The images of Bi-polar Abdul are installed in the windows of the venue
Location: The Unitarian Church, Hallgate & The Leopard
Expect the unexpected as Doncaster welcomes ArtBomb: an open platform arts festival, spreading across public space and spilling onto the street. This three day event is engineered through the collaborative efforts of Doncaster Creates, The New Fringe and True Tone. Situated around Doncaster’s hidden architectural and cultural jewel, the Unitarian Church on Hallgate, the festival aims to spark discussion, challenge ideas and foster a new sense of curiosity. As we collectively step from our homes and back outside, we bring art into the urban realm through experimental performance, installations, music, film screenings, workshops and everything in between. With a focus on a new generation of diverse creative practitioners, ArtBomb also fosters the growth of emerging creative producers and students by providing live mentorship and talent development through live production, festival management and public engagement. ArtBomb is funded by The Arts Council North and DCLT, and in partnership with The Point, Right Up Our Street, Art of Protest Projects, Doncaster College, D31 Gallery, Doncopolitan, CAST and Pride.
Exhibition
Location: The Unitarian Church, Hallgate & The Leopard
Expect the unexpected as Doncaster welcomes ArtBomb: an open platform arts festival, spreading across public space and spilling onto the street. This three day event is engineered through the collaborative efforts of Doncaster Creates, The New Fringe and True Tone. Situated around Doncaster’s hidden architectural and cultural jewel, the Unitarian Church on Hallgate, the festival aims to spark discussion, challenge ideas and foster a new sense of curiosity. As we collectively step from our homes and back outside, we bring art into the urban realm through experimental performance, installations, music, film screenings, workshops and everything in between. With a focus on a new generation of diverse creative practitioners, ArtBomb also fosters the growth of emerging creative producers and students by providing live mentorship and talent development through live production, festival management and public engagement. ArtBomb is funded by The Arts Council North and DCLT, and in partnership with The Point, Right Up Our Street, Art of Protest Projects, Doncaster College, D31 Gallery, Doncopolitan, CAST and Pride.
Exhibition
Opening on August 5th and running through September 29th next to the Unitarian Church, Birdsong features newly commissioned works by 14 local artists. The title of this exhibition highlights what we heard during lockdown: the absence of the usual hustle bustle sounds emitting from humans, with the replacement of birdsong. The works explore the impact of Covid 19 as the artists capture our condition through different artistic approaches. Artists featured in this exhibition include Sarah Villeneau, Mandy Keating, James Lockey, Ian Byatt, Sacha Gray, Vicky Morris, Raj Madaan, Angela Robson, Amelia Londsdale, Les Monaghan, Natasha Clarke, Sarah Smizz and Warren Draper.
Art forum
Aptly titled Public Art to Street Art, this one day forum features presentations, workshops and roundtable discussions which take place on Friday the 6th of August at the Unitarian Church. An event for artists, curators, urbanists and writers to challenge how we think of art in the public realm. We will hear from renowned public art curators including Tamsin Dillon and Laurie Peake with other speakers to include street artists Yola, STATIC, Natasha Clark as well as sculptors Sophie Ernst and Lewis Morgan. We will hear from artist/architects Matthew Rosier, whose public art installation is featured outside of Tate as well as Studio Polpo, who currently represents the UK at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Additionally the forum features talks with eco-artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey. Together these celebrated individuals will discuss creative connections, social agency, effective responses and the relevance of contemporary urban interventions to form a critical understanding of people and place. As ‘high street collapse’ provides new opportunities for reimagining urban space, how do new forms interface with public art policy and the work of regenerative arts programs? Interwoven into the forum is the Parallel State in collaboration with Olivia Jones and Doncapolitan, who have invited a number of people to respond to the following provocation: What Does a Northern Town Look Like in the Parallel State and what happens in it’s public spaces? All citizens in the Parallel State are equal and not bound by geographical restraints and prejudices. Without a north:south binary, how will Doncaster’s past inform this reimagined version of itself? If Doncaster were self governed, what would it look like? How would it interact with other urban and rural communities? What would its public spaces look like? Expect speakers, performances, thoughts from young people, a backroom polling station and a temporary tattoo parlour. Speakers will include drag performance artist Bipolar Abdul, Clare Devaney who is Strategic Lead for Place & Culture in the North, award winning Doncaster artist Sarah Smizz and Olivia Jones, who represents Parallel State and serves as the creative director of Doncopolitan.
