This morning we found out the exciting news that we have successfully secured our Catalyst arts funding, here’s what our Artistic Director Karen Watson had to say;

“I am delighted with the news that we have been successful with our Catalyst application to Arts Council England. The whole team at East Street Arts are working hard to develop the charity’s infrastructure and this grant is a real boon. We know that this development and our Catalyst bid will benefit an increasing number of artists and artist collectives in their, and our, endeavours to be sustainable and engage with audiences and participants.

Our three year Catalyst project is a simple but innovative and we think a unique one. Arts Council England Catalyst funds will be utilised with a particular focus, that of developing additionality in our relationships with the companies who we engage with through our temporary space project.”

East Street Arts will be funded £120,000 over a 3 year period by Arts Council England. This equates to £40,000 a year and will be matched by our fundraising through this project. This is great news for the entire staff here at East Street Arts and has put us all in high spirits.

Venue: Hive
Kirkgate, Shipley, BD18 3EH.
Opening Times:
For all opening times, please visit:
www.hivebradford.org.uk

Here at East Street Arts we recently provided Hive with a temporary workspace, to set up The Hive Pop-Up Art Space. We are truly amazed and inspired with what they have done with the old shop unit we found them.

The Hive Pop-Up Art Space is a volunteer led project for exhibitions and workshops. Its objective is to revive a previously closed shop space in the centre of Shipley to host a number of exciting and innovative projects leading up to Hive’s 30th Birthday on the 2nd of June.

The Pop up Gallery will be displaying a diverse range of local peoples work from sculpture and ceramics to painting and drawings (curated by Will Blake).

Hive will also be holding a series of free drop in creative workshop for families (children under the age 0f 12 must be accompanied by and adult.

Note: For all opening times and times of the workshops please visit: www.hivebradford.org.uk

Venue:
For exact venue information, please visit: www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/lost-properties
Opening Night:
Friday May 25 (6pm – 9pm)
Festival Dates:
Friday May 25 – Sunday June 10

Lorna Barrowclough is currently a volunteer here at East Street Arts and is working on some marketing for us. When she is not busy doing that, she is busy taking part in exhibitions such as the following one, which is part of Fringe Arts Bath:

Lost Properties
The objects we
possess embody
our life experience,
culture, ideas and
opinions; eventually
becoming inconspicuous components
of who we are and how we live. Once
assimilated, we rarely reassess the
meaning of these objects. Lost Properties
attempts to reveal the inherent qualities in
objects, ordinarily taken for granted.

Curated by Object Art
www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/lost-properties 

The piece of work which Lorna will be showing is titled:

My Rome built from one week; is a piece work of that physically documents a section of my social circle’s daily life experience, culture, ideas and opinions through the literature they actively engage with and much of the written word that enters their lives inadvertently externally.

By creating physical objects that embody both the materials used and the collectors themselves (having given me their ‘paper lives’ from one week) Have I created realistic component that marks out who these people are and how they live their lives?

For more information about Lorna Barrowclough and to see her work, please visit her website: www.lornabarrowclough.com

For more information on the festival, please visit the Fringe Arts Bath website, updated throughout the festival: www.fringeartsbath.co.uk

Venue: 1 Cross York Street (Formerly The Loft)
Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS2 7EE.
Open Everyday:
May 12th – June 8th (12:00 – 18:00)
Awards Night:
Friday 1st June (18:00 – 22:00)

After an amazing opening night on Friday the 11th May, the Woolgather Art Prize 2012 is now open! The exhibition will be running for the next 4 weeks, until Friday the 8th June. There will also be an awards night on Friday the 1st June where the winners will be announced. So if you didn’t make it to the opening, or if you haven’t had chance to make your vote yet, make your way down and vote for who you want to win the Woolgather Art Prize 2012!

The show also features some East Street Arts members and studio holders and even one of our East Street Arts workers! So please go down and show your support to all involved. The publication is also a beautiful pocket size format, full of images created by around 50 artists and is available on a donation basis. I’ve got my copy, get yours!

And remember, You Choose The Winner!

For more information, visit: www.woolgatherartprize.com

Deadline for Submissions:

Sunday 1st July

The MARMITE PRIZE FOR PAINTING is a chance for any painter to submit work to be judged by a panel of professionals, with the chance to win a commissioned marmite artwork, made and very kindly donated by artist Richard Wentworth.

