NEWS..April/May/June 09
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It is Good To Talk... Even With your Neighbours Momentum: a tale of two cities Performances and critical discussions over two weeks exploring artist-led activity in Bristol/Bath. Artists will be targeting the physical space and communities in between such as Keynsham, Bitton, Kelston, Saltford , Corston Newton St Loe and Twerton. They will be searching for common ground on how to bring Bristol and Bath artists together. Whilst BCC and ACE SW prepares to release its turning point strategy, artists could take a lead by working harder with neighbouring towns to take on other regions including the mighty behemoth London. 145 Collective , Veronique Chance , Bean, PITT studios |
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6-10pm May 22nd @ Art Space 204, 204 Gloucester Rd, Bristol BS7 8NU A presentation of work to happen over the fortnight streamed on live video over to the Octagon in Bath for the opening of the visual arts shows at the Bath fringe festival. We will be putting on artists interviews, cabaret hosted by Barry the Badger, and a competition (prize £50) to draw an art map of Bristol and Bath including artist-led activity. There will be a large drop of psycho-geographic live art. Performance artist Véronique Chance will run between Bristol and Bath filmed and streamed from the cameras on her helmet. The artist Bean will walk from Bristol to Bath through the night. She will bring film generated from the experience in the landscape for an outside projection/ performance powered by car batteries. Mike Powell and 145 Collective will be performing and generating creative disturbances inspired by their collaborative collage and play (http://145collective.blogspot.com/) . Pitt Studios with the help of Kangaroo Kourt will be setting up an Artists’ Parley at the Jolly Sailor in Saltford in full North American dress to discuss sacred ground, hunting ground and reserves with warring factions from Bristol and Bath. Rounding it up with full documentation of all goings on and finally making allies at the Walcot Chapel on June 6th with a mini symposium sponsored by ALIAS.
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MOMENTUM part 2 12-5pm 30th May |
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Wild Wild West! Totem poles and Underpants... Pitt Studios and Kangaroo Kourt host artists’ parley in full view of the public for artists hailing from Bristol or Bath and inbetween. It literally will be “The Wild Wild West” as Banksy’s famous piece in Stokes Croft proclaims. Although we may stop short of chucking petrol bombs at the arts council, local council, museums, snobs, thieves and know-it-alls, alliances must be made. The peace pipe will be prepared but not before the warring factions from Bristol and Bath have had their say. |
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Join in the discussion, prize for best fancy dress! We ride to Bath town when all is done. Some Refreshments provided.
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Sunday 6th June MOMENTUM |
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Future or no Future? Mini symposium sponsored by ALIAS (supporting artist led culture). A look at some of the performances and debates begun over two weeks exploring artist-led activity in Bristol/Bath and how we can encourage cooperation. Opportunity to network for artists and offer their point of view. Talks by : Networking lunch provided. |
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NEWS...May/June 08
Street Shrines project:
art of any kind accessed by the public from the street
Running as part of the Fringe Arts Bath. Initiated last year with some permission based work in the Mineral Hospital by Joanne Huntley, performance by Barbara Dean in Green Park, and some BADgertRAP work on Walcot St. An archive of last year's work, proposals and this year's promises will be posted on this site shortly.
This May/June we hope to see some interventions and interaction by Glasgow based Kate V. Robertson, paper chalk and poetry form Pat Jamieson, mesmeric performance from Sheila Broun and Jill Smith, photography and text from Deb Weinreb and more musings on the lack of street art from BADgertRAP. And of course Barry the Badger will make his Bath debut.
And we are clear that we don't care whether there is a law against street art or not. People v property. Again. If you throw away millions of pounds of public money on an ancient hot swimming pool then you have no right to judge.
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NEWS...Mar/Apr 08
Due to funding cuts from the Arts council (thanks to the Olympics) Kangaroo Kourt is turning its back on most public funding sources for the near future and taking a new turn to the dark side.
Private investment , sponsorship yes, sell yourself to the devil...Well not quite we will always do what we want legal or not.
The first of such experiments is Barry the Badger dreamed up during our Artcast project last year to create exposure and by fuck does he do that! It involves a man dressed inside a big badger outfit doing stunts and trying to do normal thngs like playing guitars or goin to the shops. Some people think it's for charity or fathers for justice and are a bit wary but others just take it for what it is : the attempt to disturb normal life.
Actually it's a bit like the Smiths and their nice tunes with bitter and twisted lyrics. Barry the Badger is an effective way of creating a sugary pill. He is a moving billboard, interactive and better than any flash ad. We wanted to stream Barry and other artists live over the internet during our Artcast residency in Sunderland but funding support fell through. So we found another way of doing it with full production support.
We put Barry onto a talent show called Upstaged run by Endemol and BBC3 and to everyone's surprise he took it by storm. Acts need to perform for 6 hrs inside a glass box and people vote online. He won three contests in a row and appeared in the finals week.
It is a rare event for such an offbeat act to do so well in a 'talent' show. Barry beat a down with it hip-hop act, a trendy cooking show and a heavy rock band. 95% of his lyrics and stunts were censored so the show was improvised from start to finish. That is 24 hrs inside a glass box in Bristol 'talking about nothing forever' (so the BBC are now getting all existentialist on our arses!)
The Arts council could not pay for it but BBC3 sure as hell could. So...
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NEWS...Dec 07
The Turner Prize: we can't Bear it!
Badger artist to visit Arnolfini in bums up to hot favourite Wallinger
Life-sized badger artist named Barry will be exploring the Arnolfini on December 3rd from 5pm to prove Bristol has cultural capital to equal the Turner prize. On the same date the Turner prize winner is announced in Liverpool, who take on the mantle of City of Culture for 2008.
Hot favourite Mark Wallinger has submitted ‘Sleeper’ - a recording of 10 nights he spent alone in Berlin's Neue National Galerie dressed in a bear suit. Bristol’s own ‘Wallinger’ in the form of Barry the Badger is especially keen on showing his bum in galleries as part of new Arts Council non-funded audience interaction strategies.
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