Category: art

Crossovers seed-funding competition 2013

Over the last few months in EDReC, we’ve been working with Arts Council England South-East on a project called Crossovers.  The project aimed to explore new relationships between culture, tourism and economic development.  In the Spring, we’ll be publishing a report on the ‘cultural visitor economy’ (CVE).

We held a conference in September 2012 and one of the things that happened on the day was that participants came up with new project ideas – we agreed to seed-fund two of them.

One of the Crossovers logos
One of the Crossovers logos

This year we’re offering two more grants of £1,500 to new projects in the south-east of England that address our key themes: culture, the visitor economy and economic development.

Do you have an idea for a new creative project in the visitor economy?

Have you been thinking about how to bring more tourists to your area using the arts?

Have you been discussing how your cultural project can contribute to your local economy?

We want to see this money being used to kick start innovative projects in the south-east of England.  We don’t want to give you a burden of paperwork that takes up your time when you could be busier doing more creative, effective things.

Using funding from Arts Council England South East, we’ve created a process in which you can enter the competition quickly, with the minimum of form filling, and then, if you win, you can get on with getting your project going.

Here’s how you enter:

Fill in this form

Return it, by email to j.s.kennell@gre.ac.uk by the 1st February 2013

We will make a decision about the two projects that best help us to support new relationships between tourism, culture and economic development in the south-east, and we’ll announce this on 11th February.

 

Abandon Normal Devices 29th August – 2nd September

I’ll be speaking at a salon event at this festival of new cinema, digital culture and art on Saturday 1st September.  Also speaking will be Jennifer M Jones, the coordinator for #media2012, a national-wide citizen media network for London 2012.  We’re contributing to Salon #3 ‘Too big to fail?’, a debate on the costs of hosting a successful Olympics .

You can read much more about AND from their excellent website, from which you can also download the programme for the whole festival.  In the text below, the organisers explain what they are all about:

Abandon Normal Devices (AND) is an energetic regional festival of new cinema, digital culture and art. The festival takes place annually in Liverpool and Manchester on alternate years, with an extended regional programme.

Our mission is to push the boundaries of audience experience through a programme that spills out of galleries and screens into the streets of the Northwest.

With a curatorial attitude of participation and innovation, AND has enabled collaborations across the UK’s pioneering digital, science, design and media sectors.

Beyond angels, elephants, good intentions and red-nose rebellion

Ixia , the public art think tank, have produced some great stuff on public art, and this event has the best name I’ve come across for an event in a long time. On top of all that, it’s free!

CFP: RGS-IBG 2011: Travel, Tourism and Art Session

Below you will find a call for papers for the Travel, Tourism and Art Session at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers) to be held in London 31st August- 2nd September 2011 which some of you might find of interest. 

 Travel, Tourism and Art

Convenors: Tijana Rakić ( Edinburgh Napier University, UK) and Jo-Anne Lester (University of Brighton, UK)

Sponsored by the Geography of Leisure and Tourism Research Group (GLTRG)

Session Abstract

Art, in its many forms, has long played an important role in people’s imagination, experience and remembrance of places, cultures and travels as well as in their motivation to travel. Travel and tourism, on the other hand, have also inspired artists and artworks. These fascinating relationships between travel, tourism and art encompass a wide range of phenomena. Drawing on historical contexts these include some of the eighteenth and nineteenth century travellers’ journeys made in order to experience works of art along with their literary travel writing, poetry, drawing and painting while away from home. Conversely, present-day travel inspired by art as well as artworks produced by contemporary travellers is also of interest. With its chief focus being the role of art and artwork in imagining, experiencing, representing and remembering places, cultures and travel/tourism experiences as well as the role of art in motivating travel, this session aims to provide a space for a dialogue about the complex relationships between travel, tourism and art. We therefore welcome the submission of abstracts that address themes including, but not limited to:

  • art and its role in motivating both historical and contemporary travel and tourism 
  • imagining, experiencing and/or remembering places through works of art
  • the role of travel and tourism in inspiring artists and/or artworks produced by travellers
  • representations of ‘touristic’ places, locals, travellers and tourists in artworks

Proposals for papers should be sent to the convenors in a form of a 250 word abstract by the 11th February 2011. 

For more details and to submit an abstract, please contact the session convenors:

Tijana Rakić

Edinburgh Napier University

t.rakic@napier.ac.uk  &   tijana224@gmail.com

Jo-Anne Lester
University of Brighton

J.Lester@brighton.ac.uk

Heritage matters

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to the unveiling of a refurbished Romany vardo, or caravan, that had been restored and interpreted with the artist Martin Brockman.  This was project was run by heritage matters as part of the HLF-funded ‘Kentish Culture Past and Present’ project.  In these two pictures you can see how my daughter took up residence inside the caravan for the duration…

 lyra vardo

The vardo, which has been completely restored, has had wooden panels added to it depicting scenes of traditional Kent life carved by Martin Brockman and students from schools in Canterbury, Kent have been involved at all stages of the project.

lyra vardo 2

 This is the first project of its kind that I am aware of my home county of Kent in the UK.   The history of Kent has always involved movements of people, whether they were part of highly mobile communities like the Romany, or the numerous temporary populations that have accompanied the hop-picking season, or the ebb and flow of seaside tourism.  More recently, Kent has found itself to be a point of entry for migrants seeking admission to the UK. 

I  recommend exploring the Heritage Matters website and making use of some of the intriguing audio recordings you will find there, to get a glimpse into some of Kent’s hidden histories.

The politico-cultural complex by the seaside

Last week I went to the Black/North SEAS conference in Skegness.  I posted regularly to my twitter profile while I was there and because of this I was asked by New Start Magazine to contribute a blog post to their website.  You can read this short article by clicking here.

“There was some exciting artistic work on show as part of the seascape event, and reports of fascinating research. But it seems as though the vogue for coastal cultural regeneration is in danger of repeating the rhetorical and ideological mistakes of the now not-so-novel approach to cultural regeneration taken by inland cities over the last 15 years, concentrating on attracting high-spending cultural tourists and viewing communities as a problem that needed to be solved.”

The Lost Promenade

This is a link to a blog set up by two artists (I think?) who have taken it upon themselves to start travelling around the coast of the UK to try and “make some new seaside memories”. In doing so they are presenting images and text about their experiences, leaving an archive of touching, insightful and usually amusing journal entries along with some beautiful images of their travels.  The latest post details a visit to Dungeness, home of the late Derek Jarman and a nuclear power station.  I’ve clipped an image from their blog below…

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As seen on TV….

I will be part of a panel on the South-East section of BBC 1’s ‘the politics show’ on Sunday 23rd November, discussing the role of cultural projects in the regeneration of seaside towns.  The show will be broadcast live between 12.30 and 1pm from Margate, ahead of the ground-breaking ceremony for the controversial Turner Contemporary gallery that will be constructed in the Kentish resort.  If you are not in the South-East, you can view the show after it has been broadcast via their website.

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La Luminata

The web’s best blog for ethical / sustainable fashion and design news has moved – you can now find Rachel Holland’s La Luminata blog here, definitely one to bookmark if you are interested in the quirkier and innovative end of the green marketplace.

Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty

Andy Miah’s new book, ‘Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty’, is being launched with a day long conference at F.A.C.T. in Liverpool on 30th October.  “The book is a major, design-led publication, consisting of 25 Chapters by artists, bioethicists, sociologists, designers and philosophers. These are accompanied by 250+ images from leading artists and designers.”.  You can find out more about the book and the launch by going to its website here

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