Performance and music
New promenading performance work and experiments will be presented around Hallgate by Gillian Dyson, Warren Draper, Sacha Grey, Filippos Tsitsopoulos and ‘Jackhno’ of Buffland Beat Collective. Additionally featured is Garden Sessions, an independent live music event produced by singer-songwriter August Charles. In a time where live music was put on hold, Charles saw an opportunity to spotlight musicians digitally by producing a series of youtube videos featuring performances in Doncaster’s Walkers Nurseries gardens. As lockdown lifts, Charles collaborates with Olivia Jones and Jez Matthews to produce a live event on Saturday, August 7th at The Leopard. Protesting the status quo, the event will have a variety of artists immersed and performing within the crowd, producing a culture clash of music and exploring sound in different formats. Musical guests will include Paul Parlyb Brown, Tim Cook, Simmeon Naphtali, Jordon The Ego, GSD.
Film screenings
Artbomb will feature film screenings and discussions followed by Q&A sessions with the filmmakers which investigate questions surrounding cultural identity, perceptions of race, colonialism, the climate emergency, gender and sexual identity. With films created by Fluidity and Bi-Polar Abdul, Chooc Ly Tan, Angela Robson and Lorna Collins and Wayne Sables and a special film screening by Eelyn Lee of her new film Casting Fu-Manchu, which will feature a special appearance by actor Elisabeth Gunawan. Film installations also featured include those by Ryan Harstone, Raiche Kotaiche, Filipos T and Aaron Willliams.
Workshops and other public interaction
Re-vision is curated by Art of Protest Projects and The Point. As the Point is currently closed, the exhibition has been digitised for online exploration. Take a tour around the gallery through images and videos to find out more about the creation of street art in Doncaster and the muralists who brought their art indoors. This exhibition features original artworks by internationally acclaimed artists STATIC, Paul Luke and Natasha Clarke, who have all created large-scale installations around Doncaster. Their aim is to make art more accessible and engaging for a wider audience. Colours is the first of a developing program of interactive and engaging art activity to be held in Doncaster’s Market Place, opening on August 6th. The iconic Corn Exchange building will host nine artists selected by young organisers of Colours, GSD. Visitors will find digital animation, videography, mixed media, photography and illustration which will fill the mezzanine, re-vitalising the Corn Exchange to become a place where experimental art can be enjoyed. The artists will respond to this through the creation of interactive individual environments that visitors can wander through. Birdsong artist activations will take place every Saturday during August and September and will feature various workshops by Sarah Villneau, Raj Madaan, Sacha Grey, Warren Draper and Mandy Keating.
Previous ArtBombs
FORUM - PUBLIC ART TO STREET ART
This one-day forum take place on Friday the 6th of August at the Unitarian Church, 60 Hallgate. 10 am – 6 pm.
An event for artists, curators, urbanists and policymakers to challenge how we think of art in the public realm.
Discuss creative connections, social agency, effective responses and the relevance of contemporary urban interventions to form a critical understanding of people and place. As ‘high street collapse’ provides new opportunities for reimagining urban space, how do new forms interface with public art policy and the work of regenerative arts programs?
Interwoven into the forum is the Parallel State in collaboration with Olivia Jones and Doncapolitan, who have invited a number of people to respond to the following provocation: What Does a Northern Town Look Like in the Parallel State and what happens in it’s public spaces? All citizens in the Parallel State are equal and not bound by geographical restraints and prejudices. Without a north:south binary, how will Doncaster’s past inform this reimagined version of itself? If Doncaster were self governed, what would it look like? How would it interact with other urban and rural communities? What would its public spaces look like? Expect speakers, performances, thoughts from young people, a backroom polling station and a temporary tattoo parlour.
The World Through New Eyes
ARTISTS
This is a mini feature on the Birdsong Projects as they develop, starting with some that have already begun which respond immediately to our original provocation, ‘Birdsong on the Planet of the Apes’, written in a period of early Covid19 uncertainty, and now as we adjust to ‘distancing’, we tentatively learn new customs, reassess our values along with the practical expressions of what is permissible and safe such as elbow bumps. Beyond these new social codes and customs, how are we feeling our way back into a sense of community? How are we adjusting and coping with the cracks exposed when change occurs on a radical level ? How will the artists produce relevant new work ?
The artists featured here explore and enact how life is now, helping us on a journey to learn who we are now and what parts of our life we might be happier to leave behind. In asking deeper questions that have been highlighted by Covid19, they capture our condition through different artistic approaches and offering alternatives to how we function through adverse times.
