CENTRAL DRIVE CULTURE SHOPS: TOM IRELAND HOLD YOUR BREATH (SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL MAY HAPPEN)

 

Hold Your Breath (Something Beautiful May Happen) is a new text based artwork by Tom Ireland made specifically for the Central Drive Culture Shops project., a partnership between Blackpool Council’s Arts Service and Neighbourhoods Services, The Big Local Revoe-lution and CVS to bring three new rounds of artists displaying work over the spring / summer 2013.

The work centres around an interaction between image; a satellite image of the Apollo 11 landing site on the moon’s surface and text: a sentence composed by Ireland and is presented to the audience as a window vinyl designed to echo commercial window graphics.

This sentence is based around an exchange between the first man to walk on the moon Neil Armstrong and the NASA control room in Houston, Texas during the descent phase of the moon landing in July 1969. In the exchange Armstrong calls out “Houston, this is Tranquillity Base; the Eagle has landed” to which the NASA controller responds “Copy. Tranquillity Base. We can start breathing again. There’s a bunch of guys down here about to turn blue”.

For Hold Your Breath (Something Beautiful May Happen) this exchange is paraphrased and un-bracketing from context, allowing for transcendence to act upon meaning, enabling the words to adopt a wider utopian position concentrating on Central Drive and the immediate community.

The sentence within this new context offers a sense of possibility for the local community designed to establish a conceptual distance from the banalities and realities of the present. The sentence is deliberately open ended so as to allow for the audience who encounter the work to project their own ideas about what could happen establishing a space in which a range of scenarios for possible futures may occur.

Hold Your Breath (Something Beautiful May Happen) will be exhibited at 77-81 Central Drive until Tuesday 14 May.

For further information about Tom Ireland’s work see http://www.tomirelahdhq.org.uk.

CENTRAL DRIVE CULTURE SHOPS: LINZI CASON

Would you like to take part in the ‘The Found Project’?

Round 1 of Central Drive Culture Shops includes work by photographer Linzi Cason who recently bought a vintage camera that contained an undeveloped roll of film. Linzi then developed this film and she was surprised by the visual story that unfolded of a man, a woman and a dog who likes very large bones…

Get Involved: Linzi is seeking your short stories or poems to interpret these pictures, the results of which will be used to build on the exhibition.

Please feel free to write your own short story or poem and post it through the letterbox of the shop on Central Drive to be featured alongside the photographs. You can also email Linzi your story or poem to the email address below.

“My artwork has predominantly been expressed in the medium of photography and explores daily life events and documenting my hometown Blackpool.

From the start of my photography education my eyes were opened up to the world in a different light. I am able to look at the banal and every day with creativity and inspiration to complete projects.

The main thread of portraits in my portfolio earned their places by having an interesting story behind them. I usually find that older generations have the most extraordinary stories and this is what I strive to capture in my photography.

The next chapter of my photography life stems from photos that aren’t my own. We constantly immerse ourselves in new imagery everyday whether we like it or not and looking back is always key to learning our future. Why not explore what others have done previously in such a way that I know nothing about the photographer? This means I am getting nearer to my own opinion with no preconceived ideas about the photographers history.:

For more information, please contact Linzi Cason at linzi@linzicasonphotography.co.uk

COMING SOON: CULTURE SHOPS CENTRAL DRIVE

We are pleased to announce that Culture Shops is back this April!

A new strand of the Culture Shops project sees Blackpool Art’s Service working in partnership with Blackpool Council’s Neighbourhood Services, The Big Local Revoe-lution and CVS to bring three new rounds of artists displaying work over the spring / summer for Culture Shops Central Drive.

This week has been very busy as a small army of enthusiastic local volunteers have been working hard to make the spaces ready for the artists to install their artwork.

A further development is that The Big Local Revoe-lution group will be turning 77  Central Drive into a Big Local Community Hub which will be manned by local volunteers. More information to follow soon.

Round 1 artists are: Tom Ireland, Linzi Cason and Brendan Bunting and they were selected by a panel made up from local community representatives. You will be able to see their work on display from Wednesday 17 April for four weeks at 77-81 Central Drive.

Round 2 artists are: Aunty Social, Boz Phillips and Lisa Wigham whose work will be on display from Saturday 18 May – Sun 16 June.

