Back by very popular demand is the Home of Metal Family Tree tea towel. Illustrated by Bunny Bissoux, the map traces the tangled web of heavy metal history. A lovely Christmas present we reckon, but make sure you get your order in by Thursday 19th December at the latest. Visit our shop.
Home of Metal is a celebration of the music that was born in the Black Country and Birmingham – check out, and contribute to, the digital archive.
Credit: Secret Recipe, New Art Gallery Walsall (2009); image courtesy of the artist
Harvesting Stories: Food and STORIES
This Saturday there’ll be a host of food activities at the Library of Birmingham.
Between 12-4pm in the Book Rotunda Feng-Ru Lee will be making ‘Secret Dumplings’ and invites you to write a secret on edible paper which will then be made into delicious dumplings for you to eat.
We’re delighted to welcome National Storytelling Laureate Katrice Horsley to perform Spiced Tales of Brum (2-3pm in the Studio Theatre). This hour-long performance will weave together tales, stories and recipes collected at the ‘Harvesting Stories’ workshops that took place in community centres and libraries throughout Birmingham during summer 2013. It’s completely free, you can book in advance at www.birmingham-box.co.uk
Credit: Workshop at Birmingham Chinese Society, July 2013; image Katja Ogrin
From 12-4pm, our food-artist in residence Lizzy Bean will be erecting her Serbian cooking range on the 3rd Floor Terrace – join her for mulled spiced apple juice and some delicious gingerbread for you to decorate (and eat).
Credit:(B)read by Lizzie Bean, Harvesting Stories, Sep 2013; image K Ogrin
To celebrate the cultural diversity of 21st century Birmingham, Harvesting Stories has been developed to bring its people and their favourite food together.
Trading Post is an exhibition of art ‘for trade’, a cornucopia of work made by artists from Birmingham and beyond. Taking a cue from the TV classic Multi Coloured Swap Shop, all the artworks in the exhibition will be available to swap. Visit the Pavilion in the Library foyer, peruse their wares and make an offer.
Offers can include time, skills, things or expertise – anything except money of any currency – ‘art for a haircut’, ‘art for cake’, ‘art for life coaching’ ‘art for welding’ for example. Once an offer has been made it
will be made public and if the contributing artist decides to take up the offered trade the swap will be arranged. Bartering and negotiation is welcome, and encouraged. .
Trading Post is presented by ESP (Extra Special People). This project is an extension of ‘Trade Show’, a group exhibition at Eastside Projects that runs from 7 December 2013 – 22 February 2014. ESP is Eastside Projects’ associate members scheme.
Events:
Thursday 12 December 2013, 6.30-7.30pm
Matthew Raine will give a talk on Marxist Economics during which artist Faith Pearson will make a series of small sculptures available for exchange to those attending.
Saturday 14 December 2013, 2-4pm
ESP members will present a series of conversations and performances.
List of artists:
Stuart Barnes / Leah Carless / Carruthers & Cresswell / Mateus Domingos / Freya Dooley / Mathew Ferguson / Bob Gelsthorpe / Andrew Gillespie / Calum Greaney / Amanda Grist / Aly Grimes / Maya Darrell Hewins / Kurt Hickson / Jim Howieson / Sarah Isaacs / Sam Jones / Ayse Kolu / Lucy McAllister / Kat Newman / Dan Newso / Susie Olczak / Faith Pearson / Sarah Silverwood / Laura Reeves
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
‘Inspired by Brion Gysin’s use of adapted rollers, join artist Stephen Fowler in his collaborative experimental printing workshop, learn how to adapt paint rollers to be utilised as a repeat patterned printing medium and contribute to a series of large relief printed patterned grid prints.’
Stephen Fowler’s workshop is free, all welcome from 12noon in the Cafe Mezz of the library.
The Fair is open til 5pm today, Footprint are here making a zine in a day, and there’s a series of free panels, including the Paperless Stack with figures from major libraries talking about the impact digital tech has on the role of the library.
Bill Drummond, the co-founder of eighties avant-garde band The KLF, will deliver the keynote speech and present a talk on Thursday 5th December, Books: 12 Years, 25 Paintings, 100 Questions, & The 17, as part of a three-day event celebrating independent publishing – Volume: Birmingham’s Art, Book & Print Fair.
