what’s on

Harbourne Charity Store Wars – 1 Oct

Barnardo’s High Street, Harborne (B17 9NN) store will be transformed into a Fashion Carnival where you can take a look at fashion through the decades. Also a raffle, children’s games and lots of great items to purchase on the day. Seven members of staff of a local law firm will run the store for one day, not only to raise lots of much needed funds for Barnardo’s, but they will also be battling it out against eight of the firm’s other offices in the aptly named ’Store Wars’ challenge! The winning store will be the one which increases the shop’s average takings by the largest percentage that day.

Festival smestival, festivals are just marketing exercises where the same shit as normal is glossily repackaged and the “vibe” is some flyers. Not when they’re painstakingly and artistically curated by a team that manage to make Birmingham the centre of the performance art world for a week each year. Go Fierce. Including ‘ Burningham ‘ all week: “a playful intervention on Eastside Green conceived and constructed by acclaimed French architecture collective EXYZT. The site is in the shadow of Birmingham’s abandoned Curzon Street railway station and on the route of the proposed HS2 high speed rail link. You are invited to drop in and help EXYZT in their process of ‘urban psychoanalysis’ of the city. Does Birmingham have low self-esteem? Does Birmingham have multiple personality disorder? Should Birmingham be renamed? Visit throughout the week, and join us for a public feast at dusk on Saturday 26th March.”

Festival smestival, festivals are just marketing exercises where the same shit as normal is glossily repackaged and the “vibe” is some flyers. Not when they’re painstakingly and artistically curated by a team that manage to make Birmingham the centre of the film world for a week each year. Go Flatpack. Including ‘The Secret History of Birmingham‘ on Sunday: “The screening will include Miracles Take A Little Longer, a film about Birmingham’s reconstruction which includes brilliant colour footage from the post-war period and narration by Frank Bough. We’ll also have some marvellous amateur cine footage of Bournville from the 1950s.”

Concert on the the 11 Bus

Don’t normally churn PR quite as straight, but this is a good one: “Sunday 3rd October will see OxjamBrum and The Green Bus take over the 11 bus route for an afternoon of music with a difference, as part of the month long Oxjam music festival taking place across the country during October. Starting at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath our passengers will hop on board The Green Bus to drive a full lap of Europe’s longest urban bus route – the Number 11. Touring the outer circle and visiting some of Birmingham’s most interesting neighbourhoods we will make 11 stops en-route to pick up musical entertainment for our paying passengers. We’re keeping the lid on who the acts will be but be prepared for an eclectic mix of old and new, spanning the genres. Mid route we’ll be stopping at The Bear in Barewood for a quick drink and music from a local band before making our way back to the Hare & Hounds for a Sunday Lunch with a soulful twist from the Soul Food Project. The number 11 has a rich history in Birmingham with a book written about it, a dedicated blog and...

Historian Ben Waddington is leading a Brum walking tour of sights and buildings inspired by his article ‘Invisible Architecture’ from Issue One of Dirty Bristow magazine. It’s based on the differences in what you see when you look up, rather than down. He says in his piece: “Take a walk down New Street. The challenge is to get where you need to be without being waylaid by market researchers, religious groups, animal rights zealots, charity collectors in pincer formation, personality testers, Big Issue sellers on their last copy, or the unlucky folk needing just 20p towards their train fare. Even if you successfully run this gauntlet, you are never out of the magnetic field of every shop window display, carefully arranged to take your attention and unfold your money. One direction you cannot afford to look is upward. Photo by Gordon Eightball. The impression is that it is a modern arrangement of concrete blocks put up in the sixties at the expense of Victorian splendour. The reality is very different: certainly there are some recent buildings but above the ground floor is mostly rich Victorian brickwork, colourful faience, terracotta, sculpture and ornate ironwork. It is interesting to watch the...

The poster has just wet itself with excitement at the coming of Artsfest (or artsfest, or ArtsFest depending on which bit of capitalisation on the website you pick) this coming weekend. Yes, there’s a lot that isn’t especially art(s), yes with it being so big it’s a problem picking out what you’d like to do or see — but suspend your cynicism and enjoy town being busy with things other than shopping for a weekend. Think of it as ‘Brumfest’ and hang your artistic pretentions. For once tho’ the programme is online in a usable format a few days before, I’d encourage you to dig through and recommend stuff to us and each other. The Comments box is yours…

Sci-fic Octopus

Despite the divisive title It’s a Geek’s World, looks pretty good—it includes a series of workshops run throughout the Sunday of the British Science Festival (which is in Brum, y’know). Visitors will be offered lots of geeky activities, including a Learning to Solder workshop, Nikki Pugh’s Circuit-bending workshop and a Beat Box workshop. As the finale Sam Underwood will be doing his debut midi-octopus performance. He’s blogged about the workshop & performance here. You need to register for any activities here. More info on the Science Festival in general here.

After successfully running markets for local artists, illustrators, photographers, designer-makers, crafters and the like — in the not-exactly-conducive-to-passing-trade environs of the Custard Factory — Handmade have been working with Marketing Birmingham and Retail Birmingham towards launching a new weekly Handmade Arts & Craft Market for the City Centre. The new Handmade Market will be at the Bull Ring Markets, along Edgbaston Street, from St Martin’s down to Debenhams, every Saturday and Sunday. First markets on the 28th and 29th August — local crafty types are encouraged to sign up for a stall now.

In a display of seasonal awareness to match how Bill Oddie thinks it’s time to watch spring in May, Birmingham City Centre is getting a Summer Fête at the end of August. The Edge in Digbeth will be the venue for Punch & Judy, Splat The Rat, a Tug O’ War, Teddy Bear Bungee, Guess The Weight Of The Cake, and all of the stuff you would expect at a traditional British summer fête — plus music and comedy from some exciting acts. It’s the launch event for new Brum-based magazine Dirty Bristow*. The magazine doesn’t carry adverts, in order to give full freedom to the writers and illustrators — and so each issue will hold fundraising events to offset the cost of production. Issue one is packed with literary musings, essays, fiction and art on the theme of ‘birth’, and the only way to guarantee a copy is to come to the fête. The mayor and vicar of the small fictional hamlet of Dirty Bristow have collected a huge variety of traditional musics, comedy, stalls and games — and have arranged for them to happen: on Saturday 28th August from 6pm ’til Late at The Edge in Digbeth for...

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what’s on

Harbourne Charity Store Wars – 1 Oct

Fierce Festival 2011

Flatpack Festival 2011

Concert on the the 11 Bus

Invisible Birmingham

Artsfest 2010

Sci-fic Octopus

New independent designer-makers arts market for Birmingham City Centre

Fête better than death

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