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LAUNDRY is an association of artists.
We make art, projects and other stuff happen.
BUILD - Be United in Local Development
A group of young people from Kingshurst Technology College are currently working with us on a media project about the regeneration of North Solihull. Young people are gaining film and photographic skills through working with and interacting with children and young people, community members and professionals in the field. They are producing a DVD of their explorations and responses, which will be used to promote young people’s views about the regeneration process.This project is supported by Solihull Youth Service through outreach activities of Steven Brown (Children and Young People’s Active Co-ordinator), as a form of consultation with young people about the planned changes in the area. It is also supported by Clive Adams, Head of Media Studies at Kingshurst. The project is supported by MADE (Midlands Architecture and the Designed Environment) – as part of their Creative Communities programme - to help produce the DVD and related exhibition material.At the outset of the project in April, an Open Day was held at Kingshurst Youth Centre, to show work in process, to gather responses from young people and to promote the project to a wider audience through press coverage. The group have conducted a series of interviews with local residents and regeneration professionals, and are developing this material into a shooting script for the DVD. They have attended a seminar day organised by MADE in Birmingham and an ECO house in Edgbaston, and visited the Festival of Architecture in London to meet other youth groups involved in regeneration schemes. The final presentation of work will be in October.
Intercultural Dialogue - Creative Laboratories.
Development work is underway for this project with the Borderland Foundation for 2008/09. The project will consist of three creative laboratories, (Birmingham & the Black Country in England, Bela Rechka in Bulgaria, Sejny in Poland) and two wondering/traveling workshops - Hania in Crete and Baku in Azerbaijan. The first partner meeting took place in Sejny at the end of January to plan out the two year programme and fundraising strategies.
We are pleased to announce that the project has been successful so far in attracting funding from the Culture 2007-2013 programme of the European Union, Arts Council England and the Department for Communities and Local Government (administered through the Community Development Foundation UK). We will partner with local authorities to deliver particular modules with young people. Project partners will conduct their own creative activities in multicultural communities, exploring issues of memory, destruction of cultural heritage and environment, social and ethnic conflict, migration and community builing. Each partner will concentrate their work around one main final product, be that a book or film or performance, which explores the concept and reality of intercultural dialogue in their locality. During the programme partners will undertake a series of exchanges with each other to share practice and experience.
As part of the UK programme we will be offering, through open submission, bursaries to emerging artists in the West Midlands interested in both these issues and social engagement, who will work alongside us during the project, receive mentoring and visit one of the partner organisations. The deadline for the first round is the end of July, the second round is August 19th.
Download the information here. laundrybursary.pdf
Goatmilk Festival, Bulgaria
In May we visited Bela Rechka to see the work of the New Culture Foundation, one of our partners in the intercultural dialogue project. This is the fifth year of their festival, an eclectic gathering of local and international, with music, food, performance, film presentations, history and visual arts. This year is devoted to the village bell which will be restored at a ceremony in September. We worked on some film and text material which will be presented at this event.
A gallery of images from the festival can be viewed at glass.pogranicze.sejny.pl. This is a temporary web site for the project - we will be working on a more substantial one in July.
Laundry on Youtube
Laundry are joining Queen Elizabeth II, the BBC and countless teenage
happy slappers by placing our video content on Youtube.
Laundry on Youtube
The Wonders of Kaunas
Brendan Jackson, Alicja Rogalska, Ania Bas, Pamela Wells and Beverley Harvey visited Kaunas in Lithuania to work with the Art Institute at Vytauta Magnus University in search of the Wonders of Kaunas in November and December. This is part of the Animator project partnership… Updates on the cultural animation site. http://www.culturalanimation.com/category/activities/kauno-stebuklai/
Testing the Waters
Members of Laundry undertook a residency at Galleri54 in Göteborg, Sweden as part of a programme called ‘Weekends at Galleri54’, where international artists are invited to create new work in response to the space and local environment over several days, culminating in an open weekend for the local community. The resulting exhibition took place November 1st – 4th 2007. The project is supported by Arts Council West Midlands and a NAN artists Go and See Bursary. More details here…
Laundry on Facebook
In addition to our main website we have created a Facebook group for Laundry
Our Facebook page is intended to be a more informal place, where people can see and comment on the activities of Laundry and its members. We invite everyone to have a look.
Caribee Island Medley
We developed work on the theme of Irish migration into a new publication, based on oral history material, photographs and memorabilia collected in project work in 2007. (Read more…)
Animator
Artists from Laundry are working on a new transnational cultural animation project with the Instytut Kultury Polskiej at Warsaw University. Partners include Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania, and two local arts associations - Katedra Kultury in Warsaw and Spolek Richelieu in Prague. Following an exchange in February, artists from Laundry are participating in a series of projects and exchanges until a final event in Warsaw in April 2008. (Read more…)
Member News
Alicja Rogalska is currently working on Beyond Text, an 18-month-long project funded by the AHRC research scheme. The project is a collaboration with School of Law at the University of Edinburgh investigating the potential of using art in developing ethical imagination in law education. The project will include working with Philosophy of Law scholars as well as practising lawyers and policy makers from Scotland and the United States on a series of creative, arts-based workshops and research meetings.
Ann Walker will be performing The Blindings II with attendants at the Wulfrun Centre, Wolverhampton, 1st August 2008 and West Park, Wolverhampton, 2nd August 2008.
Ania Bas on 1st August in Szczecin will be distributing cans - the result of her newest project: Szczecinianin, Ingredients:… The can of Szczecinianka Turystyczna or Szczecininanin Wyborowy will cost you 0 PLN - get one NOW while stock last!
Brendan Jackson presents a performance lecture of some kind in the Piddle Valley in March. Details here. (And we thought he was busy editing the Wonders of Warsaw book.) He also has a new blog at thevodkaproject.net
Pamela Wells is currently doing a public art project with the Fire Service in Roscommon, Ireland. Meanwhile, the results of the DISHINIT project were on show in October/November and participants are holding their meals now to distribute the 404 bowls. For the full story of this huge project go to www.dishinit.co.uk. She is also continuing to work on a site-specific polythene project in Prague, Czech Republic.
Laundry Tips 02:
Glitter clothing, oh dear! That new sparkly shirt shedding glitter all over the place? Spray with aerosol hair spray to make it stay put. Wash separately from other clothes, or at least wash it inside out (if you must wash with other articles of clothing).