The event starts at 7pm at the Library of Birmingham and also features Morag Myerscough (designer of the Pavilion) and the Highliners, a punk rock design performance! Tickets are still available for £8/£10 from www.birmingham-box.co.uk
And tomorrow afternoon we’ll begin proceedings at 1pm at the library with a fascinating afternoon delving into the opportunities that new technologies bring to publishing and writing, this will include a Writing for Digital platforms workshop and a panel featuring Clare Reddington, Director of the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, with Dave Addey, Managing Director of leading app development studio Agant; Tom Abba, lecturer in narrative theory at UWE, Bristol and member of artist collective Circumstance; Charlotte Quickenden, Managing Director of digital agency Bow Software; Laura Kriefman, Founder and Choreographer with innovative dance company Guerilla Dance Project.
It’s only £3 for the workshop and panel from www.birmingham-box.co.uk, or if you have a ticket for the Bill Drummond event this entitles you to free entry – just email [email protected] with your ticket confirmation.
The Library Project at the Pavilion
In residence this week is Haworth + Hayhoe with The Library Project, running til 8th December in the Pavilion.
Haworth + Hayhoe are installing a miniature interactive library and hosting daily bookbinding workshops. Your completed book will be shelved and catalogued as part of our library, after which your book will join a growing collection that will travel the world as part of The Library Project. Paper Stand – LTC Office Supplies provides the best newspaper, magazine, flip chart stand for the library use.
You can book yourself onto a special book binding workshop every day this week, they’re totally free but advance booking is definitely recommended. There’ll also be other free, drop in activity in the Pavilion throughout their residency.
Each workshop has a theme, and you can book via www.birmingham-box.co.uk
Hardback book
Wed 4th Dec – 3pm-5pm: Hardback book
Thurs 5th Dec – 11am -12.30pm: Japanese book –
Sat 7th Dec – 2pm-4pm: Hardback book
Sun 8th Dec – 2pm-3.30pm: Japanese book –
Suitable for ages 16+
Japanese book
Active and Passive Love of Books
This blogpost was written by Cheryl Jones of Grand Union, they present Copy Rights panel discussion on Saturday 7th December at Library of Birmingham, part of Volume.
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This panel brings together artists Eva Weinmayr and Andrea Francke, creators of the Piracy Project, with artist and researcher Cornelia Sollfrank, to discuss the legal frameworks that we engage with when dealing with each others’ work.
Artists, writers and publishers are asking ‘What are the different ideologies behind these systems and what are their implications?’
The speakers will explore the political and social implications of cultural piracy through examples from The Piracy Project collection.
Andrea Francke and Eva Weinmayr jointly run The Piracy Project as part of AND Publishing’s research programme.
The Piracy Project is an international publishing and exhibition project exploring the philosophical, legal and practical implications of book piracy and creative modes of reproduction. Through research and an international call for submissions, The Piracy Project has gathered a collection of more than 150 modified, appropriated and copied books from all over the world.
The collection, which is catalogued online at www.andpublishing.org, is the starting point for talks and work groups around the concept of originality, notions authorship and the politics of copyright.
The Piracy Project is not about stealing or forgery. It is about creating a platform to innovatively explore the spectrum of copying, re-editing, translating, paraphrasing, imitating, re-organising and manipulating of existing works. Here creativity and originality sit not in the borrowed material itself, but in the way it is handled.
Cornelia Sollfrank, Ph.D., is an artist and researcher working at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, Scotland. Since the mid 1990s her main interest lies in the exploration of the challenges art has to face under digital networked conditions. Her experiments with the basic principles of aesthetic modernism implied conflicts with its institutional and legal framework.
Sollfrank is currently undertaking an artistic research project into copyright-critical practice titled Giving What You Don’t Have. She has filmed interviews with individuals Kenneth Goldsmith, Marcell Mars, Sean Dockray and Dmitry Kleiner, discussing their projects and ideas on peer-to-peer production and distribution as art practice. It includes the projects www.ubu.com or www.aaaaarg.org, which combine social, technical and aesthetic innovation; they promote open access to information and knowledge and make creative contributions to the advancement and the reinvention of the idea of the commons. You can see these video interviews at www.postmedialab.org/GWYDH
AND Publishing’s Piracy Collection will be on display at Grand Union from 7 December to 9 February. More details.
Saturday 7th December, 11am.
Grand Union presents Copy Rights
Library of Birmingham
Free, booking via www.birmingham-box.co.uk