Mikes Stubbs (Creative Director)
Birdsong on The Planet of the Apes exhibition will appear in waves from June the 21st onwards culminating during the ArtBomb long weekend August 5-9th (The curator of this show, Sacha Gray, gives context for the exhbition on our blog)
Featured Speakers
Natasha Clarke is a Doncastrian Street artist, GooodBro designer and currently researching the site for her Birdsong Commission painting.
Warren Draper is an artist whose practice has central social and environmental concerns. He writes of his Birdsong commission.
As an industry, the arts have been decimated by the Covid-19 crisis. Many of us are self-employed creatives who could not work and unable to practice that which is both our passion and our livelihood.
Working remotely with several asylum seeker families and individuals over the second lockdown, I delivered packs of clay and tools to their homes, with many a long chat on their doorsteps. They were given written and illustrated tips on how to work with clay, a couple of making videos to watch and we had a whatsapp group for any questions. Zoom sessions weren’t possible as they did not all have internet access. I look back in astonishment now at how anxious I was about how they would respond. I really needn’t have worried. They embraced the project with such enthusiasm that it became a much longer project than I had envisaged, and some are still making, six months down the line. Several are keen to learn more and one woman would like to become a potter – she’s now been granted asylum, so I hope that, once she’s settled in her new home she will be able to attend classes. None of them had ever worked with clay or done anything that they classed as art. And despite English not being their first language, the feedback they gave was so articulate and thoughtful. “We were thinking through our hands.” “We learnt through our mistakes – we made over and over again and realised that ‘Si tu veux, tu peux'” “It takes away stress – it makes you think of positive things – you think about what you’re going to make and how, instead of thinking about the things you cannot change.” “I’m having so many ideas – anything I see now, I think, how can I use the clay to make this?”
The ‘stones’ were made by me using a variety of different clays – some locally dug, some groggy, some not. They were squeezed in the hand by the participants to leave the imprint of their touch. They are a symbol, amongst other things, of the beauty in diversity. The project will be exhibited in Doncaster later in the year. Watch this space!
With thanks to Doncaster Creates
Residents of Bentley often say, “you could build a wall around it and you would have everything you need”. It’s high-street is filled with local eateries and shops, salons, a post office, chemists, multiple schools and churches
It does not seek to come to any significant social or politically motivated conclusions but, is simply a reflection of my interests in suburban landscaping and a way of integrating and communicating with my new space. Created during the Covid-19 pandemic, the project is a visual diary of my world. The small thoughts, simple pleasures and observations that now make-up the foundations of my day that have become increasingly significant to me during the COVID pandemic and lockdown.
The texts are being created by asking those in Doncaster who are rarely asked, and never heard, ‘where do we go from here?’ Those who are rarely asked for their views are young people, the disenfranchised, those living on the margins, those right now who are too busy keeping things together at home or at work. I have worked with some of the participants before in other creative projects that have also been about voice and it is really interesting to hear their individual and somewhat changing views as we move through the era of COVID. They are the Invisible Vox Populi. As I produce The Invisible Vox Populi, I’m thinking through ways that they can be presented to the public in a COVID safe way, I’m currently experimenting with the work being hung on school railings at school pick up time, pop up style and am continuing this with different schools over the next few weeks.
Her background is in Graphic Design (one of Thunderclap designer) and started her freelance career as a book and paper artist. She will concentrate on one very small area of Doncaster, known to her, it is a square in Kirk Sandall, with houses around its edge and a green in the centre. Commenting on the developement so far, Mandy says: “While we’ve been in lockdown I’ve been concentrating on the visuals for the website that could also be standalone artworks….What this project has done to date for me personally is to find out a lot more about my own family – stuff I didn’t even know about. I’ve also had to learn more digital stuff, which has been brilliant for me.”
Is a local filmmaker and editor producing work for over ten years. Jodie Williams is an Equality, Inclusion and Diversity professional who has worked across various sectors with the aim of making businesses and services more accessible and inclusive. Jodie is also the Leeds Melanin Festival Director, a series of events celebrating communities of colour and Black history.
The Podcast is described as:
Welcome to White Privilege Drama. A series of short audio dramatizations reflecting on the real experience of what it is to be Black in Britain today.
The series was written by Jodie Williams and produced by Rajnish Madaan.
Seed funding came from Doncaster Creates and the series is created by South Yorkshire artists.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/…/white…/id1562154758…Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0jHcyZbX9Goo4scRTAIsrAGoogle: https://www.google.com/podcasts…
