Saturday 31 March 2012

Three Artist in Residence opportunities

Swansea Print Workshop are offering three two-month artist in residencies and would like to hear from printmakers who are interested in exploring new boundaries of current practice supporting the activity of drawing and the translation of this material into non traditional and traditional print processes associated with the production of an original print. These are contracted opportunities with a fee and materials budget.


Each Printmaker will illustrate an aspect / approach which will clearly demonstrate the close connection between gathering original [non photographic] material and the most direct processes of translation into print.

The application deadline has been extended until 10 April 2012.

For more information and to apply visit: http://www.swanseaprintworkshop.org.uk/opportunities.html

Friday 30 March 2012

Call for proposals: Disruption 2


Elysium Gallery is looking for artists to take part in a series of post apocalyptic performances and events to take place in various locations on Swansea High Street on Saturday 21st July.

Ravaged by war and neglect, Swansea High Street is the ultimate post-apocalyptic playground. Derelict theatres and shops line a dying street; the ghosts of the great and the good that once played here are now all but forgotten. As we look into the empty shop facades we see our own grey and hungry reflections. Each pitiful attempt at a new life here is thwarted by economic downturn and social apathy.

Is this the end? Or are we about to embark on something new?

Elysium Gallery is looking for artists who are willing to investigate through performance whether total social decay is just around the corner. We require visual documenters to record and inform us as to whether the worst is now in our past. We need commentators to join us and send word out that will bring us help. We need you.

On Saturday 21st July a series of events will start at 2pm which will either damn us all or bring us into the bright lights of a new dawn. These events will be linked with and following on from the previous nights grand launch of BEEP2012: Wales International Painting Prize – ‘Through Tomorrow's Eyes’ held at the Volcano space | 229 High Street | Swansea.

If you have any ideas on how survival is possible, and if you would like to be involved in anyway, please email us info@elysiumgallery.com with your ideas, enthusiasms and questions by 23rd June 2012

Experimentica 2012: UNSEEN

Experimentica is a key event for the presentation of new performance and interdisciplinary projects across installation, film, video, sound art, dance and theatre. It is a significant platform for artists from Wales to produce or introduce their work, alongside contributions and commissions by internationally established artists.

Over the last 10 years Experimentica has presented performance art from Japan, Canada, China and Mexico, cutting edge dance from Brazil, Australia and Korea alongside a selection of innovative performance, film, dance, music and installation from Wales and elsewhere in the UK. Projects have ranged from large scale to intimate and from formal exhibition space and studio to off-site intervention. Chapter works with partner venues, artists and groups to develop an open and collaborative exchange of ideas, projects and knowledge.

Experimentica is an opportunity for artists at all stages in their career to present challenging, experimental new works within an internationally respected arts centre based in Cardiff, UK.

Details of how to apply can be downloaded from www.chapter.org/26498.html

Further information is available from experimentica@chapter.org

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Student Bursaries

The Royal Photographic Society has two bursaries available for students on Graduate and post-Graduate degree courses. Definitely worth a look for students looking for some extra support.

The Royal Photographic Society currently has two bursaries available for students. The first is themed around environmental awareness and closes on 31 May 2012 (details here: http://www.rps.org/bursaries) and has a second available for over 25s; the second is to support postgraduate students undertaking photographic research or studying Masters courses in photography at UK Colleges and Universities (details here: http://www.rps.org/education/Bursary-Information) and closes on 29 June 2012.

Friday 23 March 2012

March FORUM

Thursday 29th March
7.30pm
g39, Oxford Street, Roath, Cardiff

This month's FORUM will be on the subject of Art Fairs, to coincide with the upcoming Made in Spring at Milkwood Gallery and the Art Carbootique at Chapter in April. Artists Gordon Dalton of Mermaid & Monster and Amber Mottram (currently showing in Chapter Bar) will also be talking about and showing their work.