Round 3 artists are Laura Brennan, Alchemy (Gold Arts Award) and The Langdale photography Group. Their work will be on display from Thursday 20th June – Wed 17th July.

More information about the artists who will be displaying their work will follow over the forthcoming weeks.

CATHERINE PAYTON / WAITING FOR THE MAIN EVENT

Supercollider is pleased to announce Waiting For The Main Event; an exhibition of new works by Catherine Payton.

Waiting For The Main Event is an exhibition in limbo. Confronted initially by the characters of Payton’s films (all played by the artist), viewers enter a space in which they may find themselves feeling excluded from ‘the action’. Curtains and drapery play a crucial role in developing a further sense of anticipation understood within a common trope of theatre and film, not to mention comedy: anyone visiting the gallery toilet and then re-entering the space may feel like Tommy Cooper taking three minutes to find his way to the front of the curtain, or Eric Morecambe looking for the key to get back behind it. The material is also suggestive of the public seance or a Medium’s stage backdrop – recurrent themes in Payton’s work – akin to the curtain that concealed one of the greatest charlatans, the Wizard of Oz: the emerald green satin being pulled aside by Toto to reveal the masterly trick.

Each film aims to form an ‘almost’ portrait, with the characters performing shaky tableaux vivants, occupying emotional spaces that swing between anticipation and boredom.

References to theatre, literature, films, the occult, and the comedic all permeate Payton’s work, but give way to an overarching paradox or loop – the pairing of a willing suspension of disbelief and a self-confessed charlatanism. The works leave us wanting to suspend disbelief, to be drawn into the implausible reality infront of us, whilst Payton’s conscientious amateurism reveals the trick to us repeatedly, acknowledging and referring to the construction of that reality. It is this cognitive dissonance that gives the work it’s lasting hold.

Waiting For The Main Event will coincide with Showzam!; Blackpool’s annual festival of circus, magic and new variety which will take place between 15 – 24 February 2013 at sites across the town as well as the annual Blackpool Magic Convention; the worlds largest magic convention which will take place from Friday 22nd through until Sunday 24th February 2013. Both of these events provide a fitting context within which to consider Payton’s ongoing investigations.

The exhibition is on now until 02 March 2013 at Supercollider Contemporary Art Projects, 59 Cookson Street.

www.supercolliderhq.org.uk / info@supercolliderhq.org.uk

MAX STOLKIN / HOMING

Max Stolkin‘s Homing will be the first exhibition of 2013 at Supercollider’s space at 59 Cookson Street. The exhibition opens of Friday 11th January, 7 – 9pm and runs through until 02 February 2013.

See www.supercolliderhq.org.uk for further details.

 

THAT EVER INCREASING DISTANCE / SUPERCOLLIDER

‘That Ever Increasing Distance’ closes on Saturday 5th January 2013.

See www.supercolliderhq.org.uk for more details.

MATHEW PARKIN / SUPERCOLLIDER

As part of the Culture Shops legacy Supercollider has established a new contemporary art project space at 59 Cookson Street. The space is currently playing host to its first exhibition Mathew Parkin’s ‘When Passive Aggressive Strategies Fail to Get Results’ which runs until 25th November.   

Images of the show can be seen here.

CULTURE SHOPS OPPORTUNITIES

Following on from our successful Culture Shops book launch earlier this month, we are really pleased to announce that we have further Culture Shops opportunities available.

More information available here: http://www.blackpool.gov.uk/Services/A-F/ArtsDevelopment/BlackpoolCultureShops.htm 

The deadline is 29th Novemeber, noon.

CULTURE SHOPS BOOK

The book is launched! Artists if you didn’t pick up your copy on launch night you can collect from Garth at FYCreatives.

SUPERCOLLIDER / 59 COOKSON STREET

As part of the Blackpool Culture Shops legacy, Supercollider Contemporary Art Projects will be moving into the vacant unit at 59 Cookson Street. The first exhibition; Mathew Parkin’s ‘When Passive Aggressive Strategies Fail To Get Results’ will open on Friday 2nd November, 7 – 9PM.

The exhibition will be opening alongside the launch of the Blackpool Culture Shops publication which is at FYCreatives, 6 – 8PM.

We hope to see you there.