There are 5 bursaries available for 2010/11. Each bursary will run from October 2010 – March 2011.

Artists are required to use the bursary to pro-actively discover new contexts for their work via the exploration of different approaches to socially engaged practice in the public realm.

In the spirit and rich tradition of past Action Research programmes all participating artists will be encouraged to test their current creative practice through intensive investigation, reflection and understanding of what is meant by, and the reality of, the ‘public realm’, especially in the current climate of ‘Big Society’, new forms of regeneration being needed and the slowing of capital investment.

We are inviting applications from artists for action research proposals under the umbrella theme of ‘connections’ – how artists and cultural activity can make connections between people, people and place (physical and metaphorical), and between people and knowledge all relating to the current climate and context of regeneration and the public realm.

This year each of the selected artists will receive support from Lead Artist/Mentor, Scott Farlow (www.scottfarlow.co.uk) during their bursary, through one to one meetings and three group workshops which will enable the artists to apply their learning to a ‘real’ place and brief.

Deadline for Applications is Friday 17 September 2010.

Download the full brief with details on how to apply for the bursary here or find out about previous Action Research Bursaries

The SZPILMAN AWARD is awarded to works that exist only for a moment or a short period of time.

The purpose of the award is to promote such works whose forms consist of ephemeral situations.
Everyone can apply for the SZPILMAN AWARD.

Both individuals and groups of persons are free to apply.

The work must have been realised between 1 Oct 2009 and 30 Sep 2010.

For more information please  - Visit the Szpilman website

Blast Theory – Call For Applicants
20 Wellington Road Residency Programme 2011 – Deadline: Sat 31 July 2010

20 Wellington Road is a renovated Victorian icehouse overlooking Shoreham Harbour. The building provides offices and studios for the company as well studio spaces for artists, scientists and theorists working in related fields. Blast Theory’s goal is to create an interdisciplinary community of international significance.

The Residency Programme is initiated and run by artists. It aims to provide a space for residents to research and develop new work in a supportive and collaborative environment.

Expressions of interest are invited from individuals working in the following fields:
- Pervasive and location based gaming and interactive media
- The use of mobile and portable devices in cultural and artistic practice
- Games design and theory
- Interdisciplinary and live art practice

Applicants should have an established background in their respective fields and should be able to demonstrate how a residency period at Blast Theory will assist the development of their research and practice.

For full details of the programme including available dates and how to apply please visit the Blast Theory website

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.

Alexandros Vasmoulakis - street artist to communicate with the public. http://www.vasmou.com/

Eltono – Public space artist http://www.eltono.com/interior/coriandoli/

Uses Confetti as graffiti

 Robert Bradford – Creates sculptures out of plastic toys. His sculptures have appeared around England and New York.  http://www.robertbradford.co.uk/

The bombus bee can be found at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

Urban Camouflage -  Camouflage themselves to the urban surroundings using the same materials as the background. http://www.urbancamouflage.de/

Click here to view the embedded video.

Slinkachu -  British artist, street art installation project. http://slinkachu.com/

”The street-based side of my work plays with the notion of surprise and I aim to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings.”

Darius and Downey -  Artists who use steel sculptures and sloping sign posts as a way of displaying humour and witt around the streets.

For more pictures see – http://www.jenbekman.com/dariusdowney/index.html

STEINBRENER/DEMPF – http://www.steinbrener-dempf.com/

”Delete! – removes all the written signals which normally try to attract the passer-by’s attention: a phenomenon we are sufficiently familar with from two-dimensional representations and photomontage works will be translated for the first time into three-dimensionality, into the here and now reality of Vienna’s Neubaugasse. The technique at the heart of Delete! is ‘wallpapering’, which is easy and inexpensive: all written signals (except for those necessary for road safety) will be covered over with monochrome, fluorescent foils, and individual three-dimensional letters will be enclosed in plastic.”

Ellis Gallagher – Graffitti artist based in New York. – http://ellisgallagher.com/

Produces shadows from items in the street with chalk.

DISPATCHWORK - http://www.dispatchwork.info/

Dispatchwork use lego building bricks to fill in gaps of buildings. Or as a repair! They can be found around Europe and New York.

Joshua Callaghan – http://www.joshuacallaghan.com/publicart.htm

Uses camouflage as a way to make utility boxes blend into the surroundings and to make the streets a prettier place to be!

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.

Niall Patterson – Photographer http://www.niallpatterson.com/

Niall Patterson is a photographer living and working in Birmingham. His current project EMERGING 0.1 is on show at The Public – West Bromwich.

 ”I have come to realise that birmingham as a whole has such a up and coming art and music culture with the likes of created in birmingham.”   (www.createdinbirmingham.com)

   The idea behind EMERGING 0.1 came about at the stupid time of 3AM, when most are asleep. I find it to be relaxing and the best time to when you can flow out ideas. I was looking at work by photographers such as Chase Jarvis and Richard Battye, when I saw there was a lot of work already been done with the dance subject, but it all looked the same in context. I wanted to create a set of images that wern’t the norm, so I looked into the hip hop culture and break-dancing. This is when I came up with the idea for EMERGING 0.1.

1. Is this the first time you have photographed street dancers? What gave you the idea? Have you photographed them on the street integrating with the public? If not, is that something you would like to do in the future or do u prefer to work within a set up?

 I met the group SMASH BRO’Z while I was coming back from a shoot in Birmingham and they were performing  just outside of the Bullring. At first I walked on by, but I was glad that I went back to them and explained the ideas that I had.  Working with street dancers for the first time was a really great experience for me and the whole controlled atmosphere is what I thrive, but the freedom of street performances is something I would love to do with them at some point.

