NEWS..Sept/Oct 08
We are looking for artists and artist led groups in the North West UK to take part in a networking/performance event in Bristol on October 18th.
So please contact us!
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NEWS..July/August 08
Off to Shambala festival in August in a van turned art space/cafe- well it will be once Barry has his shambolic paws on it!
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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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