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Art Crawl last Friday night

Written by Nicky Getgood on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 ( 2 responses )
Tags: acedanceandmusic, African Oasis, amber, Dead Honest Soul Searchers, Eastside Projects, Giro - Is this the modern world?, Ikon Eastside, Johnnie Turpie, kokuma dance company, participation, Vivid, Yugesh Walia

I went along with the masses to  Another Bloody Digbeth Art Crawl last Friday night.  First stop was Participation at VIVID.

This exhibition, which covers the Film and Video Workshop movement 1979-1991, was by far the most interesting for me because I got to see a little film by Yugesh Walia called African Oasis (1982), featuring Kokuma Dance Company.  Kokuma, a traditional African and Caribbean dance company which folded in 2000, was where Ian and Gail Parmel met and left to start up ACE dance and music, who live just behind the VIVID gallery  (disclaimer: it’s where I work).  ACE uses much more contemporary techniques with African and Caribbean movement style.  I was gobsmacked to see a film of them back in the day, it made me realise what a long dance journey they’d been on.  It was a real-opener.

Other highlights include Giro – Is this the modern world? (1982) by Johnnie Turpie/Dead Honest Soul Searchers.  It features an unbelievably posh government minister telling one of the thousands of young, bright, unemployed people at the time, “Society doesn’t owe you a living.” No wonder there were riots, it’s 25 years on and I still feel like hitting him.

VIVID are holding a series of film screenings as part of the Participation exhibition.  The next one is a trio called Amber on Thursday 9th, Friday 10th and Saturday 11th July, all at 2pm.  This is followed by Black Audio Film Collective at 2pm next Saturday 18th July.

Our next stop was Eastside Projects, which had a rather serious message for us.  Just say no, kids:

Walking through the bright pink tunnel was rather disorientating – it’s pure, brilliant white inside:

Eastside Projects tunnel installation July 09 from Nicky Getgood on Vimeo.

Another fun topic of conversation was trying to work out what was part of the current exhibition and what was left over from previous ones.  I really like that about Eastside Projects, it’s like moving into an old furnished flat – you end up with odds and ends of the previous tenant’s things but assimilate them with your own stuff to make it home.

The last stop was Ikon Eastside’s Another Bloody Party, to mark the end of this little guy’s residency:

There were Bloody Marys, girls in pretty, blood-red dresses and a bloody noisy band.  I’m told the party picked up during the evening but I wouldn’t know because I had to leave early with slightly ironic bloody period pain. Pah.

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