As is the case with most open submission competitions, they have a set of rules devised to make the procedure fair and just for all applicants. If you are thinking of applying, it might be worth having a read through these at www.marmiteprize.org/the-rules-2012 before submitting an application.

For more information about the prize and how to apply, please visit: www.marmiteprize.org

Venue: THE Gallery at Flannels
3rd Floor, Flannels, 68-78 Vicar Lane, Leeds
Dates and Times:
Saturday 19th May 2012

Important Note: Please RSVP to thegalleryatflannels@gmail.com

The exhibition explores the fabric of the post-peristroika landscape through the details of its everyday life, juxtaposing images of both beauty and aesthetic brutality to create a portrait of a world still in flux – straddling deep-rooted tradition, the promise of the future and the still visible shadow of the iron curtain.

Image Credit: Eugenia Maximova

In spite of the diversity of work, there is a commonality and a pervading stillness running through the exhibition that causes the spectator to reflect not only on what they are seeing, but also on their own context. With images ranging from faces at the frozen windows of a severe Bulgarian winter to the burgeoning Hare Krishna following in the Ukraine, the stories of these other worlds are told through sensitive, yet bold visual statements that touch at the core of the human condition. In contrast, the reality of austerity measures in the UK and Ireland are communicated by the work of Foundation Degree in Photography students, including depictions of ghost housing estates and independent traders in crisis.

Exhibitors include: Eugenia Maximova (Bulgaria), Boryana  Katsarova (Bulgaria), Oksana Yushko (Russia), Lilla Szasz (Hungary), Emoke Kerekes  (Hungary), Balázs Turay (Hungary), Daniel Kovalovszky (Hungary), Maxim Dondyuk (Ukraine), Dorin Goian (Moldova), Arthur Bondar (Ukraine), Pijus Vyčas  (Lithuania),  Lajos Kalmár (Hungary)

CONTACT is the 2nd Leeds City College Photo Festival organised as an alternative showcase of student photography within the public realm. Incorporating a range of venues and contexts for photographic works, it aims to challenge the viewer to think outside of the traditional gallery setting and in doing so readdress the ‘end of year show’ format. The venues will be linked with a map available from the festival hub at Leeds Gallery which will give you the chance to explore the city and engage with the work on show.

Note: The tour will start at 1pm from
Leeds Gallery, Munro House, York St, Leeds, LS9 8AG
and conclude at THE Gallery at Flannels.

In addition to the work of Fda Year 1 photography students in the OTHER WORLDS exhibition, Leeds Gallery will be exhibiting DEFINED:OBSCURITY featuring the work of Fda Year 2  students, as well as there being individual shows of BA students scattered across a the city centre of Leeds.

For more details, please visit:
http://otherworldsexhibition.blogspot.co.uk/
http://contactphotofestival.blogspot.co.uk/

For Festival hub:
http://www.leedsgallery.com

Venue: 4 High Court
Leeds, LS2 7ST.
Opening Night:
Friday 1st June (6pm – 9pm)
Dates:
Friday 1st June – Sunday 10th June
Opening Times:
Mon, Tue, Wed, Sat (12pm – 6pm)
Thu (2.30pm – 7.30pm)
Sun (2pm – 5pm)

YELD is East Street Arts studio holder and member Filippa Dobson first solo show. 4 High Court is an East Street Arts temporary space. The artist traverses an unboundaried Neolithic landscape from Yorkshire to Orkney and Shetland and beyond. Walking in the footsteps of her Traveller forebears she reconfigures a barren landscape where cup and ring marked rocks become portals to an imaginary world. Rocks become sleeping whales, animal bones mix with human and 4 High Court becomes a chambered tomb. The hybrid forms that emerge sit in a particular place and speak in a symbolic tongue. (Krauss 1979) The pieces on show range from drawings, photographs and printworks to sculpture and installation. 4 High Court is behind the Corn Exchange and 2 minutes walk from Leeds City Bus Station.

Filippa will start a practice led PhD in the School of Design within the University of Leeds in October when she will become the Demonstrator in the Print workshop. She is a Part Time Tutor and Workshop Leader at Leeds College of Art. She won the Photography category of the Northern Design Competition in 2010 when she appeared on ‘Look North’ and in the Yorkshire Evening Post. Her screenprint ‘Metallurgy’ won First Prize at the Bradford Open in 2007.

