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interchat Programme

Wednesday 7th April 2pm – 8pm

2pm    An opportunity to explore issues and ideas in round table groups, starting from examples of local artist in residence schemes in the city and a two year programme of intercultural dialogue residencies and international exchanges undertaken by Laundry in the Balkans, Poland and Crete.

5pm    Presentations on international practice from Mariana Assenova, New Culture Foundation, Bulgaria and Michał Moniuszko, Fundacja Pogranicze/ Borderland Foundation, Poland.

6pm    Buffet dinner followed by entertainment/films/networking.

Thursday 8th April 10am – 4pm

10am    Airan Berg, in conversation with François Matarasso.
Airan Berg will present an overview of the development of the European Capital of Culture programme in Linz 2009, its ambitions and successes and its approach to engaging with diverse neighbourhoods and communities.

11.30am    A selection of case studies to increase understanding of various
methodologies for community engagement and international partnership development.

1pm    Lunch

2pm    Stan’s Cafe will lead an interactive session investigating questions emerging from the earlier sessions.

3.15pm    Final reflections

Organisers:
Birmingham City Arts Service aims to get more local people active in the arts and to increase the value of the sector to the local economy. This is achieved by providing, developing and funding exciting and accessible high quality arts activities to involve residents and attract visitors. The service also provides advice and support to arts organisations, community groups, individual artists and public bodies concerning all aspects of the arts. The Service is divided into Community Arts, Arts & Young People and Festivals & Initiatives teams.

The Drum is dedicated to developing and promoting contemporary arts and culture of British African, Asian and Caribbean communities. It is a place where contemporary arts flourish and are enjoyed, nurturing and broadening the appreciation of these arts for audiences and participants from the whole community.

Laundry is an association of artists in the West Midlands who develop projects both as individual practitioners and in collaboration with each other. They have a wide range of artistic disciplines, working creatively in community contexts and with a diversity of cultures. As an artist group they have developed a number of ongoing relationships with cultural organisations in Europe.

Participant and presenter biographies:

International Presenters (Wednesday 7th April)

Mariana Assenova is one of the founders of the New Culture Foundation in Bulgaria and organiser of Goatmilk Festival. As a freelance journalist and producer, she writes on new technologies, research and education. She was a former presenter and Editor in Chief for the News Department of Bulgarian National TV. More recently she is working on an exchange with Chris Baldwin from Spiral Theatre group, La Rioja, Spain, on how the language of art can be used to teach other subjects.

The New Culture Foundation is a cultural organisation based in Bela Rechka, north-western Bulgaria. It is a non-governmental private organisation registered in 2003 in Sofia and working as an interdisciplinary network of journalists, artists, writers, new media designers and volunteers. It developed the Goatmilk Festival to examine questions about personal memories and collective memory in a new perspective and environment, working with international artists, anthropologists and musicians.
www.novakultura.org/en

Michał Moniuszko is a musician and runs a range of music and multi-media projects for the Borderland Foundation bringing together young people and professional musicians from several countries, crossing several styles including hip-hop, klezmer and traditional song.

The Borderland Foundation was established in 1990 in the town of Sejny in north-east Poland, close to the border with Lithuania. They have been active since 1990 in conducting intercultural work mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in Western Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia and Northern America. Originally members of the influential Polish theatre group Gardzienice, designed to bring city theatre to rural areas, Borderland run performance, music and visual arts programmes. The Music Workshop there offers a wide range of artistic-educational activities with young people. The programme is based on multicultural music traditions of the region - in the little town of Sejny the monophonic Polish traditional singing meets the Lithuanian and Russian polyphony.

Their projects include: primary education based on traditional jazz; a Klezmer Orchestra, based on Jewish wedding music; Music of The Place, multimedia work based on traditional influences (old recordings, oral history) which are transformed into contemporary compositions using a mixture of electronics and acoustic instruments, slam poetry, video streaming; Sejny Jazz Cooperative, significant Polish jazz musicians invited to work with local youth and create new musical expressions, performed in common concerts; The Musicians Raft, an exchange between musicians in New York and Poland, in the form of workshops, seminars, lectures, exhibitions, with a core of concerts performed by the participants.undertaking a post-graduate course in art practice at Goldsmiths College.
www.progranicze.sejny.pl

International presenters (Thursday 8th April)

Airan Berg was born in Tel Aviv and educated at the American International School in Vienna and at University in Providence, USA. His first professional theatre experience was on Broadway in New York as an assistant to Harold Prince. In Austria worked as an assistant producer for the Burgtheater Vienna and was 1 producer at the Schillertheater in Berlin. He founded Theater ohne Grenzen (Theatre without Boundaries) and the international theatre festival Die Macht des Staunens (The Power of Amazement). Between 2001-2007, he was on the board of directors with artistic direction of the Schauspielhaus Wien GmbH in Vienna. He was the Director of Performing Arts for Linz Capital of Culture 2009.
www.linz09.at/en/index.html

François Matarasso is a writer, researcher and consultant with 30 years experience in community-based arts practice. He has done groundbreaking work into the impact of participation in the arts and on the evaluation of culture. He is Honorary Professor at Gray’s School of Art, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and an International Fellow of the Centre for Public Culture & Ideas, Griffith University in Brisbane. He has worked with cultural organisations, foundations and public bodies in over 30 countries and his work has been widely published. He has taken part in intergovernmental meetings on behalf of the Council of Europe and advised cultural agencies in France, Belgium, Holland and elsewhere on aspects of cultural policy. His work has included work on the European Commission review of European Capitals of Culture.
http://web.me.com/matarasso/one/Home.html

Laundry round table presenters (Wednesday 7th April)

