There was a definite chill in the air last Saturday afternoon but that didn’t stop a good crowd braving the great outdoors for We Are Eastside’s East Stride, a tour of some of the area’s key arts venues led by local historian Ben Waddington.
We started off from The Old Crown, which as Ben pointed out, perhaps isn’t as old as it purports to be. We then made our way to where much of what makes up Digbeth all began, at Bennie Gray’s The Custard Factory. Those hanging about didn’t appear to be the usual skater kids that frequent its skate park, they seemed to be a much more rag-tag bunch.
'Aggressive Localism'
It turned out they were the creations of people participating in the Craftspace Collective ‘Aggressive Localism’ workshop led by Juneau Projects. You’ll be seeing these Morris dancer inspired costumes worn by skateboarders in the Lord Mayor’s Parade later this year.
The Uses of Enchantment at Rhubarb East
From thereon we visited the newly opened Rhubarb East Gallery in Rhubarb Studios on Heath Mill Lane, which is exploring The Uses of Enchantment with some lovely fine art photography from The Jackson Twins and Vee Speers, whose child portraits I found particularly captivating. Rhubarb-Rhubarb’s Creative Director Rhonda Wilson spoke of her joy in at last having a space to display work:
For years we have watched while the sometimes extraordinary talent emerging from our reviews and mentoring schemes, has been shown by other people, both in the UK and in international spaces. Now we have the pleasure of exhibiting the results of our efforts, in collaboration with some of the world’s most interesting image makers.
The pod space in VIVID
We carried on down Heath Mill Lane, stopping off at Eastside Projects to enjoy The Curtain Show and hear Gavin Wade talk about the artist-led, ex-industrial space and VIVID, where Director Yasmeen Baig-Clifford told the story of its versatile pod space developed by architect Ranbir Lal, a perfect solution for an arts organisation renting rather than owning their premises.
Jim Simpson
Ex Black Sabbath Manager and Birmingham International Jazz Festival founder Jim Simpson popped by and chatted with Lisa and Jenny from Capsule about the rougher, tougher type of music that seems to stem from industrial Birmingham.
St Basil's by Steve Cadman
Ben’s tour also included elements of local history and interest, such as the amazing brickwork on St Basil’s headquarters, which used to be a High Anglican Church.
Pip McKnight
Whilst we were oohing and aahing who should pass by but Pip McKnight, who told us all about how 7 Inch Cinema began whilst Birmingham Film Festival was folding, which was a cloud with a silver lining as they got a lot of the old equipment!
Spacesuit at Grand Union
We got to have a chat outside Ikon Eastside, where many of the tour later got to enjoy Flatpack and Capsule’s screening of Burning, before crossing the road to find the tucked-away Grand Union. The current exhibition Gon-goozler is well worth a look with a fun space-travel theme that includes a spacesuit, a weather-balloon and of course, cheese, some of which had disappeared before the night was out.
Grand Union artist studios corridor
What was really impressive about Grand Union was the studio space, where about 8-10 artists get their own, cheap self-contained work units to get creative in. The artists we met were as happy as pigs in mud in this place and spoke of the need for more like it. Like VIVID, Grand Union are tenants rather than owners of the old industrial space, but the units are flatpack so should they need to move, their studios can move with them to be reassembled in a new home.
James Langdon and Ben Waddington talk the We Are Eastside typeface
We bumped into artist James Langdon whilst we were there, who spoke with Ben about his development of the distinctive We Are Eastside typeface. If you look carefully you’ll find the A’s are a particularly curvaceous treat and as Ben pointed out, not unlike the outline of Eastside itself, although whether this is by accident or design I’m unsure.
Claudia Borgna installation at Rea Garden
Last stop on the tour was the Rea Garden on Floodgate Street, where Arlene Burnett of Behind Closed Doors spoke about their development of the space, and resident artists Claudia Borgna and Alex Lockett of Project Pigeon explained their very different installations. Claudia’s plastic bag flowers looked like seeds from another planet had landed in the bottom half of the garden and taken it over.
Bluen with her chick by Project Pigeon
Project Pigeon is a longer-term installation in the space, which means we get to see the pigeons develop from eggs to fully-grown birds. I got to stroke Bluen’s tiny chick (above), which is now the healthy, strapping 28-day old bird below.
Alex Lockett with Bluen's fully-grown chick
Unfortunately Ben didn’t have the time to take us to see Friction Arts’ The Edge or The Lombard Method, but both are well worth taking the time to venture over to the other side of the High Street.
Curtains at Curtain Show, Eastside Projects
There’s been some interesting online discussion about We Are Eastside since its launch, including a brilliant post by Jon Bounds at BiNS about increasing engagement in the arts, both by simple awareness raising and more in-depth local collaboration. The latter is something I’d like to see lots more of Digbeth – there’s some amazing cultural stuff going on around here, such as Irish Heritage and St Patrick’s Festival Birmingham which, for whatever reason, feels completely unconnected to much of the arts activity in the area.
Cheese at Grand Union. Mmmmmm....
From my resident’s perspective, both camps are making interesting, creative and exciting stuff happen, so it would be great to see them bounce off each other more. I suppose that’s why I’ve kind of fallen in love with Friction Arts, because they are so embedded within the community. I’d love to see arts organisations reach out more and work with local people who are already getting together and doing brilliant things under their own steam, my guess is that all involved learn an awful lot!
