In February 2008 Sandra Hall, Simon Walker and Rachel Meadows attended a Gala event at The University of Birmingham Great Hall, at the invitation of Edgbaston Foundation and Calthorpe Estates.
Edgbaston Foundation is a new organisation founded by key Edgbaston businesses and the Edgbaston Constituency. The main sponsors were Calthorpe Estates as well as the University of Birmingham and ‘one edgbaston’. The Friction team were invited to attend the gala launch dinner as they were nominated for the Community Award for The Curio City Shop and Reality Estate. The other nominees were Midlands Arts Centre, Lord Taverners and the Lawn Tennis Association. They are delighted to announce that they won!
This is great news for Friction Arts, artists and participants who have worked with us to create extraordinary work here in Birmingham, nationally and internationally. Friction are particularly proud of the award-winning project the Curio City Shop – their base in Five Ways shopping centre for the last two and a half years. Here they created over 25 projects with locals young and old, culminating in Reality Estate last October.
Reality Estate was an epic adventure which invited the audience on an altered journey through the Five Ways estate, shopping centre and central Birmingham, culminating in the landscaped traffic island at Five Ways. On the way choirs, which included City of Birmingham Young Voices, Kiss the Ceiling, Birmingham Festival Choral Society and Birmingham Choral Union amongst others, sang an original score based on stories collected from local people during our time at the Curio City Shop. Audiences also witnessed performances and projections of and with local people in what has been described as ‘Mind blowing, extraordinary – a tour de force that combined community voice and contemporary site specific art work, seamlessly. Thank you.’
Internationally recognised artists on this project included Mark Storor, George Saxon, Sofie Layton and Merlijn Twaalfhoven. Friction's funders and supporters for Reality Estate included Urban Fusion (distributed through Birmingham City Council on behalf of AWM and ERDF), Arts Council England West Midlands, Edgbaston and Ladywood Constituencies, Calthorpe Estates and the BCC Creative Development Team.
Friction's next project will be ‘Echoes from the Edge’ a three year programme of work that will see Sandra Hall and Lee Griffiths, Directors of Friction Arts, collaborate with ‘Touchable Stories’ USA. Together they will undertake creative cultural archaeology of Digbeth and Highgate. Over three years there will be a programme of activity including installation, performance and dinners providing a unique forum to negotiate, debate and reflect on the seismic shifts taking place in our City. For further information about Friction, projects or to be kept posted about ‘Echoes from the Edge’ please email us at echoes@livearts.co.uk.
RSS