Metal have the opportunity to work with up to ten artists and / or creative businesses from the Borough of Southend on Sea in a mentoring relationship for a six month period (Sept 2010 – March 2011).

In a programme that is supported through Southend Together and Southend on Sea Borough Council, Metal will be able to work with individuals to identify specific areas of your business or artistic practice that you would like to develop and improve. The scheme will include up to 6 hours of mentoring sessions with appropriate members of Metal staff or associates, designed to address the bespoke learning objectives of each participant.

To express an interest in taking part in this programme, please complete the short application form which can be downloaded from IDEA13 HERE. and return to Colette Bailey, Managing Director, Metal Culture Ltd, Chalkwell Hall, Chalkwell Avenue, Southend on Sea, SS0 8NB. Or by email: colette AT metalculture DOT com

Deadline for the return of applications: Tuesday 14 September

For any enquires call: 01702 470700

Metal’s WEBSITE

This year VILLAGE GREEN is on Saturday 25 September but there are also events in the week before. You can contribute to powering the event and for 13-19 year olds there is a three-day creative workshop.

THE BIG CHARGE:  Monday 20 September – Friday 24 September.  8am – 8pm.
In partnership with Cycle Southend, Metal have set themselves a challenge asking the community across the Borough of Southend to help.   In the week leading up to Village Green they want to generate enough clean energy through pedal power to run the Green Stage all day on Saturday at Village Green.  Ten bicycle stations will be set up in Chalkwell Park and they are inviting the whole community  – groups, businesses, schools and individuals -  to come and get involved to help generate the 500 pedal power hours needed. For more information about how to book your cycling slot – email thebigcharge AT metalculture DOT com or call 01702 47070.

BBC BLAST:  Thursday 23 – Saturday 25 September
Blast is the BBC’s youth creativity service. From first-timers to emerging artists, Blast gives 13 – 19 year olds the chance to try out new skills, showcase their own work and find out more about working in the creative industries.  Blast will build an impressive mobile creative village, complete with digital workshop spaces and separate performance area for Village Green.  Over three days, young people with a passion for music, dance and multi-media, can take part in a variety of free workshops, meet industry professionals, learn new skills, share ideas, use the latest technology and get creative, whatever their ability.

ROYAL OPERA HOUSE:  Thursday 23 September (daytime) / Friday 24 September, 7pm
Metal have formed a partnership with the Royal Opera House, Creative Partnerships and Southend Education Trust to introduce a fifth stage to Village Green this year.  The Green Stage will be designed by two ROH set designers working with four Southend Primary Schools.  On Thursday 23 September if you happen to be in Chalkwell Park, come and see the set unfold as some of Southends youngest artists get to work.
On Friday 24 September at 7pm the fantastic Ballet Black will perform alongside Southends emerging dance talent Kayzar Dance who have been working with the Royal Ballet and Southend secondary school pupils to bring you a brand new performance called New DanceMakers EAST.

For more information about VILLAGE GREEN – see Metal’s WEBSITE.

PUSH>PROCESS, curated by Emma Emmerton and Nastassja Simensky, opens next week at CoExist Galleries, TAP.

Local and internationally acclaimed artists are brought together to show challenging works which test the boundaries of the photographic processes they employ. Light, the life source of plants and consequently the Earth is the catalyst Binh Danh uses to record images onto leaves. Once the photosynthetic process has been captured, the leaves are cast in resin which results in an aesthetic similar to biological samples for scientific studies.

Nicolai Klimaszewski uses digital technology to carve photographic relief surfaces. Printed in a similar manner to the early Woodbury-types (which involved relief printing of photographic images) Klimaszewski works in pigmented gelatin and a diverse range of media rather than ink.

Charlie Skelton’s love of wild places started as a child’s wanderings on the North Downs and along the coast around Dover. Later, moved by their austere beauty and the ever changing quality of the light, Skelton sought to respond to this in his images, working exclusively with a large format camera and contact printing from the negatives using the Platinum printing
process.

