Think Big!
Written by Nicky Getgood on Friday, September 26th, 2008 ( 3 responses )
Tags: abstractedge, birminghampost, custardfactory, Digbethisgood, eastsideprojects, edingburghfringe, gigbeth, ikoneastside, links, peteashton, sarapreisler, studio4gallery, terrygrimley, thebond, theedge, toblog, Vivid
The two things I decided to link to today made me think that’s Digbeth’s feel for the day:
Eastside Projects gallery launches tonight – I’m planning on going to the launch of this “artist-run space as public gallery and incubator of new ideas” later. But what really grabbed me about the Custard Factory blog’s link to it was the last paragraph:
‘Lets see now. Along with Vivid, Ikon Eastside, The Edge, Studio4, Sara Preisler and the Custard Factory’s own gallery space that brings the number of Art venues in this area up to seven. Unless I’ve missed any. And I know of at least couple more in the pipeline waiting to be signed off, not to mention a massive international touring show looking to land in one of the warehouses nearby. Future’s looking good.’
There is a high and growing concentration of art spaces and galleries in what’s quite a small area. It reminded me of Birmingham Post’s Arts Editor Terry Grimley’s speech at the launch of Abstract Edge at The Bond. He said that Digbeth was being labelled a ‘creative quarter’ back in 1998 and now, after after 10 years “with The Bond and The Custard Factory lapping at each others heels”, he feels we’re finally getting there.
This is in fact the reason Digbeth is Good was born – Pete Ashton felt this hive of activity should be documented and from the amount of time I spend on this blog, I feel like the local creative community just keeps growing and growing. Let’s just hope Mr Elephant’s fears of this developer-friendly trend alienating the older industrial community aren’t realised.
And then I read that Gigbeth is aiming to be bigger than the Edinburgh Fringe. From today’s interweb trawl I feel like Digbeth is optimistic and ambitious when pessimism reigns over the rest of the UK, which is a nice feeling on a sunny Friday afternoon.
In fact, it makes me feel good enough to try and fit in my canal bike ride between now and the Eastside Projects launch, which I’ll hopefully see you at later!
Comments:
on October 4th, 2008
Hi Nicky,
Just wanted to clarify that the two reports about the digbeth regeneration/developers are the work of local artist Ruth Robinson (as opposed to “Mr Elephant”)
Her next and final investigation is due anytime soon.
Love your blog and hope to see you soon Mx
on October 8th, 2008
Hi Nicky,
Digbeth is the ONLY exciting area in City centre at the moment, you only have to look at the growing abandonment and deraliction of night clubs at the top of Broad Street and the numbers of empty shops in the City Centre to make you reaise how good Digbeth is.
Reading Carl Chinns bit and Mr Elephants fears are a thing of the past. The threat of Digbeth being submerged under a sea of apartments are over. I don’t thing there is cat in hells chance of any the approved plans for apartments ever being built, this gives us a massive opportunity to create something that stands out from the banality of much of the City centre. I have high hopes that the appauling development next to the Irish Centre and hailed by its developers as the ‘New Broad Street’God help us! may yet become a rather nice woodland alongide the river!
Really good site- have emailed loads of people about it since I found it at 7.00am this morning-could do with a spell checker,
Best wishes
Richard
on October 11th, 2008
i’m looking forward to Gigbeth, and agree with the “creative quarter”. hope it keeps it’s character though, and there’s no repeat of the Spotted Dog noise problems.
What is your opinion?