Sunday 14 July 2013

Stars hide your fires...

A BIG THANK YOU The biggest thanks to Claire Ford and Sarah Lawton who braved the masses to present their work around the arts and dementia at Culture Shots. Feel free to get in touch to suggest more networking events.

I went to one of the Manchester International Festival (MIF) events at the weekend. It was Massive Attack vs Adam Curtis, and it was a real treat. Curtis is a sublime documentary maker. Quite unique stuff in this world of consumer rubbish. I had to smile reading the MIF brochure for this event though. Tickets were £36, but if you were a citizen of this fair city, there were limited tickets at £12, but of course, 'a transaction fee applies'. HA! Imagine - you've just got your payday loan, but your phone's been disconnected and you don't have a credit card. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen it performed at Old Trafford, free of charge...better still, at that temple to the consumer, the Trafford Centre. Hey Ho. Of course, our Mortality exhibition is completely free of charge, as have been any events to which the speakers and performers have given their time gratis too.


For those of you who were unable to attend the Mortality event so wonderful facilitated by Sam Guglani and Molly Carlile, I can only say it was brilliant! Thank you so much to you both for all your input. Alas, no recoding exists of the spoken sections of this event, but to keep you satisfied, I have a recording of the sublime Victoria Hume and Chris Reed performing Skeletons from Delirium. Thank you both for a simply beautiful set.


PRESENT-TENSE
There is a book to accompany the exhibition, which is available from the Holden Gallery, from Arts for Health or Cornerhouse books who are our distributors. The text that accompanies the selected works for the exhibition is critical if you want to get the most out of the works. there’s also an essay from Steven Gartside called The Coffin Route and a new piece of work I’ve written that in parts, explores the numinous potential of the arts asks how we can achieve some kind of wellbeing as we face our mortality. It’s called Present-Tense and this little film is an oblique ‘teaser’ to whet your appetite. Go on, you know you want to read it!


New Fund to Develop the Careers of 
Artists & Bands 
PRS for Music Foundation and Arts Council England have announced the launch of the Momentum Music Fund.  This is a £500,000 fund to develop the careers of talented artists and bands.  It is anticipated that grants of between £5,000 and £15,000 will be awarded to between 50 and 75 artists/bands over the next 2 years.  Applications can be submitted by the artists themselves or those who are working on their behalf, e.g. a manager, an independent label or publisher.  Priority will be given to those that haven’t been funded by PRS for Music Foundation in the previous 12 months. The next application deadline is the 30th August. Read more at http://www.prsformusicfoundation.com/Funding/Momentum-Music-Fund 

Wellcome Trust -Arts Awards 
The Wellcome Trust is inviting organisations and individuals to apply for funding through its Arts Awards. The Arts Awards support projects that engage the public with biomedical science through the arts including dance, drama, performance arts, visual arts, music, film, craft, photography, creative writing or digital media. Applications are invited for projects of up to £30,000 through their small & medium-sized grant programme, and for projects above £30,000 through their large grant programme. The aim of the awards is to support arts projects that reach new audiences which may not traditionally be interested in science and provide new ways of thinking about the social, cultural and ethical issues around contemporary science.

The scheme is open to a wide range of people including, among others, artists, scientists, curators, filmmakers, writers, producers, directors, academics, science communicators, teachers, arts workers and education officers. The next application deadline for small & medium sized projects is the 1st November 2013, and for large projects the application deadline has now passed. Read more at www.wellcome.ac.uk/Funding/Public-engagement/Funding-schemes/Arts-Awards/index.htm 


Do you ever read the comments on youtube? I saw these under the little song below and had to share them.


"I work nights in a nursing home. Four o'clock in the morning i'm giving a cup of tea to Ivy, an 84 year old lady with advanced Alzheimers who cant sleep when this song comes on the BBC2 nightscreen and we both just stare at the T.V. speechless. enjoying the music. it finishes and she looks at me and says 'that was lovely' Just shows that real music transcends everything and can bring about obscure and beautiful moments and connections like this."



Be happy, be safe and only good things...C.P

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