Christina Z Anderson’s images include a mordançage process which physically deconstructs the photograph itself and, along with it, the sanctity of the pristine black and white print. In the mordançage process, a caustic, acidified copper bleaching solution is used to bleach and dissolve away the silver image.

Alex Chater is an artist who inhabits a world between fine art and photography. Though his work is based on traditional gum dichromate, he has developed a modern approach to this traditional method of image making, using plastic as a base on which to print, and egg as a photo sensitive medium to carry the colourent. His prints are built from many thin layers of colored egg emulsions selectively hardened on to the base using a range of different digital negatives.

Rebecca Sexton Larson’s room-sized pinhole camera exposure “Into the Backyard” is a multi paneled installation which has been exposed, removed from the wall then processed to produce paper negatives which are then sandwiched with unexposed fibre-based black and white paper and exposed under an enlarger. The final positive photographic final print is built upon using various art mediums such as painting, drawing, and image transfers.

Tarja Trygg will be presenting and introducing a short film SOLARGRAPHY – SPACE ART in the screening room. A mesmerising journey through some of the images taken as part of The Global Art Project of Pinhole Solargraphy. Formed as part of her PhD. studies at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, pinhole cameras were used to document a whole season of the sun’s movements across the sky. Trygg used volunteer ´can assistants´ all over the world to collect and return pinhole images with the intention of creating a world map of Solargraphs.

In the Winch Room Simon Fowler showcases a selection of images taken around Southend’s Open Mic scene over the past two years. A fascinating insight into the musical talent that can be seen for free, circulating the taverns of Southend.

The Experimental Pinhole Camera Assignment – earlier in the summer we asked artists to respond with unconventional approaches to constructing a pinhole camera and we will be showing a selection of these cameras during the show.

Open until 25 September.

CoExist Galleries, TAP, North Rd, Southend, SS0 7AB

WEBSITE

This gallery talk provides a chance to hear the curator Dan Kidner and artist James Richards discuss the legacy of Infermental; ‘the first international magazine on videocassettes’ initiated by Hungarian Filmmaker, Gábor Bódy in 1981.

Kidner and Richards will also address the contemporary significance of their exhibition at Focal Point Gallery, which is the first survey presentation of the project in a UK gallery.

The event is open to the general public and is free.

Focal Point Gallery, Southend Library, Victoria Avenue

WEBSITE

Fresh from there performance at the Reading and Leeds festivals, PENDULUM arrive at MAYHEM for an exclusive DJ set.

With support by JOHN THE BAPTIST, DAN & ALEX (DNA) and COURTNEY MAC in Room 2.

Sunday 29th August

Q Jump Tickets available online http://www.mayhemnightclub.com/

VIP areas contact: vip AT mayhemnightclub.com

Entry: £5 b4 10.30pm £7 thereafter. Entry 9pm.

Charity concert in aid of Havens Hospices takes place next Monday at bar Lambs.

The line-up includes:  Candelabra / John & Paul / Scratch Infected / Superduck / Tom Burgess and Brothers Duo.

£5 entry, Doors open at 8pm

Bar Lambs / 270-274 Station Road, Westcliff On Sea

Outside 2010 is an exhibition of 20 artists working in pairs.

Cuckoo Farm Studios‘ summer exhibition explores artists’ unique ability to collaborate with artists and professionals from other creative spheres.

Ten CFS exhibitors have each invited a guest artist to work with them to make new work to show in the grounds of CFS. The collaborations have enabled the exhibitors to extend the ways they work, through dialogue, through exchanged ideas and skills, or by working with those from other creative spheres.

The guest artists bring new perspectives and responses to Cuckoo Farm that will lead the visitor to undiscovered views and features of the grounds.

