Life is full of unexpected things

I went to Perrott's Folly to see a group exhibition yesterday afternoon. It's the first time I went to there. When I arrived, the gate was being shut. I were sure that they said they would open on Friday on the leaflet. I told myself that I couldn't just go away, I walked such a long road to there and I were really looking forward to this exhibition. I waited there around 15 mins and finally someone came and opened the gate. The exhibition was really great that held in such a special and historical building. I talked with one of the artists. She didn't base in Birmingham and she told me that she wouldn't plan to stay in Birmingham as there were very few art and cultural activities here. She might go to London. I just feel it's pity that artist doesn't want to stay in Birmingham but prefer to go to London.
I met with Gavin afterwards and spoke on the current project. He gave me lots of useful advice and suggested me to read a few books on curating. It's a good thing for Birmingham to have an organization like Eastside Projects. You can really get inspiration and ideas that challenge your assumption. Birmingham needs more creative person!!!!!!!!!!
I had to volunteer for Fierce Festival at night. The event called Berlin Love Tour. Another unexpected thing came. I arrived at Crescent Theatre and the staff there told me to wait in the bar. There was no other volunteers there except me. I waited there and nobody turned up to tell me what to do. I saw some people went in and out through a private door. I just stopped someone and asked. I went into a dressing room that that the guilds of Berlin Love Tour stayed. They felt really surprised to see me and they said that they didn't know any volunteers would come. I stayed for a while. They then told me they didn't know what work can be assigned to me and just told me to go. I were very very confused that moment. Finally, the volunteer coordinator asked me to help out another event called Make Better Please. It's not bad that I could watch the performance too even though I had to use more than half an hour to walk back to city center. The performance is quite provoking and impressive although I didn't agree with some of the issues they mentioned and the way they presented. I could still appreciate their hard working.
It's not a good experience volunteering for Fierce so far. It's not the first time that things happened like that. I supposed to volunteer for another event at Fierce a few days ago. I arrived there but the organizer hadn't turned up until I waited for more than a hour. And he told me the artist couldn't go to on time so nothing we could do. They sent me to another place to help out other works. I just felt they didn't manage the volunteer well and communicate well with other performance groups or artists.

Those are the words I want to say now:

   MAKE       
   BETTER     
   PLEASE       

Academic poster??

I start doing the design of the poster for my module- Production Lab. I don't want it to be too academic  but make it funky. I haven't used Photoshop for a long time, hope I can still remember the skills. Sleepy now, but need to finish the draft first...

http://www.lisabarbero.com/

Another busy week at Fierce

My full shift at Fierce Festival:

28/3 @Edible Eastside
30/3 & 31/3 @Crescent Theatre
1/4 @Trove
6/4 @Q Club
7/4 @Brindley Place
8/4 @Ikon Gallery

Swanning around Erdington

Lovely street party with great sunshine : ) @ Still Walking-Birmingham's festival of walking



Preserve local passions.

TEDXBrum 2012

I attended the TEDXBrum 2012 at MAC today. I think it's not as good as I expected, maybe because some of the topics were not my interest and the speakers were not very excellent. But I really appreciated what the TEDXBrum team has done! I could see how well they managed the event. One team members said they wanted people to know "Birmingham is not shit!". I am not quite sure about that. Birmingham still has lots of things that need to be improved, I mean transportation, cultural and creative nurture, technology, urban planning and  development...Birmingham shall has started its revolution earlier, but better late than never. I think there are many creative people in Birmingham, but government doesn't treat those people well with its policy, at least not well enough. It still needs us to do something to improve the world.

   It never matters how good or bad an idea is, idea won't change the world, but action does.  

Translating, translating and translating....

Listening to the audio. Translating what YangJiang Group said in the Artists' Talk. Need to gather it as a script, it will then become subtitles of the video. Still remember their interesting answers.


Zheng Guogu:
As I understood, the “post-planning” is another form of planning other than the one of Planning Department. Just like our calligraphy in China, there is another form of calligraphy beyond the traditional one, but there’s still nobody calls it “post-calligraphy”. 


Calligraphy originally is intangible. There are different forms of calligraphy in different centuries. Some forms can get resonance from people and those become the calligraphy in a specific time. There are many variables in calligraphy, so we are here to grab these variables.  

