Last night Boxxed opened the doors to its new home of The Wild Building on Floodgate Street, which has formerly hosted the Flatpack Festival and Jibbering Art, amongst others. I’ll let Boxxed’s About page do the introductions:
boxxed has been created to provide a unique and meaningful programme of arts exhibitions and music events, alongside providing services, space and support to local artists, musicians, creatively minded individuals and collectives.
Alongside that core ideal, the directors of boxxed have partnered with local educational institutions to provide equipment, services, workshops and space to teach their arts & media orientated courses. [The main local educational institution Boxxed are currently partnered with is Birmingham City University.]
Boxxed kicked things off with an art exhibition, courtesy of local lad Chu & Tiger Beer, who are celebrating the New Year of The Tiger with 5 exhibitions across the UK. Chu’s creation is a big box in the middle of the warehouse space, the inside walls painted with red-and-blue outline images best viewed through 3D specs.
Using his own bare hands he’s put together a huge wooden 3D cube inside our warehouse, and after putting on the magic specs, intrepid art goers…will get to see the end result of Chu’s stunning work. He’s composing a piece of art that’s not only in ’special glasses’ 3d, but in physical 3d, melting the edges of his giant wooden box. Genius? We think so.
I’m not sure how long the exhibition is on display for, or what’s in store for Boxxed, so watch their space and call in if you can.
Again, Jibbering used the space brilliantly. You can visit just to admire the great array of art on display, which ranges from the sweet to the scary.
Or you can pick up some pieces to jazz up your home. There’s a sale room of work under £75 for those of you on a budget. As with the Mayday Art Crawl, we had the phenonemmon of the invading bikes riden by incomers to Digbeth.
This is Jibbering’s third art exhibition at the Wild Building on Floodgate Street. As with previous exhibitions the art has escaped the venue and spilled out onto the street.
Line Steppers, following on from Gallery 37 and 7 Inch Cinema’s residencies here, is helping to establish the Wild Building as a versatile local arts venue. So it’s such a pity that landlords The Custard Factory find themselves unable to support it, and build upon their invaluable contribution to Digbeth as a cultural quarter, by letting one of the many interested creative parties take over the lease. Rumour has it they have instead opted to rent it to a car valeting company. This interesting space will be a sad loss to the local creative community.
Video from Birmingham | SCHUDIO – online Chu – Grafitti artist Chu is filmed decorating Adderley Street and preparing for his Jibbering Art exhibition, Fifty One Degrees at The Wild Building, Floodgate Street.
Jibbering Records in Moseley to close – But Moseley’s loss is Digbeth’s gain because ‘we are all set to move into a new multi-use venue/arts centre in Digbeth, The Wild Building.’ More ‘details and rumours’ will be available soon.
Eastside City Farm – Another great idea for guerilla gardening, this time from Andrew Hemmings. Turn all the building sites abandoned due to the credit crunch into gardens, allotments and mini-farms. Bloody brilliant idea, count me IN!
Blog Action Day social media surgery at BVSC tomorrow – Nick Booth serves a reminder by taking stock of who’s coming and what’s on offer for voluntary and community groups coming in need of advice. Social media surgery is tomorrow (Wednesday, October 15th 2008) at BVSC 5.30pm to 7.30 pm. ‘Come when you can for some free, friendly, one to one support.’
Plus+: Call for volunteers – Plus is looking enthusiastic, hardworking and motivated volunteers, with a passionate interest in graphic design and the creative industries in general, or arts festivals in particular or those who just want to share time and energy for the event. Plus 2008 is going to be held in Digbeth at Fazeley Studios from the 5 – 8 of November.
On Thursday evening I went to Jibbering’s Shambala Art Exhibition at the Wild Building on Floodgate Street. It was a great ligging opportunity with widely-advertised FREE BEER, although you’d have to have been a heartless soul not to donate something when all profits were going to the Banunule School for Orphans, Kampala, Uganda & Malawi Education Project, Malawi.
I felt a lot more relaxed than I normally do at these art launch events, probably because it didn’t feel as self-consciously uptight as most. There were crowds of people chilling out in the back yard and the only hint of officiousness was the pretty girls with clipboards taking bids for the art pieces.
But I must admit to getting a lot more excited by the YrWall in a side room than I did about the artwork. It’s like a giant telly screen you use a spray can topped with an infa-red light to graffitti over, or in the designer Tommo Hogan’s own words:
‘YrWall is a new and exciting interactive drawing tool where users create images on a large wall using a modified spray paint can. The can contains no paint, only a button and an infrared light which is tracked using a computer and a camera. A digital palette is provided on the left side of the wall which enables the user to work with digital paint, images and animated clips.’
It’s loads of fun and according to my new friend graffiti artist Newso, pretty close to the real thing. It’s been doing the festival rounds this year and has been really successful. I can see why, when users can email themselves their creations to come home to festival souvenirs in their inbox, which they can forward at will. ‘This email will have a link to the YrWall website, from which t-shirts featuring their design, with the option to include your festival logo, can be ordered.’ This guy’s a genius.
The Shambala Exhibition remains on display in the Wild Building until this Friday 17th October, open 10.30am-6.30pm.
Well, I simply had to stop and talk to this man once I saw his T-shirt (vintage shop purchase, apparently). And I’m very glad I did – turns out he’s one of the artists in Jibbering’s Shambala Art Exhibition that’s launching in the Wild Building, 104 Floodgate St tomorrow evening. A cunningly disguised Newso is standing next to his artwork, which isn’t in the gallery but on the outside wall opposite. He plans to decorate a lot more walls and public spaces in Digbeth, with their owners’ permission, naturally. Catch the rest of his and other artists’ work from 7pm tomorrow.
Custard Factory – Lost in S.P.A.C.E. – That’s lost in the ‘Society for the Promotion of Artistic and Creative Enterprise’. The first exhibition will be held in the Custard Factory Gallery and runs from Thursday 23rd until Thursday 30th of October and features work from painters, furniture makers, jewellery designers and milliners amongst others. Entry is free, so becoming the next Saatchi and Saatchi art collector needn’t cost the earth.
Make Thursday 9th October an essential date for your diary! – Jibbering is proud to invite you all to the Birmingham leg of The Shambala Art Exhibition Launch, at the incredible Wild Building, 104-108 Floodgate Street, Digbeth, from 7pm til Midnight. The exhibition features the work of 30 heavyweight, cutting edge, internationally acclaimed artists.
Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty – Birmingham does it with a Social Media Surgery for Birmingham community and voluntary groups 5.30-9.00pm on Wednesday 15th October at BVSC, 138 Digbeth B5 6DR. If you’re social media savvy and have the time to spare, get in touch with Nick Booth.
Emilie Autumn at Barfly on 3rd October – bit of a shaky Youtube camera video, but I missed the performance and this makes me think she’s kooky-bonkers-crazy in a kind of good way.
Digbeth/Deritend Conservation Area – ‘Birmingham City Council has prepared a draft Conservation Area Appraisal and draft Supplementary Planning Policies for Digbeth, Deritend and Bordesley High Streets (Digbeth/Deritend) Conservation Area. Public consultation on the document will run for a period of six weeks from Monday 6th October to Friday 14th November 2008. Your comments are welcomed.’
