Fresh winds are blowing - a distant, subtle fragrance in the air - flux and evolution - all good. No more to add this week other than the events, exhibition, funding, commission and training offered below.
A reminder that if you want to come to the Networking Event at MMU on Thursday 7th Feb that has input of guests from Italy and Turkey and a focus on the arts in relation to recovery, you have to register at artsforhealth@mmu.ac.uk and details of the venue and other information, will be sent early next week.
The following short film is another eye-flickering response to some of the conversations I’ve had with people about re-imagining this arts/health field in relation to the here and now. (see previous blogs) Please don’t click on the film if you react badly to flashing images.
Birth Rites Collection
The shortlisted entries for the Birth Rites Collection’s bi-annual art prize will be showcased at the University of Salford’s MediaCityUK campus on Saturday 2 February. The Collection was established by Helen Knowles, an artist and curator who aims to encourage a wider debate about the politics and practice of childbirth through the use of art. It was inspired by Helen’s contrasting experiences of giving birth to her first child in a hospital by cesarean and her second born at home. The exhibition at MediaCityUK will feature the drawings, films, photographs and sculptures of 15 shortlisted artists from all over the world. The prize is a month at artistic retreat The Trelex Residency in Geneva (including the cost of flights and a stipend) plus a place in the Birth Rites Collection.
The short-listed artworks include Emma Lazenby’s BAFTA-winning short animation about a midwife, Mother of Many (see below), photographs of women's faces at the moment of birth by Dominika Dzikowska, "illegitimate hallucinations", by Giorgio Sadotti and YouTube videos of childbirth flanked by photographs of people watching them by Claire Lawrie.
The winner of the competition will be announced at the event by curator Helen Knowles and fellow judge Hermione Wiltshire, an artist and senior lecturer in photography at the Royal College of Art.
Helen said: “The taboo and under-represented subject of birth has been shown to be of great importance as a topic for artists to explore. We have had a great number of excellent submissions to the competition and this show presents a broad spectrum of works which were found to be the most poignant. Imagery on this fundamental life-process is a great way for people to get to grips with what it means to give birth today."
The Birth Rites Collection is housed at the University of Salford in the midwifery department and the Royal College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians in London. Birth Rites, Saturday 2 February, 11.00am – 5.00pm, The Egg, University of Salford, MediaCityUK. Prize to be awarded at 2pm.
Music in Healthcare Settings Training
We are proud to announce details of our next Music in Healthcare Settings training programme for musicians, to take place on 11, 12, 15, 16 and 17 April 2013 in Derby, UK. More details and an application form are available from our website here: Places are limited - applicants are advised to send an application asap. http://www.opusmusic.org/?p=437
Tesco Charity Trust Community Awards (UK)
Deadline: Sun 30 Jun 2013
The Tesco Charity Trust Community Awards Scheme has announced that its funding programme for children’s education and children’s welfare will re-open for applications on 1 December 2012. The scheme awards one-off donations of between £500 and £4,000 to registered charities, schools and not-for-profit organisations. The funding they give can go towards providing practical benefits, such as equipment and resources for projects that directly benefit children living in the local communities around Tesco stores in the UK.
Applications should be made between 1 December – 30 January and 1 May – 30 June. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 30 January and Sunday 30 June 2013. To find out more about the Awards and how to apply, please click on the carrier bag below.
Greggs Foundation Grants
Deadline: Mon 18 Feb 2013
Local not-for-profit organisations can apply for grants of up to £2,000 through the Greggs Foundation regional grants Programme. The programme is administered by committees of volunteers from Greggs shops, bakeries and offices who are based in England, Scotland and Wales. They use their knowledge of the local area to make small grants to local organisations, in particular those that make a difference to people in need in the heart of Greggs’ local communities. The Greggs Foundation prioritises local organisations that help people in need in their local area, with previous funding helping towards trips, activities and equipment. Additionally the Foundation prioritises the following people:
- Voluntary carers
- People with disabilities
- Homeless people
- Older people
The deadline for applications is Monday 18 February 2013. Read more by clicking on the pies.
Grants to Help New, Innovative Visual Arts Projects (UK)
The Elephant Trust has announced that the next deadline for applications is the 15th April 2013. The Trust offers grants to artists and for new, innovative visual arts projects based in the UK. The Trust's aim is to make it possible for artists and those presenting their work to undertake and complete projects when confronted by lack of funds. The Trust supports projects that develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the fine arts. Priority is now being given to artists and small organisations and galleries who should submit well argued, imaginative proposals for making or producing new work or exhibitions. Arts Festivals are not supported. The Trust normally awards grants of up to £2,000, but larger grants may be considered. Read more at:
Public Art Commission: Liverpool & Sefton Health Partnership Ltd in co-operation with Mersey Care NHS Trust
Liverpool & Sefton Health Partnership Ltd (LSHP) Art Commission
(in co-operation with Mersey Care NHS Trust)
LSHP is calling for applications from experienced and suitably qualified artists/artist teams for the commission of a high impact piece of art at the entrance of the mental health facility which provides a message of hope, optimism and wellbeing for Mersey Care NHS Trust’s service users, staff and neighbours.
The local community and service users will be at the heart of this project and the selected artist/artist teams must demonstrate how they will work with the community and service users to develop a sense of ownership of the building and its surrounds. Therefore the artist/artist team must also outline the approach they will take to engage and work with the local community and mental health service users. LSHP will expect applicants to showcase previous commissions where they have experience of successful public engagement.
Applicants are requested to read the full contents of the Artist Brief and Application Process document carefully as it contains important information about the application process and terms of reference. Deadline: 12.00noon, Friday 22rd March 2013. full details by clicking on the Olympia Theatre below.
Is Photography inherently racist?
Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin To Photograph the Details of a Dark Horse in Low Light The Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg is presenting two new related bodies of work by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin. The following text is taken from the gallery website. In 1970, Caroline Hunter, a young chemist working for the Polaroid Corporation, stumbled upon evidence that her multinational employees were indirectly supporting apartheid. With the collusion of local distributors Frank & Hirsch, Polaroid was able to provide the ID-2 camera system to the South African state, to efficiently produce images for the infamous passbooks. The camera included a boost button designed to increase the flash when photographing subjects with dark skin. Alongside her partner Ken Williams they formed the Polaroid Workers Revolutionary Movement, and campaigned for a boycott. By 1977, Polaroid finally did withdraw from South Africa, and the international divestment movement – which eventually crippled apartheid – was on its way. The radical notion that prejudice might be inherent in the medium of photography itself is interrogated by the artists Broomberg and Chanarin in this presentation of new works produced on salvaged polaroid ID-2 systems.
Early colour film was known to be predicated on white skin and in 1977 when Jean-Luc Godard was invited on an assignment to Mozambique, he famously refused to use Kodak film on the grounds that the film stock was inherently ‘racist’. The title of Broomberg and Chanarin’s exhibition was originally the coded phrase used by Kodak to describe the capabilities of a new film stock developed in the early ’80s to address the inability of their earlier films to accurately render dark skin. In response to a commission to ‘document’ Gabon, Broomberg and Chanarin recently made two trips to the country to photograph a series of rare Bwiti initiation rituals, using only Kodak film stock that had expired in the late 1970s. Working with outdated chemical processes they succeeded in salvaging just a single frame from the many expired colour rolls they exposed during their visit. In this wide-ranging meditation on the relationship between photography and race, the artists continue to scrutinise the photographic medium, leading viewers through a convoluted history lesson; a combination of found images, rescued artifacts and unstable new photographic works.