As usual there will be an opportunity to show or discuss new or unfinished works, for feedback and discussion. FORUM is an informal, monthly event for early career artists, students and graduates. Co-ordinated by Ffotogallery and WARP, FORUM is a platform for practitioners from various disciplines to exchange ideas, experience and opinions on visual culture.

FORUM is a FREE, drop-in event welcome to all. More information is available on our blog. If you have any questions or would like to show your own work please call (029) 2070 8870 or email turnerhouse@ffotogallery.org.

Preceding March's FORUM, artist Dan Rees will be presenting the first talk to be hosted at g39's new venue! Starting at 6:30pm, this event is free, however booking is recommended and can be done by emailing sean@g39.org or giving the gallery at call on +44 (0)29 2047 3633.

Thursday 22 March 2012

Opportunity to support Newport's centennial graduate project

Image (c) Claire Kern 2012

This year marks the centenary of 100 years of photography education at University of Wales Newport.
The students completing the BA Documentary Photography course this Summer will be the 100th year to graduate during an increasingly competitive and groundbreaking era for the medium and the territories occupied by documentary practice. Reflecting these times and such an incredible milestone for a course producing student works, that year on year, aim to redefine the genre; the students are upping the ante to produce an ambitious group publication.
This high quality production of 750 copies, will be internationally distributed and will showcase the very best work by the 29 students; work that defines them as new photographers and with which they will launch themselves into the abyss of the photographic and creative industries in 2012.

To achieve such a large-scale and ambitious project, the students are initiating a series of fundraising events and opportunities. One of which is a sponsorship scheme, with rewards for all that would like to donate. Please take the time to visit http://www.sponsume.com/project/newport-documentary-photography-graduate-publication for more information and a short video introduction by the students themselves.

The publication will be officially launched at the opening of the graduate exhibition at University of Wales, Newport's City Campus building on 1st June 2012.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Pioneer Newsletter

Culture Colony's Pioneer newsletter is a great resource for art news, event and opportunities. Culture Colony is a cultural networking website that concerns all things cultural and creative in Wales. Culture Colony provides a platform for individual subscribers to upload content and a place for arts organisations, groups and individuals to interact and share content and ideas to a wider audience.

Check out their website at www.culturecolony.com, sign up for free and start exploring this excellent resource.

The Pioneer newsletter collects all the information about cultural events in Wales and presents an interesting collection of articles to keep you informed about whats going on.

Pioneer 9 can be found here.
Pioneer 10 will be published on Thursday the 5th of April.

Follow @culturecolony on Twitter to receive news about the colony and the latest uploads to the site.

Saturday 17 March 2012

Job opportunity: Creative Administrator for Made in Roath



Part time paid post, four months fixed term.

Due to an ever increasing workload, MiR have been awarded Arts Council funding to appoint a part time Creative Administrator to assist in the running of their annual festival in October. Interested parties should email madeinroath@gmail.com for a job spec or call 07930397982 for more information. 

Friday 2 March 2012

March Forum: Art Fairs

Thursday 29th March at g39, Oxford Street, Roath, Cardiff.

(6.30pm: Dan Rees Talk, Forum will take place afterwards at around 7.30pm.)


To coincide with the upcoming Made in Spring Fayre at Milkwood Gallery and the Art Carbootique at Chapter in April, March’s Forum will be on the subject of Art Fairs. The discussion will follow on from Dan Rees' artist talk. See you there!

Self Publishing Forum: Thursday 23rd February 2012

This month’s Forum focused on Self-Publishing. Two artists, Jorge Lizalde and Rowena, co-founder of Tant magazine, presented works that enlightened us with two very different approaches to self-publication.

