Next two workshops 9th and 11th of June in tandem with Polish Film Posters Exhibition at Zion Arts Centre, Manchester

The next two workshops are at Zion Arts Centre in Hulme, Manchester in tandem with Kino Film's exhibition of Polish Film Posters. If you've never seen any of these remarkable works of graphic illustration then this is a must-see. The exhibition will also include work by one of Chris and Maria's tutors at the Royal College of Art, Andzrej Klimowski  some of who's work can be seen below for the films, The Omen, Godfather II and Down By Law respectively:


Our workshops take part from 6-8pm on Thursday 9th June and 11am-2pm on Saturday 11th June.

Saturday 28th May at Saltaire Arts Trail

We took part in the Saltaire Arts Trail on saturday and were well attended with a variety of people who had mainly travelled to attend the three day arts event, wherein many of the participants of the town opened their houses to accommodate exhibitions by local artists. We were situated in Salt's building of Shipley College, named after the founder of Saltaire, Titus Salt (which dredged up memories of A-Level history coursework to Chris) and had a great day engaging with all the many people who stopped by to make the day's film including the Davies family from Basement Arts Projects - coming back for a third time! Outside the College was a Super-8 cinema specially commisioned for the festival by Cherry Kino and loads of activities to partake in. Our screening attracted around forty people who squashed into a room that was half designed to look like the interior cabin of a passenger plane, - our first in such a space! Thanks Saltaire, it was great to be there.

Tomorrow at the Saltaire Arts Trail and 'Animal Magic'

Tomorrow we go to the historic town of Saltaire for the Saltaire Arts Trail where we will be running a workshop from twelve 'til four in the Shipley College Salt Building just next to the Super-8 Mobile Cinema that we're really looking forward to seeing.
To put you in a West Yorkshire mood here's the brand new video, released today, that Chris Directed for Leeds band, The Horn The Hunt, which was shot on 16mm film and was hand processed by Mark and Jo, enjoy...
                        

Sunday 22nd of May at FACT in Liverpool

On Sunday 22nd May we ran our first workshop in Liverpool at the prestigious FACT. 

An awesome film was made by a dedicated bunch of participants that was even more enjoyable by the mass number of returning faces from our past workshops including Emma Bowen from the IKON Gallery, The guys from http://www.artinliverpool.com/ who attended our date at Dalston Eastern Curve Garden and Sam Meech who we met way back in October at AND Festival, had work at the MAC Space whilst we there for Flatpack Festival and who's project A Small Cinema was part of the exhibition  we adjoined our workshop to in Rotherham!
Sam is a lovely and very talented chap who spent the entire day with us and wrote about his experience on his blog here.
FACT also wrote up about their experience with us, and like them, we hope to team up again soon.
Thanks so much to everyone who made it down, the day went so fast and the film was a real beauty!
Below are some of Sam Meech's quick videos from the screening of the work made at the workshop - thanks again Sam!

Sunday 15th at Basement Arts Project in Beeston, Leeds.

Sunday saw us run our first workshop within a domestic setting at Basement Arts Projects.  This is a great project started by husband and wife team, Bruce and Deborah Davies, to locate a more vibrant artistic venue and community in the South side of Leeds, specifically for them in Beeston where they have lived for over eight years and have started the renovation of their spacious and airy cellar as a pop up space for events and collaborations with artists with a plan for a more permanent exhibition space over the years to come. The Davies clan also consist of Evelyn (8), Francis (4) and Lawrence (2) who seem to have greeted their parents' ambitions with equal excitement and enthusiasm and we were invited to inhabit the space for the day (Lawrence's word of the day was 'CAAAAAKE!' as we were,  literally and generously,very well catered for by Debs).

With more than twenty guests adding their hands to the film we made a rather excellent ten minutes of work by taping the film up in strips against the walls of the basement making the most use of the full room. It was a genuinely lovely day for us where we were able to meet up with new and old friends, including handing over the film (via his 9 month old daughter Bethan) to David E Thomas who will be manipulating his own section of our epic film whilst cycling from Land's End to Jon O'Groats. Suffice to say we were all made to feel very much at home and felt very relaxed whilst being highly productive and socially engaged with everyone who came; making time to interview a few people and most notably discussing the experiences of two ladies' memories of the feelings surrounding West Yorkshire during the Yorkshire Ripper period.

We'd thoroughly recommend keeping an eye on what Basement Arts Projects are doing and attending anything that they programme in. Previous events included artist Kimbal Quist Bumstead taking a five day residence with the family to create an evening of performance art and current activity includes a call out for open submissions for a future exhibition. Basement Arts Projects is a quietly sophisticated and relaxed environment that promises to be an essential addition to Leeds' art venues run by genuine and caring people, eager to promote an accessible space for their literal neighboring community....and you get 'CAAAAAAKE' too. Cheers to the Davies's and to everyone who came down, we had a great day.

6th, 7th, 8th and 14th May at Studio at the Elephant, Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre, London

Over two weekends we had four brilliant days with Studio at the Elephant at the Elephant & Castle shopping centre in London. Followers may remember our two days at 'the Elephant' in November and the former space's success led to Rebecca Davies and Eva Sajovic opening the Studio in March for a longer duration. Whilst the unit is smaller in size than the previous one most of the workshops spill out onto the main concourses of the shopping centre which greatly attract many passers by and shoppers to interacting with the diverse and exciting programme of events.  A talk on herbal remedies, a story telling scone making rabbit, a celebration of the Latin American Workers Association Socitey and much more happened whilst we there.

Most impressively was the screening of Ken Aston's  We Was All One, a documentary made in 1972 organised with Tate Modern's Community Film Club which the Studio organised a special event space in a spare unit and generated almost 200 people in its audience. Make sure to regularly check the programme of events at the Studio - it is a unique and impressive project that obviously is made out of a genuine passion and excitement to engage and entertain the vibrant community on its doorstep. Don't miss!

Sponsor David E Thomas's cycle ride from Land's End to Jon O'Groats

One of our participants on sunday's workshop at Basement Arts Projects will be Leeds City Council's David E Thomas who is, next week, cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats and aiming to raise over £2,000 for Action Medical Research a charity who provide funding and support to pioneering equipment and techniques in peadiatric medicine.
David is going to take some of our 16mm film with him on his incredible journey and manipulate it with the help of his fellow cyclists en route!
You can sponsor him by following the link here:-  http://www.action.org.uk/sponsor/dethomas

This weekend at The Elephant & Castle in London and Basement Arts Projects in Leeds

Apologies for being a bit behind with the blog but hopefully it will be updated as much as possible this week - we've all been very busy. We spent three days last weekend in the Elephant & Castle shopping centre with our very good friends http://studioattheelephant.blogspot.com/ which is the more durational project started by Rebecca Davies some of you may recall from our previous workshops held in November  and we are returning this Saturday from 1pm til 6pm for a final workshop. It's a brilliant project in a very vibrant community and you should come and check out what is on offer.

Sunday also brings us back to Leeds in Beeston to visit the brand new venture started by husband and wife team, Bruce and Deborah Davies, http://basementartsproject.wordpress.com/. The Davies family were big fans of our workshop in Leeds, coincidentally also in November,   enough to decide to put us on in their own home and we are looking forward to our very first workshop in a domestic setting. Basement Arts Projects is a arts space, venue and gallery but primarily a home so to find out the address please follow the link on their website: http://basementartsproject.wordpress.com/coming-up/ or join their facebook event page.

Hopt to see you there!