Beverley Harvey has 25 years’ experience of working in social justice through the arts, community development and race relations. Beverley specialises in engaging with and involving culturally diverse communities.
www.laundryline.co.uk

Brendan Jackson has worked as an artist and developer of community arts programmes both locally and internationally. In recent years he has in particular worked closely with the Institute of Polish culture at Warsaw University on The Wonders of Warsaw project, and with The Borderland Foundation.
www.brendanjackson.co.uk

Alicja Rogalska works with a variety of media including photography, installation, performance, text and video. She has undertaken residencies in Portugal, Lebanon, Egypt, Georgia and Armenia. Alicja holds a masters degree in cultural studies from the University of Warsaw and is currently undertaking a post-graduate course in art practice at Goldsmiths College.
www.alicjarogalska.co.uk

Steve Trow has 30 years’ experience of arts, media and cultural development as a practitioner, officer and consultant. Steve's skills include strategic and business planning, policy and programme development, organisational review, negotiation, and fundraising.

Jo Loki is an installation artist. She uses a broad range of materials and skills - drawing, painting, embroidery, writing, photography, print, text, book-making and multi-media - in order to create plausible stories and characters.

Naz Koser founded Ulfah Arts in 2004, an arts organisation that acts as an umbrella to a number of initiatives examining issues around faith and the arts. Over the years she has developed a specific expertise in working with Islam and Muslim communities.
www.ulfaharts.co.uk

Simret Cheema-Innis is a young artist, working in video and photography. She recently undertook work in South Africa and is currently working on a hip-hop theatrical play.

Simon Walker works in the field of participatory, socially engaged arts. He has recently been working on developing a personal publishing project (The Eccentric City Newspaper).

Case study presentations (Thursday 8th April)
Delegates to choose 1 session from the following 6 choices:

Arts Residencies programme
Four local arts residencies have been piloted in the inner city locations of Nechells, Kingstanding, Kitts Green and Handsworth. Case studies will focus on creating a large scale mosaic using Islamic calligraphy by visual artist Mohsen Keiany; creating an urban orchard and working with community groups to plant fruit trees by eco-artist Eleanor Hoad; developing films and paint on film with local community groups with George Fleming from Reel Access and developing storytelling projects in Perry Barr.
www.artsresidencies.org

The Arts Champions Scheme
Birmingham City Council set up the Arts Champions Scheme five years ago with the aim to enable Birmingham residents to get closer to the city’s world-class arts offerings. Birmingham’s major arts organisations (The Arts Champions) were successfully matched with the city’s constituencies, ensuring that resources invested in the city’s flagship arts organisations are used to benefit local communities as well as city centre attenders and visitors. Birmingham Opera Company and Ikon Gallery will share their experiences of the scheme.
www.birminghamopera.org.uk
www.ikon-gallery.co.uk

Arts and health
Women & Theatre and Dunia Yetu will share their experiences of a range of innovative approaches to creative work with health agencies.

Using new media and social networking
Fierce Festival and 7 Inch Cinema will share their experiences of using digital technologies not only to promote their work, but how it can become an integral way of reaching new participants and attenders to their festivals.
www.fiercetv.co.uk 
www.7inch.org.uk

Engaging with new communities
Sound It Out and Big Brum will share their experiences of bringing arts into the lives of newly arrived communities, refugees and asylum seekers.
www.sounditout.co.uk
www.bigbrum.org.uk

Cultural exchanges
Sampad and Anurekha Ghosh will share their experiences of developing international exchanges, looking at the practicalities and entrepreneurial spirit required to succeed.
www.sampad.org.uk

For all delegates to attend:
Fierce! FestivalArtistic Directors Laura McDermott and Harun Morrison of Fierce! Festival, one of the UK’s most important contemporary arts festivals, will lead a session to expand our capacity to network and engage with each other.
www.fiercetv.co.uk

And finally…

City views…. April 5th–10th

Birmingham City Council Arts Service is supporting the interchat symposium by profiling a number of projects and events that they are funding as part of an ongoing commitment to nurturing international perspectives between artists and communities in our culturally diverse city.

The City Sings
An opportunity to hear community choirs from Birmingham perform The City Sings composed by Helen Ottaway commissioned by mac for its re-opening in 2010. Each choir will perform their own repertoire as part of the programme.
4pm, 5th April, Adrian Boult Hall, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Tickets (£3/£5) available from Birmingham Box Office at Birmingham Central Library
www.birminghamboxoffice.com / 0121 303 2323

Treasure Tales Inspired by intriguing objects from the city’s historic collections, this is an opportunity for young performers to hone their storytelling with professional guidance in the UK’s first repertory theatre.
6th-9th April, The Old Rep Theatre, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY
Evening performance on Friday 9th April
Tickets and performance time available from Birmingham Box Office at Birmingham Central Library
www.birminghamboxoffice.com / 0121 303 2323

In our Backyard
An Open Day with activities for families at the Community Gallery (BM&AG), showing work developed through four arts residencies in local neighbourhoods. Participatory activities will include storytelling, mosaic making, painting on film and apple mapping. The public launch of the exhibition will take place in the Community Gallery in the evening and the exhibition will run until the end of June 2010.
10th April, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham B3 3DH
www.bmag.org.uk / 0121 303 2834

Further information:
If you require further information on interchat, please contact Birmingham City Council Arts Service on 0121 303 4709 or arts.team@birmingham.gov.uk (with interchat conference in the subject line).
Birmingham City Council Arts Service will not take bookings for interchat, as this should be done by downloading the booking form from The Drum website at www.the-drum.org.uk/event/interchat.

To view flyer, see related files above.