This year’s Irish literature event at Tuesday, which was part of the St Patrick’s Festival Birmingham Fringe, was as Kent Davis described – ‘great little event that we can build for the future’. It was a lovely, cosy gathering around the The Old Crown’s fireside, with people reading pieces of Irish poetry and prose that meant something to them. The choices were varied.
There were the classics – a brilliantly theatrical reading of Jonathan Swift’s satirical A Meditation Upon A Broomstick and a touching rendition of W B Yeats’ The Isle of Innisfree.
Of course you can’t get through a night of Irish literature without a bit of James Joyce and James Kennedy was brave enough to read us an extract from Ulysses.
John Kennedy, who compered the evening’s proceedings, gave us Seamus Heaney’s heartbreaking poem Mid Term Break.
I dug out my Patrick McCabe books – my favorite Irish author of deathly dark, ‘bog gothic’ novels. I read an extract from Winterwood, which Deirdre O’Bryrne had gotten me musing upon after her recent talk about fathers in Irish literature at February’s Irish Heritage evening.
We also got a taste of some lesser known authors, including some as yet unpublished works – Brummie performance poet Brendan Higgins of Wrote Under gave us his reflections on the Perils of Drinking and The Sounds of Birmingham.
Kent Davis saw this first event as the start of something special, with readings from new writers and higher-profile authors, so keep an eye on what emerges for next year’s festival.
As great as that is, there’s a lot to be said for intimate gatherings of small groups sharing their favourite reads and their thoughts and feelings about them, and I’m sure I heard whisperings about an Irish literature book group as I was leaving. A grand plan – sign me up!
Those of you who missed the special screening of the Philip Donnellan piece on BBC1′s Inside Out on 8th March, which featured interviews with Filum fans at the Spotted Dog who’d just watched his documentary film The Irishmen, you can watch it again in the YouTube film above – sorry the sound is a little out.
Fans of Irish film might like to go along to the Spotted Dog tomorrow evening for an Irish Film Night from 6pm onwards as part of St Patrick’s Festival Birmingham. Landlord John Tighe is screening Everlasting Piece, The Informer and Dancing at Lughnasa. I can’t make this one because I’ll be chatting about Patrick McCabe at the St Patrick’s Literary Festival at The Old Crown Inn from 7pm. Go along to hear all about the darkly comic McCabe, poetical W B Yeats, avant-guarde Samuel Beckett, and modernist James Joyce.
Fans of Irish culture might also like to see the Irish storyteller Katrice Horsley weave her magic at The Irish Centre, 7pm this Weds 17th March (St Patrick’s Day), again as part of St Patrick’s Festival Birmingham. Irish film fans in particular would do well to check out the Flatpack Festival in Birmingham later this month. Highlights include:
Synth Eastwood’s Fast Forward Show on Fri 26th March, when Dublin collective Synth Eastwood will host a night of live music, animation and interactivity at The Rainbow.
The Secret of Kells at The Electric Cinema on Sun 28th March, ‘a stunning animation about how the Book of Kells was completed and survived to become one of Ireland’s national treasures.’
Eastside Studio (the workshop type space next to The Old Crown, where you often find people hammering bits of metal or rock) are holding an Open Studio this Saturday afternoon at 12pm-5pm to ‘celebrate the completion of carving the ‘Rugby Writers’ commission’. I don’t know what the Rugby Writers commission is, but it’ll be a good chance to look around an interesting, creative Digbeth space I’ve not managed to stick my nose into yet.
Just a quick reminder that Ben Waddington is giving me and my Flip an extra special Digbeth tour this Sunday. We start from The Old Cown Pub at midday Sunday 21 December – so sod the Christmas shopping and come join us instead. It should take no more than 1-2 hours.
Artist Melinda Scwakhofer visited over the weekend as planned, and it was grand.
One of the great things about having her here was the brilliantly positive way people reacted to her. When she explained she was an artist from out of town who likes old stuff, people felt compelled to share their treasure troves with her.
On Friday we went to The Spotted Dog, and before we’d finished our first drink landlord John Tighe had dug out the original old deeds to the place:
Nowhere else could you touch an old parchment like this with your bare hands, let alone on a damp pub garden table covered in drinks and ashtrays. The Old Crown keeps theirs well hidden and customers only get to see a colour copy from behind a glass frame on the wall. However John did lend me some reading material that will let me delve deeper into the old Tudor pub:
I can’t wait to learn about the traditions of The Old Crown House in Der-Yat-End.
Melinda bought the second round of drinks with Art Money, after convincing John to become the first pub in Birmingham to accept it. Art Money is original artwork that works as a global, alternative currency and is a lovely idea. Thanks to Melinda taking a shine to a broach I was wearing, I ended the night getting some of my own (I did try to give it away, I promise):
Now I just need to try not to get drunk and desperate enough to use it for drinks in The Spotted Dog.
It’s strange how an outside eye can make you aware of things that have been under your nose for years. I’d never noticed these pretty, blue-tiled art-deco toilets hiding behind a billboard on the High Street, but Melinda clocked them straight away:
These were the ladies backing onto the River Rea, whilst the mens opposite are about to be knocked down as part of the building work next to the Irish Club:
By far the best aspect of Melinda’s visit was seeing a healthier approach to approaching people. When she told people she was interested in them, their places and their things they were naturally pleased as punch and I realised how stupid it is of me to sometimes feel awkward about indulging my curiosity. It’s a lesson learnt, I’m now determined to swallow my fears and be more intrepid with strangers. If I start talking to you, please be nice!