Artists:
Claudia Boese/Douglas Coombes
Gilly Burrell/Linda Arkley
Natasha Carsberg/Neil Gallagher
Carol Hennahane/Paula MacGregor
Tracey Johnson/Brian Johnson
Janette Lazell/Judith Battersby
Tim Skinner/Stephanie Donsoe (Denmark)
Lisa Temple Cox/Jeremy Spencer
Pam Schomberg/Tony Wills
Linda Theophilus/Clare Birks

Open 11-4pm.
Cuckoo Farm Studios / Boxted Road, Colchester, CO4 5HH

This Bank holiday weekend, the Preview Club at the Spread Eagle presents a free 22-act event-  ’Big LIVE MUSIC Bash’.

FRIDAY 27th 8.00pm start
THE BLARNEYS DUO celtic & country blues
ART GRUPPE BAND originals & covers
DAVE WOODCOCK & FRIENDS BAND originals & covers
PHILLIOUS WHILLIAMS BAND originals with passion
KEV BUTLER & DAVE CRAWFORD DUO originals, west coast sound
WHERES SPOT TRIO mixed covers, great harmonies
UPSTAIRS
STEFAN REDGRAVES – world record attempt – Support him playing all through the night – hopefully finishing Saturday evening

SATURDAY 28th 8.00pm start
CLIVE COWAN SOLO covers, marc bolan & originals
WHARFRATS BAND  rocking originals
54 RED DOOR BAND mixed covers, great harmonies
DAVE SYMONDS SOLO folk & mixed covers
ALAN WEST & DAVID ANTON DUO blues, guitar, vocals & blues harp
UPSTAIRS
CANDELABRA BAND originals numbers
MICK AND ANNE DUO mixed covers
SIMON D SOLO  60s & mixed covers

SUNDAY 29th 8.00pm start
THE AMAZING FSP BAND classic rock blues covers
JOHN & PAUL DUO great flamenco jazz guitarists
WEST BROTHERS BAND bluesgrass & blues (09/10 award winners)
TIM SULLY SOLO originals & covers
RED HOUSE GROOVE BAND BAND great blues, jazzy & covers
UPSTAIRS
CHRIS ROBSON SOLO originals & covers
STUART JARDINE SOLO trad banjo
PAUL CHALLEN SOLO lap guitar original & covers

The Preview Club at The Spread Eagle, Victoria Ave, Prittlewell

Art on the Railings continues this weekend on the Pier Hill.

Art on the Railings annual event from April to September celebrates Art in all its forms. Artists, photographers and crafts people are invited to exhibit and sell their work along the Railings of Pier Hill, Southend. There is no fee for artists to take part and no commission fees on any work sold.

This weekend, on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd August, The Art Spot will be offering Free Carnival Mask making workshops alongside the event on the Saturday for the public to participate in too. There will also be live Art demonstrations on the Saturday from participating artists!

Any artists wanting to take part, please contact Marie at theartspot AT hotmail.co.uk.

Next year, Art on the Railings would like to invite musicians and local dance troops the opportunity to perform alongside the exhibiting artists.

A mouse took a stroll through the deep, dark wood… A musical adaptation of the best-selling picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, THE GRUFFALO, comes to Southend.

Following sellout performances at the Criterion Theatre, the National Theatre, the Scottish International Children’s Festival, Warsaw’s English Theatre and Broadway’s New Victory Theater, Tall Stories continues to tour Britain and the world with this big scary monster of a show…

Join Mouse on an adventurous journey through the deep, dark wood in this magical, musical adaptation of the Blue Peter award-winning picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (‘a modern classic’ – Observer).

Mouse can scare hungry animals away with tall stories of the terrifying Gruffalo, but what happens when he comes face to face with the very creature he imagined?

Songs, laughs and scary fun for children aged 3 and up, and their adults… Let your imagination run wild!

Dates and times:
19 Aug 10 1:30 pm
20 Aug 10 10:30 am
20 Aug 10 1:30 pm
21 Aug 10 10:30 am
21 Aug 10 1:30 pm
21 Aug 10 4:00 pm

Book on or online HERE.