Sunday 21st November at Chisenhale Gallery

We felt very honoured to be running a day at the esteemed Chisenhale Gallery in London which was organised for us with the help of Alex Crouch at Deutsche Bank.
The Chisenhale is based near Victoria Park in Mile End and Bow which is where Chris lived for two years during his studies at the RCA, many of his films being made there. This made the day even more special and we were thoroughly enthused by the steady flow of people who came through the doors and interacted with each other as much as the project.
We were very looked after and we even have a dedicated page for photos and a video of the results of our workshop on the Chisenhale website here.  Thanks Chisenhale!

Saturday 20th November at Picture This in Bristol

We took part in the Encounters Film Festival in Bristol at the prestigious Picture This Gallery on saturday 20th november. It was particularly great for Jo as she was able to hang out with her sister and nine month old baby Cleo who is pictured in the photographs above - seemingly the artistic genes have kicked in early and Cleo is giving her Aunt a lesson in the analogue techniques employed by Brakhage and Lye, or maybe she's just having fun colouring in. What do babies dream of anyway?
We were thrilled to be holding the workshop in the same space as the brand new exhibition by Ben Rivers which opened the night before our arrival and had a steady flow of people coming to take part throughout the day. One of our favorites was Keisha, a four year old superstar who squealed the gallery down when she realised her drawings were what she was seeing projected when she took part in a live loop as shown below. A great day. Thanks Bristol!

Sunday 14th November at Leeds International Film Festival

Mark and Jo live in Leeds and Chris lived there for eight years so this date was a bit of a homecoming gig for us and it certainly didn't dissapoint. 

We were part of the excellent Leeds International Film Festival which is truly a gem in the festival circuit and lasts for three weeks every year as a public (not industry) festival meaning the screenings are as inclusive and economical as possible. We were part of Cherry Kino's programme which is curated and run by our friend Martha Jurksaitis who previously was part of EXP24 with Mark, Jo and Chris and were given an excellent gallery space all to ourselves at Gallery 42 next to local haunts, North Bar and Sela Bar.

We were well attended all day with a great number of our friends coming to visit. Particularly great participants were the Davies family where all five members of the clan were able to add their and add their  own section to the film. Deborah's  Naughty Neighbour blog reviewed the day very favourably here and it was a pleasure to spend so much time with such a great family and the day's film results were fantastic.

We were also aided by a great write up before the workshop by  Leeds'  culture blog theculturevulture.co.uk which certainly helped us in being so well attended. Readers of the invaluable cops and robbers messageboard were also high in attendence. Thanks to Claire Circuit for all her help in this!!!

We ended the day by attending the Constellations  festival where a special installation of Chris's video work had been created to be shown alongside bands such as Liars,  Four Tet and Les Savy Fav.

Thanks Leeds - you never disappoint!

Saturday 13th November at the National Media Museum in Bradford

Straight on to Bradford where we were part of the Bradford Animation Festival at the National Media Museum. We were able to get a great curry at Mumtaz (where the Queen has eaten don't you know!) and set up in the museum. We were pleased to find we were to be situated in a highly visible space by the Cubby Broccoli Cinema which allowed for many passers by to be interested enough to take part and also that we were working with an old friend from Leeds, Rose Borthwick. This day was amazingly productive and we had to stick down an entirely roll of film because the participants had used so much.

We met great local people as well as those who made it down specifically for the animation festival and finished the workshop with a full screen projection in the Cubby Broccoli Cinema that was nearly full to capacity with an audience full of the film's makers.

After this brilliant workshop we were able to roam around the musuem where, asides from enacting the skydives and a fist fights with Teletubbies by using the blue screen interactive exhibits and got all excitable about retro-cameras in the Kodak Gallery, we pictured ourselves with a giant map of Britain to illustrate our efforts to go from John O'Groats to Land's End. Thanks Bradford - this was another great day.

Friday 12th November at Huddersfield at Verve Bar

Chris, Kelvin and Jo ran this workshop that was put on by local enthusiast Russell D Hunter who had previously attended an OKO workshop in Bradford at the Impressions Gallery in June. His enthusiasm was very encouraging for us and we met great locals, including Russell's kids who sat and drew on the film for a couple of hours in Verve bar.

We made more film than we expected and even had a suprise visit from Chris's parents who drove over from Rotherham especially. Russell was a great host and even joined us two days later at our date in Leeds - thanks Russ, it was a pleasure!

9th and 10th of November at The Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre

Our friend Rebecca Davies, who graduated with Maria and Chris at the RCA in July, had asked us in the summer to be part of her week-long residency at The Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre in London which had finally come around.

Rebecca has studied the area for over two years as part of her graduating work which documented the region through illustrated and documentary work and set up in the shopping centre in an empty unit, a space to facilitate and exhibit the work of artists concerned with the regeneration of its community - the blog for which is here.
Asides from our two workshops there were screenings of new work by Altermodern exhibitor Marcus Coates, and Blight by one of Chris's favorite film makers John Smith. If you've never heard of John Smith then you are really missing out on his humorous and enetertaining but pointedly sophisticated films that engage the viewer through conventional documentary or narrative formats but subvert them into deeply sophisticated  investigations into the nature of the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. One of his most celebrated works The Girl Chewing Gum is viewable as an extract here but is also available on the Cinema 16 DVD and an anthology of his work is soon to be released on DVD by LUX.
The people who dropped by and took part in our workshops were full of character, warm and friendly with a great deal of appreciation for what Rebecca had took it on herself to do. It certainly validated Rebecca's work as a study of a community and its inhabitants and has perhaps encouraged her to delve even further into the Elephant.
Big congrats Becca - this was a big success.

Sunday 7th November in Falmouth for Cornwall Film Festival

So as soon as the BFI was done - Chris, Maria and her boyfriend Chris Jones, caught a train straight away to get to Falmouth. A few rail replacements were in occurence but we were lucky enough to have first class travel provided for us by the festival which was great. We got a chance to walk round Falmouth at night and drink real cornish ale.

Our workshop was set in Falmouth Art Gallery which became instantly exciting as we realised we were to be holding the workshop in the main gallery space - surrounded by works and prints by Picasso, Hockney, Gavin Turk, Henry Moore, and Roy Lichtenstein. The collection is fantastic, as is the gallery's curator Brian Stewart, who regularly rotates the works in the space to the extent that, after taking a like to chris's postcard of his video piece The world at your feet (III) he  asked if he could aquire it into the Falmouth Art Gallery Collection which Chris agreed and was displayed immediately!


The ethos of this award winning gallery to be as inclusive as possible without talking down to its attendees made it a perfect setting for our workshop.
So you are as likely to find an original illustration of Bagpuss or a Spitting Image puppet as you are a Renoir painting. There's also an incredible selection of automatons  like the picture to the left which kids seem to love.

We had a huge amount of people through the doors all day which was awesome - the gallery even opening on a Sunday just to hold our workshop.

We had experienced film makers and students from Falmouth Art College as well as young children and families and had a lot of fun in the process.

The final film was great and we were even given popcorn by Brian who was infectiously enthusiastic throughout the day.

We were sad to leave as, although we were tired from all the travelling of late Falmouth was a brilliant date on our schedule.