Jorge’s ‘Log’ series is a chronological collection of images taken daily on his mobile phone since 2009. These edited works have formulated into a curated ‘E-book’, or ‘Epub’. Jorge uses the internet as his primary way to present work to a wide and indiscriminate audience, in the form of a digital publication. This is a growing trend, and the reasons are obvious. Self-publishing on the internet is free and allows almost complete artistic freedom and editorial control. It brings artwork outside of a physical book or gallery format and into something intangible and, well, modern. Having originated from a mobile phone, the images lend themselves well to being displayed on a screen format, as to physically manifest them in print would completely change the nature of the images.

Jorge’s publications prompted discussion on the physical nature of exhibiting art and the way in which technology dictates the way we relate to each other and our work. No matter how much we resist these motions, we are constantly both bombarded with, and demanding of, instantaneous information. With our demands on technology and its demands on us, how is it possible to strike a balance in both our everyday lives and within our artistic practice?

In relation to Art Fairs (the topic of March’s Forum), gallery representation, commercialisation and connecting with other people regarding your works, the issues surrounding internet publications are varied. In some ways the purpose of Art Fairs are to ‘meet the maker’, to view (and sometimes purchase) tangible objects. Jorge, and I’m sure many others, will have experience of taking part in shows or publications purely as a result of the internet. Jorge as been part of a few projects now, consequential of his work having being seen online and never actually physically meeting with the other parties involved. This has prompted collaboration with photographers all over the world, resulting in a Columbian based project named SanCocho de Ojo (literally meaning, Soup of Eyes). See www.sancochodeojo.tumblr.com. It is evident from Jorge’s practice that the internet offers an endless realm of social and artistic possibility. Although the work essentially exists in a virtual realm, for commercial purposes he has developed a CD Format of his ‘Log’ E-book, which is available on www.jorgelizalde.wordpress.com/log-the-e-book, where it is also possible to re-blog and follow his work. If you’re interested in publishing an Epub, see www.calibre-ebook.com, www.code.google.com/p/sigil and www.blurb.com for more information. Jorge’s work also features in Chris Brown’s article on the way social media has changed the way artists work in March’s a-n magazine. See http://www.a-n.co.uk/an_docs/a-n_magazine_1203.flip/#/10/zoomed.

Tant Magazine is a collaborative editorial process founded by Rowena Fromtant and first produced in November last year. Rowena describes the publication as an intersection of a recorded document and a lifestyle. The publications, each (to be) unique in their process and format, are organically developed objects that explore social and artistic connections between individuals, locally and globally. Tant is viewed by its creators as test-space that serves to provide a relationship-wide document. Its line-up is always changing and it is this dislocation of identity that Rowena hopes will keep it thriving. The publications are open to submissions in all forms with no set parameters of content or format. You can apply via their website www.tantmagazine.com.

Integral to the ethos of Tant is collaboration. The formal and social connections made, are through chance occurrences and associations and push its contributing artists into new and exciting territory. The publication is, in a sense, curated though there is no fixed editorial standpoint that dictates its direction. There is no curatorial hierarchy; Tant seeks to be an all- inclusive process and discourse between its participants, be they artists, writers, designers, musicians... creating a sort of editorial “collage”. It is important to Tant to explore different forms of existence, be they visual, verbal or otherwise. Forum itself was considered by Rowena to be Tant’s second edition- 0.2. 0.3 was launched via typewriter at the Book Arts Fayre at Ffotogallery two days later.

Tant is free, with the view to create an art-object that is accessible and indiscriminate. To put a price on the magazine would change its position and make it a commercial commodity, which Tant’s makers want to avoid, though this prompted discussion on the financial practicalities of self-publication. At the moment Tant remains self funded, though donations are welcome. The physical distribution of Tant is purely down to personal delivery, and although they have a website the marketing is largely down to word of mouth. There are no mail outs, and no online copy. Currently, copies can be located, among other places, in Wales, London, Glasgow and elsewhere. They also have future plans to collaborate with Folio magazine (www.magazine-folio.com) in Istanbul. See www.publishandbedamned.org for more information in the world of Self-publishing.

Freya Dooley (Warp Intern)