Restore after the fully-packed week

My schedule was fully occupied last week. After the artists' talk on Tuesday. I needed to help out on the night of VIP meal and the exhibition opening on Thursday and Friday. During the preparation for the meal, I learnt a new word "Lazy Susan" refers to a rotating tray in Chinese restaurant. Also, the logistics was an important part before the start of the event.
The nights were quite impressive. YangJiang Group performed food calligraphy in front of the guests. I could watch the whole process and it made me feel like I was witnessing a creation of an artwork. There were almost 100 people in total for those two days although some guests finally hadn't turned up on Thursday night. For the gallery, it's really successful. But for me, I think it's too crowded. In addition, the event coincided with Flatpack Festival. It attracted more people coming across to the event.

There were still a few more days until the artists went back to China. I was their guide during this period. I took them to Manchester on Saturday hanging around galleries and museums. They were very energetic. On Sunday, we went to Ikon Gallery. I met the director again. I didn't know he is the director of Ikon Gallery until he welcomed us to his office. He is a very nice person. I fully agreed what Zheng Guogu said "through this process, you can meet some people who may help you with your future career." Yes, I think I have learnt a lot. Hope that I can go to Guangzhou Triennial this year and meet with the artists again!

Irma Boom book design

TEDxDelft - Irma Boom - Manifest for the book
http://thebookstudio.tumblr.com/post/15264391670/tedxdelft-irma-boom-manifesto-for-the-book

YangJiang Group talking about their art practices

To be honest, I originally thought that it would be interesting to hold a talk in a cafe and it could relate to the theme of the art exhibition about food. However, the place was quite noisy at night. the guests were difficult to listen to what the artists said. The cafe gave us a space that was near the kitchen. This made the situation much worse.
I think it was the first time for Eastside Projects to hold a bilingual talk. No one could expect how it was going to be. They needed translators during the whole process. People needed to be patient to wait for the translators to translate the message to them. It made me feel excited that it was the first time I worked as a second vocal translator. I am really glad I can assist in this project. It gives me many opportunity to try new things. I wish I can keep going and devote myself in this industry. I must to say I really really love art!

Hardworking today @ Eastside Project

Gavin calls it upcycling chairs~

Papergirl

Papergirl is a really good project spreading a message that art is in our daily lives and is free for everyone. It was originally founded in Berlin by an art student. She had an idea that "people that are used to giving their art away for free and understand the pleasure of it". It becomes a live street art when using cyclists to distribute donated artworks in the city street. It makes me want to organize a papergirl project when I come back to H.K.



Papergirl Birmingham
http://papergirlbirmingham.tumblr.com/

Nice kick off

It's really great to see YangJiang Group today. Went to Golden Pond Restaurant together. They have some cool ideas. It is excited to see the work of building in Eastside too. It's larger than I expected. Tomorrow need to paint some chairs. Looking forward to see the result.

 

Clarke Gallery

Discovered Clarke Gallery few months ago when I went to an event in MADE. I quite like its founder Elly Clarke. She is an artist as well as a curator. She first set up the gallery in her apartment in Berlin. Then spreading outside. It now bases in-between Birmingham and Berlin. It makes me thinking of the practice context of my project, maybe I can add a part of interview with her.



http://www.clarkegallery.de/

Change on Artists Talk

What a terrible mistake. The artists hasn't arrived. The talk has to be changed to next Tuesday. I think the director is too busy dealing with things. It cause some disappointment that the talk need to be delayed.

http://www.facebook.com/events/284129244986234/

Yangjiang Group: Artists Talk

This is the first event of Yangjiang Group during their stay in Birmingham. Yangjiang Group will introduce their radical calligraphy practice in conversation with Gavin Wade, Director of Eastside Projects. It will be held in Cafe Soya, a Chinese restaurant serving vegetarian food. Looking forward to meet the artists and talk with them. It is expected that lots of thing need to be prepared for that day.


Date: 7th March 2012
Time: 6:30pm-8:00pm
Venue: Café Soya 
            Unit 2 Upper Dean Street
            Birmingham
            B5 4SG


http://www.weareeastside.com/2012/02/artists-talk-yangjiang-group-wednesday-7th-march-6-30pm-8pm-cafe-soya/