project findings will be disseminated.

Each mission will be documented photographically and with video and results will be displayed on the Longhouse website and on the Conference Day.

For more information go to www.longhouse.uk.com and www.interrogation-walsall.blogspot.com

Mission Control:

Longhouse is an annual programme of work carried out by community arts organisation, Multistory based in West Bromwich in the West Midlands. Longhouse is dedicated to the professional development of artists working in the public realm and provides knowledge, support and funding to artists to develop their practice.

Anna Francis is an artist whose work examines private histories, public space, and civic languages; using forms of intervention, mapping, performance, consultation, and photography to investigate the impact of art and culture on the regeneration of cities, and the artist’s role within this.

MAKING A LIVING EVENT – ALL WELCOME!

Time: 18:30

Date: Wednesday 28 July 2010

Location: ACME Project Space, 44 Bonner Road, London, E2 9JS RSVP to makingaliving@live.co.uk

Littoral (http://www.littoral.org.uk/) will be joining the event to discuss the relationships between the arts and trade unions as part of MAL’s research and campaigning on art and labour.

MAL is an independent group of arts professionals currently active across the UK who meet regularly to research and campaign on issues of art and labour.

Hybrid is working with Birmingham City Council’s Arts and Young People Team to deliver a series of events and training sessions providing pathways towards your career in the arts.

PREVIEW : Friday 18th June 6pm/8pm

LOCATION : 3, The Strand, Longton, Stoke on Trent, ST3 2JF http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=3%2C+The+Strand%2C+Stoke-on-Trent%2C+United+Kingdom

PARKING : 3 hours FREE car park at Tesco (park at the very bottom of it and just cross the road).

End of residency opening times : Saturday 19/06, Tuesday 22/06, Thursday 24/06, Friday 25/06, 11am-2pm.

BLOG : http://longhousearcelinesianidjiakoua.blogspot.com/

“Eyes, windows to the soul”, self-initiated and self-founded one month Art residency in an empty shop in Longton, following an Action Research Bursary (Longhouse, West Bromwich). Works poetically drawing metaphors between a shop and an eye and exploring some mechanisms of vision .

“There is a human body when, between the seeing and the seen, between touching and the touched, one eye and the other, between hand and hand, a blending of some sort takes place – when the spark is lit between sensing and sensible (…)”

MERLEAU-PONTY Maurice, “Eye and Mind” in The Primary of Perception, Northwestern University Press, 1964

“One common fallacy is to assume there is an image inside your eyeball, the optical image, exciting photoreceptors on your retina and then that image is transmitted faithfully along a cable called the optic nerve and displayed on a screen called the visual cortex. Now this is obviously a logical fallacy because if you have a screen and an image displayed on a screen in the brain, then you need another little chap in there watching that image, and there is no little chap in your head. And if you think about it, that wouldn’t solve the problem either because then you’d need another little guy in his head looking at the image in his brain and so on and so forth, and you get an endless regress of eyes and images and little people without really solving the problem of perception. So the first thing you have to do to understand perception is to get rid of the idea of images in the brain and think instead of transforms or symbolic representations of objects and events in the external world.”

Synapses and the Self – Lecture by V.S. Ramachandran – BBC 4 – 2003

A social event for artists to discuss practice around disability and explore potential for new work will be taking place on Tuesday, May 11, from 5-7pm at The New Art Gallery, Gallery Square, Walsall.

Working Parts, the Black Country Arts and Disability Network, is hosting a two-hour event to encourage a discussion about the arts and disabled people. The event is free and refreshments will be available.

Working Parts steering group members from Black Country Touring, Walsall Council Creative Development Team, The Arena Theatre Wolverhampton and Multistory in Sandwell will facilitate an informal discussion about how Black Country artists are creatively thinking about disability; look at potential training needs and offer artists the chance to sign up to the Working Parts arts and disability ‘hub’, all of which aim to increase potential work opportunities.

To find out more information and book a place please email Alan McLean alan@bctouring.co.uk by Friday, April 30 or call 0121 552 0014. Feel free to pass this invitation to other local artists.

Check out current Working Parts activity at www.workingparts.co.uk