From mid January to mid February, Making a Living (MAL) will be ‘in residence’ on the Longhouse blog. MAL is an independent group of arts professionals currently active across the UK who are researching and campaigning on issues of art and labour.

MAL’s shared principles:
MAL is a group of individuals.
MAL is not always a united front.
MAL is currently a volunteer initiative.
MAL is not a careers advice service.
MAL does not have all the answers.
MAL encourages debate, independent research, solidarity and disagreement.
MAL hosts public meetings that are open to anyone to attend.
MAL ‘members’ are not expected to commit to any MAL meetings, research or campaigning. They have an option to opt in or out of specific campaigns.
MAL is self-organised by its ‘members’.

Individual members of MAL will be writing critical responses to events and activities relating to art and labour they are attending during January and February including Art: What is the use? At the Whitechapel Gallery, the Arts Against the Cuts Long Weekend at Camberwell College of Art and The Amateurist Network meeting at E:vent Gallery.

MAL will also use the blog to post position statements, articulate demands and create links to relevant resources. MAL aim to solicit feedback and gather anecdotal evidence from people working in the arts of cases of exploitation and experiences of labour by posing questions that prompt feedback and discussion on the Longhouse blog.

MAL look forward to meeting you in the blog!

To contact MAL directly or to join their mailing list email: makingaliving[at]live.co.uk

The Interrobangs are a series of events in which we discover different parts of the West Midlands, connecting with artists working there and people living there.  For this September’s Interrobang we have been exploring the Black Country and thinking about Relationships – between people and place, between artists and audiences – and thinking about how the Black Country (it’s people, places and history) has informed and inspired different artists.

The Interrobangs are also a place for artists developing work to be shown in the next Fierce Festival (in February 2011) and for artists currently engaged in Fierce’s Arts Council funded Platinum artist-practitioner development scheme to share some of their process and thinking through work in progress performances and sharings.

Programme details:

Friday 24 September (The Old Post Office, Holyhead Road, Wednesbury, WS10 7DF)
Entrance: FREE

7pm: Doors open

Sheila Ghelani – towards ‘Rat, Rose, Bird’
Sheila Ghelani (http://sheilaghelani.co.uk/) will be performing some of the text-based elements of her work Rat, Rose, Bird – which deals with notions of personal heritage, love, migration and colonisation.
http://bit.ly/RatRoseBird

Plan B performance – towards A Day in the Life (the walkers of Birmingham) – working title
Plan B (http://www.planbperformance.net/) are interested in drawing portraits of places by mapping the trails people make whilst walking using GPS tracking devices.  They will be sharing some work they have been developing around this idea.

7-10pm: An Artists Guide to the Black Country
Six artists spent a long weekend in August exploring the Black Country as tourists, led by Abigail Davey of Breathe.  This weekend was part of the Live Art Development Agency’s initiative DIY – a chance for artists to run professional development programmes for other artists (http://bit.ly/LADA_DIY7).  This is a chance to see the responses of those artists, which have been gathered together as a web-based project.

Saturday 25 September (online at www.wearefierce.org)

Quarantine – The Slightest Movement

The Slightest Movement is:

a system for making a public event

a week-long conversation

a (series of) performance(s)

an exploratory workshop

a means of mapping a city
A group of 15 workshop participants, some from Wednesbury and West Bromwich, others from further beyond, have been selected to take part in this six-day workshop process, conceived by Richard Gregory of Quarantine (http://www.qtine.com/)

The group’s progress will be reported via a blog by Swen Steinhauser.  Although this is not a public event – you are invited to follow the group’s progress online via this blog.

Saturday 25 September (Wednesbury Town Hall, Holyhead Road, Wednesbury, WS10 7DF)

7.30pm: Stoke Newington International Airport – Live Art Speed Date
Stoke Newington International Airport (http://www.stkinternational.co.uk/STK/STK.html) host an evening at the spectacular Wednesbury Town Hall. Live Art Speed Date is an exploration and celebration of intimate exchange between artist and audience. A diverse selection of artists are invited to create and present a four minute one-on-one performance or “date”. The audience make their own journey through the performative dates, and there are also opportunities to interact with other audience members. This carefully curated event explores public and private behaviours and creates a vibrant fairground of experiences.

Featuring dates from: Mitra Memarzia, Companis, Sheila Ghelani, Leo Kaye, Mamoru Iriguchi, Neil Bennun, Deborah Pearson and more…
http://bit.ly/LiveArtSpeedDate

Sunday 26 September (Wednesbury Town Hall, Holyhead Road, Wednesbury, WS10 7DF)

1pm – 5pm: Sharings from artists currently engaged in Fierce’s Arts Council funded Platinum artist development programme – Arzhang Luke Pezhman, Companis, Cody Lee Barbour, Jaskirt Dhaliwal, Leon Trimble, Louie O’Grady

2pm: Alex Kelly from Third Angel – The process of making Class of ‘76
A talk from Alex Kelly from Third Angel (http://www.thirdangel.co.uk/home.php) about the process of making Class of ‘76.  Alex went looking for the other 34 children in a school photograph taken of his class at Chuckery Infant School in Walsall, to ask them what they’d been doing with their lives for the past 24 years.
http://bit.ly/Classof76

3.30pm: Abigail Davey from Breathe and members of the DIY:7 workgroup – artist led tours of the local area
Abigail Davey from Breathe (http://www.breatheartists.co.uk/) and other members involved in theArtists Guide to the Black Country will lead guided tours of the area, taking in some local gems and introducing new ways of looking.

Venues:
Friday 24 September (7pm – 10pm) The Old Post Office, Holyhead Road, Wednesbury

Saturday 25 September (7.30pm – 11.30pm) Wednesbury Town Hall, Holyhead Road, Wednesbury

Sunday 26 September (1pm – 5pm) Wednesbury Town Hall, Holyhead Road, Wednesbury

Tickets:
Entrance to all events is free of charge.  No advance booking is required – just drop in!

Transport information:
Wednesbury Great Western Street Metro station
on the Birmingham Snow Hill – Wolverhampton line

Wednesbury Bus Station
Terminating services: 327, 399, 410, 428, 429, 478, 523, 610, 679
Also stopping: 79, 311, 311A, 313, 313A

For more information: www.networkwestmidlands.co.uk

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.