Deadline:
1st June

New Young Leeds is a curational collective based in Leeds who believes that it is crucial to support the local art scene from the ground up. After the success of last years show we are back and we are looking for more work from the aspiring talent that Leeds has to offer. We aim to celebrate the next generation of artists active in Leeds as well as promote the city as a thriving cultural destination.

To submit work please send photo documentation of a single work, no more than three .jpeg photos, or the appropriate file types if film or sound, two short written statements, one describing the work and the other should be a personal statement, no more than 250 words each, and the dimensions of work to:
newyoungleeds@hotmail.co.uk

Note: Also it is important that you include your full name and contact details, e.g. address, phone number and/or email address.

Venue: Patrick Studios
St Mary’s Lane, Leeds, LS9 7EH.
Opening Night:
Thursday 3rd May (6pm – 9pm)
Dates and Times:
Thursday 3rd – Thursday 10th May
(12pm – 6pm daily)

Note: The pieces on show range from illustration to installation, sculpture to video, but are united by a shared exploration of physical materiality in the artwork.

Weights and measures (The aesthetic scales are tipped in favour of the butterfly)

Aesthetic decisions can weigh heavily on both fine artists and their audiences, especially when it comes to making and receiving art through the intractable materiality of practice. These 38 second year fine art students have set out their stall to measure the aesthetic temperature of professional exhibition curation and in the balance seek to take the measure of what it is to be an emerging artist. Painting, drawing, sculpture, video and installation work is being tested and measured for creativity, inspiration, lightness of touch, weight of endeavour and visual effect. It is only to be hoped their aesthetic protractor rings true, and that as it seeks to measure and apportion taste, we don’t find it’s always set to the angle of perceived pain.

Take the measure of these works, take a load off your feet, sit down and deliberate; ponder on their ponderousness, weigh up their worth, and don’t forget their future lies in the balance and your consideration is all they ask. No money need be exchanged, no pound of flesh has to be put on the scale; it’s all for free, for your eyes only, as long of course that the scales have been removed.

Are these young artists punching above their weight are there any heavyweights amongst them? Have they melted down the gold and silver of refined poetry or just discovered lead in their alchemic artist’s search? Only the measured beat of time will tell.

Garry Barker, March 2012

For more information you can visit the weights and measures website:
www.weights-measures.co.uk

Deadline for submissions:
30th April 2012

Young artists from all over the UK are invited to apply for ParkinProgress, a residency that will take place in Nottingham as part of World Event Young Artists, from 5 to 14 September 2012.

ParkinProgress is a three-year, pan-European creative and cultural collaboration with five partners: the UK, France, Hungary, Belgium and the Czech Republic. Each year, it moves country, with 40 emerging and professional artists working together to take over a park or green urban area to create an art space. For 2012, the project will be hosted by Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, with artists working within the Castle grounds and surrounding parkland.

UK-based artists, directors, designers, choreographers, musicians, actors, dancers, technicians, composers, writers and programmers, aged between 18 and 30 and working across visual arts, music, performance, film, literature and digital media, are invited to apply. Applications are encouraged from creative individuals who demonstrate a willingness and capacity to benefit from creative collaboration.  The deadline for applications is 30th April.

20 UK-based artists will be selected to take part alongside 20 international artists from the other ParkinProgress partner nations.  During the residency the artists will be provided with studio and technical facilities through Nottingham Trent University and a workshop programme will take place to facilitate creative collaboration.  Travel expenses to Nottingham as well as accommodation during the residency will be covered and a fee of 500 Euros paid to selected artists.

The Nottingham ParkinProgress residency is timed to coincide with World Event Young Artists 2012, a finale of the Cultural Olympiad in the East Midlands, and is hosted by UK Young Artists.

The very first event of its kind, in September 2012 World Event Young Artists will showcase a selection of the best creative talent from across the globe, bringing 1,000 artists aged 18 to 30 from 120 nations together in one city. World Event Young Artists 2012 will be held across Nottingham’s world class arts venues including Broadway, Lakeside, New Art Exchange, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham Playhouse and The Royal Centre as well as independent galleries, artist run spaces, music venues, community spaces and alternative sites.

Up to five artists from the 40 international artists participating in ParkinProgress Nottingham will be invited to take part in the next stage of ParkinProgress in Mons, Belgium in September 2013.

Further information and application details can be found at: www.worldeventyoungartists.com