Sep 01 2010

Make contact…

Category: Birmingham,exhibition,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 09:00

So, you all know about the exhibition, right? Starts on Friday (Matt and Ian spent the day hanging it today). Even if I do say so myself (and it’s fine that I do, I’m not one of the artists) it looks fab. Eclectic. Thought provoking. Fun. Beautiful. The image above is from one of a series by Matt Murtagh. See more of the amazing unofficial city twinning portraits he’s made in the show.

Have you decided yet when you’re coming down? A really good day to do that would be on Thursday 9th September, about 6.30pm.. That’s the night we’re having our Artists Talk – there’ll be wine, photography, friendly artists and good conversation. I’m looking forward to hearing some more of the stories behind people’s work -and I know they’re looking forward to telling them.

No need to RSVP, just come along. We look forward to seeing you there.

Contact
Rhubarb East Gallery,
25 Heath Mill Lane
Digbeth
B9 4AE

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Aug 17 2010

Contact – an exhibition at Rhubarb East

Category: Photospace,exhibition,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 21:00

We’ve been quiet on here. I admit it. I’ve even had emails about it…(thanks to those of you who got in touch!)

We’ve been putting all our energy recently into creating a new show in partnership with a very talented group of photographers from around the Midlands, called The Photography Collective.

We’re now at that stage where we want to talk about the exhibition. We’re actually very excited about it – given that it’s an associate show of the recent Rhubarb-Rhubarb International Photography and it’s another opportunity to show the wealth of talent we have in the Midlands, and prove again how much need and support there is for a permanent space for photography in Birmingham.

We have a new website for lots more details about the show, and a blog which talks a bit about our journey to get there. I’ll post more details on here in due course – but the new website is shiny, and you should go and have a look!

The exhibition was inspired by discussions within the group on the nature of contact, with each of the photographers creating work within their own practice exploring their thoughts on the theme. The variety of styles and formats challenges the viewer to consider how contact is made between objects both animate and inanimate, between the past and present, between analogue and digital and between photographer and subject.

The show is curated by Kathryn Klizsat, the accomplished curator at Light House – the centre for film, video, art and photography in Wolverhampton. Kathryn has put the show together from a larger body of work from emerging talent and established photographers from across the two groups. The result is a diverse and exciting new body of work seen for the first time here in Birmingham.

Come along - September 3rd to September 18th 2010 – 11am -5.30, Rhubarb East, Custard Factory, Birmingham.

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Jun 14 2010

I’m a photographer, not a terrorist.

Category: Birmingham,exhibition,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 21:22

Another show in Birmingham next Friday – 25th June 2010 – the C&G 7512 Diploma in Professional Photo Imaging – Adult learners end of year show.

For one night only, it seems, the Masonic Halls (next to the Mailbox) will be turned into an exhibition celebrating the work of the graduates of this diploma – one of the only courses of this type for adult learners in the city.

The exhibition, entitled “I am a photographer, not a terrorist” is based on the students’ experiences and reactions from trying to take images in public places and the effects on their work of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.

With a print auction offering the chance to own some great work by talented professional photographers, and a raffle with some prizes on offer it’s set to be more entertaining than your average private view!

For more information on the show see their website.

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May 26 2010

Invite to an Artist Talk at Rhubarb Rhubarb

Category: Birmingham,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 21:52

We at Birmingham Photospace very much admire everything Rhubarb Rhubarb do for international photography (and Birmingham!) so we were very excited to be invited to the Artist Talk of their first exhibition in their new premises. We’re going to go along to see the Jackson Twins talk about their work – and we’re very much looking forward to immersing themselves in their art for a couple of hours.

It takes place on Saturday 5th June between 2 and 4pm – do come along with us?

About the Artists:
The Jackson Twins won a Rhubarb Bursary last year and showed their portfolio at the promenade at the 2009 International Review. Alasdair Foster, Director of the Australian Centre for photography, one of the Rhubarb Reviewers, immediately offered them a show in Sydney…..
They were the stars of the week 4 Portfolio Review at Fotofest 2010 and are now being asked to show their work throughout the world.

About the Exhibition:
Rhubarb say: The Uses of Enchantment’, the first show at Rhubarb-East, brings together two series of work by The Jackson Twins, from the West Midlands, with Vee Speers from Paris. Both inspired by fables and fairy stories, nostalgia and psychology, they propose, at first, two seemingly playful series of portraits, featuring a birthday party for children and some double trouble using costume, disguise and female allure… Yet beyond the first enchantment, are troubled stories of war, power, intrigue and dark, magical and potent forces…

The Jackson Twins have just returned from the opening of their exhibition in Sydney, Australia, as a result of winning a Rhubarb/Arts Council Bursary last year. Vee Speers is a regular visitor to the Rhubarb International Review and is collected by museums and individuals throughout the world – including DZ Bank, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Michael Wilson and Elton John. She will shortly be showing with Annie Liebovitiz and Joel Peter Witkin in the premiere show at Fotografiska – the new phototography Museum in Stockholm.

Rhonda Wilson, Creative Director of Rhubarb-Rhubarb, says, “ For years we have watched while the sometimes extraordinary talent emerging from our programme of support and mentoring schemes, has been shown by other people, both in the UK and in international spaces. Now we have the pleasure of showing the results of our efforts, in collaboration with some of the world’s most interesting image makers. The first show is just fantastic and we have created a whole environment for the photographs. If you are into Alice in Wonderland, or even if you’re not – you will love to fall down this particular visual rabbit hole.

See you there?