 2. Did you have a target audience for these photographs? Do you think they appeal to a wide audience and bring different communities of interest together?  For example photography, art, music, dance and fashion.

 There was no set target audience when I did this apart from the dance community itself, but looking at them now there is such a open market to be tapped into, the work that I am producing could be linked with fashion advertising such as Adidas and Nike. This is something I will be looking into doing in the future.

 3. How did you get to display your work at The Pulic building and the Custard Factory for example? Are you researching more venues to display your work?

The whole idea of getting my work displayed at the Custard Factory in Digbeth started off as an end of year show for the students of Sandwell College and Wolverhampton University. But I had booked it for longer than I had intended, so I got together with a few old students and friends from Sandwell to create the show EMERGING. This included people such as Phil Brooks, Dave Waldron and Dave Coxsell. It had showcased a set of images a week prior to the End of Year Show, which I found to be a great successes. It was a learning curve for the audience that I found who were interested in the style of work that I had to offer. (Clip below from the emerging exhibition at the Custard Factory)

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrPattersonn#p/a/u/0/YNUdUFnV1ic

My work is now up at the Public which I also saw as a great opportunity for myself to get my name out to a wider audience. From here I would like to get my work seen a lot more and I am researching in to more venues to display my work on a more permeant basis.

http://thepublic.com/

 4. How successful has it been displaying your work in local exhibitions? Have you had much feedback?

I’ve had a lot of feedback from having these last three shows in the Birmingham area. Which has been a great expeince for me being able to see what people think and what sort of thing they would like to see from this project. Hopefully this will be the step that I need to lead me on the greater things.

 5. What do you plan to do next within the local area? are you going to do any more courses or concentrating on finding a job, or focusing on a new project?

The plan now is to look for work and just try to build up a new portfolio, so that hopefully I can get where I want to be within the industry, I am also planning a few new projects that I will complete later this year.

6. With the current climate of jobs how are you finding trying to get work from your local area? As a photographer do you feel there are many job oppertunities?

With the way things are at the moment, I feel like its a bad time to be looking for work. On the other hand it’s also a great one at the same time, as you can show people what your really all about. I think everyone should get that break its just a matter of time and I will continue to push myself to new ideas.

 7. If you had the funding to do any project you liked, what would you do, any ideas?

 Well if I had funding I would love to travel around Africa to show the emerging economy, this is a project I have in the pipeline and I hopefully will be making the trip next year.

Kiki is a British artist who lives and works in Birmingham and has recently graduated from BA (Hons) Fine Art at Birmingham City University.

Kiki makes vibrant sculptural work based on the idea of utopia and escapism, heavily influenced by kitsch and its tacky and ironic qualities. The techicolour surreal world she creates appears emerging in everyday surroundings, reaching out into the mundane world.

She won the Mueller Copper Svulpture Prize in 2008, and has participated in exhibitions around Birmingham and Walsall.

www.kikifoster.co.uk

Questions and Answers

1. Did you display your sculptures in different areas for the exhibition, as a way for the public to have a more interactive experience?

Yes, I wanted to give the audience a surprise around every corner, so it became sort of a trail suggesting a dream world existing beyond the fabric of the building.

2. Did u want to hide them to appeal to people who observe in detail and not just passers by?

I wanted the viewer the come across them by chance, and as they gradually start to notice them they begin to look and search, and notice them around the building.

3. Was money and time issue a major factor issue in your design thought process – so if possible, would you have made much larger sculptures therefore being more obvious to the public?

Time was definitely a factor, as with the mould making process there is not always guaranteed success. The more time I had the smoother finish I could have achieved. A larger budget means better materials, and I would also have liked to make one large piece at the end of the trail. For example, a giant toadstool.

4. You used kitsch as a way of displaying your sculptures. Do you think this idea would have made as much of an impact if real life interpretations of the animals were created? Kitsch adds humour to your designs, do you think this appeals to the public as an escapism to normal every day life?

I hope my work encourages escapism as it is one of the features that first drew me to kitsch. I wanted my work to include humour to engage the public.

5. Who is the target audience for your sculptures?

I wanted everyone to be able to enjoy my work whether it was for the celebration of kitsch, humour or the game aspect where they had to look for them.

6. If you had to make a short quick one day intervention in the public realm…

Would you be able to do this using your art ethic and concept? Any ideas?

I would like to place a large piece of work in a public space as if it grew there over night and it would be removed just as quickly as if by magic. I would like to hide smaller pieces in less obvious places in a more rural environment.

Would it be something you’d be interested in for the future?

I am particulary interested in site specific and art in the public realm as not everyone will enter a gallery and it seems a wonderful way to interact with the public and introduce them to different types of art.

This year the bursaries will take place from September 2010 to February 2011.

Lead Artist/Mentor

Longhouse is currently looking for a lead artist/mentor to support this year’s action research bursary artists.

The lead artist will work with Longhouse to design and deliver the bursary programme and help to select the five artists. The role will also include the running of a number of one to one meetings and the delivery of 3 group events/workshops with the five artists, to further enhance their professional development during the 6 months.

This year the bursary programme will focus on ideas relating to digital and social inclusion and democracy; looking at how artistic practice can bridge gaps within regeneration contexts; filling physical spaces as well as gaps in infrastructure and investigating the artist’s role in building sustainable communities.

Download the Full Brief Here or for more information email karlgreenwood@multistory.org.uk