Rhubarb East Gallery
Rhubarb Building
25 Heathmill Lane, Digbeth
Birmingham B9 4AE

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May 10 2010

Beautiful Northfield

Category: Birmingham,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 22:38

A friend of Birmingham Photospace, Jane Baker emailed us this week to let us know about an interesting community photography project that the Northfield Eco Centre are running.

There’s an open photography competition (with some pretty heavyweight judges on board) and some workshops and even an exhibition.

If you live, work or travel to Northfield you’re welcome to enter your images of the neighbourhood. But hurry! You’ve got ’till the end of May to take your photo.

For all the details do have a look at their website. Best of luck to you all!

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Oct 08 2009

Irving Penn (1917 – 2009)

Category: photographers — Matt Murtagh @ 10:42

We’re in the middle of a long stream of Brum People photos but this is just a note to pay our respects to Irving Penn, one of the most influential portrait and fashion photographers, who died yesterday aged 92.

One of the first photographers to pose his models against plain white or grey backgrounds his influence can be seen throughout our project but also through modern photography as a whole. His images were minimalist but always very human.

There’s a selected gallery of his work up here

His New York Times obit is here

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.” Irving Penn

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Sep 23 2009

Birmingham’s people – 4 Debra

Category: Birmingham,photographers — Liz Garlinge @ 00:04

Debra came to Artsfest with her kids and was a huge amount of fun to work with.

One of the features of our studio system was to link every sitter with a number, so we could match them with their name (and make these posts easier to write!)

The first photo for all of our sitters was them holding up their number to the camera. When it came to choosing a photo for our Artsfest weekend exhibition, Debra was the only one of our sitters who chose the image holding the board.

I think it sums her up – she was creative, funny and charming – and our photographer was able to capture all of that in a candid image. I look at this image and it brings back wonderful memories of the weekend. Her teenage daughters may not agree – like many ladies of their age I think they found mum a bit ‘embarrassing’ – though I bet they’d be terrifically proud of her in this image.

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Sep 20 2009

Birmingham’s People No 2 – Mrs Kaur

Category: Birmingham,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 20:00

Mrs Kaur is a very beautiful woman – that much is evident from the photo.
What you can’t tell from the photo is that Mrs Kaur is an incredibly talented craftsperson, who has spent her life promoting rangoli and textile art and encouraging people’s creativity. Rangoli is the art of creating floor paintings with coloured sand – or flowers, or other objects.

During Artsfest, Mrs Kaur occupied the space next to ours and encouraged participants to make beautiful printed fabric pieces. We encouraged her to come and have her photo taken. Happily she obliged.

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Sep 19 2009

Introducing Birmingham’s people – 1 – Saxophone Choir of Great Britain

Category: Birmingham,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 23:04

Our photographers took so many great images over the weekend that we can’t wait for our exhibition at The Drum later in the year to show them off. Instead we’re planning to introduce you to a few of the people we met and the portraits we took on our blog. These are portraits almost straight out the camera – we’ve not done a whole lot of editing – and they are a pale imitation of how good they’ll look when we finally print them, frame them, and hang them in the exhibition – but, we hope you’ll agree that they’re still worth seeing.

The first image then -


Some of the liveliest people we met over the weekend were from the National Saxophone Choir of Great Britain a group of over twenty people who came to perform at Artsfest. Sadly, our small studio was too small to hold the full choir, so we invited a small group of them to come and make a portrait with us. The instruments themselves were amazing – one so large we could only just fit it in under the ceiling of our studio. We had to get them to squeeeeeeeze up together just to get them all in shot. Fortunately they took our direction with good grace and we were able to capture a shot or two.

I couldn’t resist asking them for a quick burst of music – and one of the guys obliged with an amazing version of Careless Whisper – played just for me (and all the people walking by at the time). Tremendous.

An incredibly talented bunch of musicians – and lovely people too. I’m rather hoping Artsfest won’t be the last we see of them

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Sep 13 2009

Birmingham’s People – day2

Category: Birmingham,Photospace,photographers,photography — Liz Garlinge @ 21:25

We thought today would be quieter
We thought, that after yesterday’s 98 sitters, we wouldn’t be taking so many photos.
We thought the people coming to see us today wouldn’t be as interesting as yesterday’s (we were blown away by yesterday’s!).
Readers, we apologise. We were wrong.

Sunday is traditionally a quieter day at Artsfest, but when the face-painting lady we met told us she expected queues of children round the corner for her services (she does an amazing Gruffalo!) we should have listened and worked out what that would mean for us.

Another terrific day. We actually took nearly as many photos today as yesterday, in a shorter time frame. Our kind print sponsors, Snappy snaps were closing at 4pm, so we needed to get our final photos to them at 3.30pm. We may have disappointed the people who came along after we had finished for the day. Sorry, guys.

I’ve chosen a photo from today’s set. This chap was a terrific laugh – and probably the most enthusiastic sitter we had all weekend. He had his photo taken yesterday with his baby, and came back to get one of him and then one of the family group. Really amazing tattoos. We asked him to look mean for the camera – and he tried, but he just couldn’t. He’s that sort of bloke – the smiliest and most charming man.

Probably the best bit of the day was going up into Room 4 of the Council House and seeing all the portraits (175 of them!) hung across the room. Candice, our wonderful volunteer curator worked tirelessly hanging photos and talking to people about the project and Photospace. Seeing all the photos together was a wonderful thing. It gave us a glimpse of why we knew this project would work: we’d captured the diversity, the strength, the glamour, the humour and the beauty of Birmingham’s People. Thank you all so much for being a part of it.

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