Events

Friction Arts with Neighbour Hood Watch

Neighbour Hood Watch - The Curio City Shop

October 2005 - Autumn 2006

The Curio City Shop
11 Auchinleck Square, Five Ways, Birmingham, B15 1DU
Open Wednesdays to Saturdays, 1pm until 5pm

The Curio City Shop is no ordinary shop but a place for exchange of ideas and visions. A shop where conversations and stories become currency.

From 5th October 2005, until autumn 2006, The Curio City Shop will be open for business at 11 Auchinleck Square, Five Ways Shopping Centre, an area where people’s living patterns and communal spaces have been affected by Birmingham’s urban culture and redevelopment.

The Curio City Shop is the third phase of the Neighbour Hood Watch programme led by artist Simon Walker and Friction Arts. Established 18 months ago in response to the death of a friend, Simon became concerned that the issue of street violence was not being publicly discussed. The Curio City Shop will be a place where these and other issues can be discussed freely and turned into living artworks by artists, local, national and international. These artworks will then be available for all to see in the Curio City Shop, not an art gallery, but a new place to encounter, enjoy and make art.

Friction Arts are delighted to announce that the first work for the shop will be made by US based artist Shannon Flattery who has been making work alongside American inner-citizens since 1997. Shannon has had a very real impact on the regeneration of Boston’s urban areas.

On 6th October at 6pm at The Curio City Shop, Shannon will be leading a talk to Brummies about her work in the States. Friction Arts will also be announcing an exciting new programme of commissions for local artists who wish to make work which engages with people that live in this rapidly-changing area.

Friction Arts are independent artists who will trade histories and tales at The Curio City Shop, giving a voice to Birmingham’s forgotten inner citizens.

For more information and images please contact Sara Fowles on 0121 666 7547 or email sara@livearts.co.uk

MORE INFORMATION

Friction Arts is a collaborative artist led organisation based in Birmingham with a local, national and international reputation for making art/performances in unexpected places.
www.livearts.co.uk

Simon Walker is a visual artist specialising in graphic design. For the past 18 months Simon has been working on Neighbour Hood Watch questioning crime, gun and gang issues in Birmingham. Simon is currently working collaboratively on a graphic novel with young people on Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP).

Shannon Flattery is a Boston-based installation artist who started Touchable Stories in 1997. As a practicing artist and community advocate, Shannon felt that art and community could be brought together to powerful effect. What emerged is a community-based platform for artists and community members to explore social issues and community identity through the combination of collecting and recording oral histories, holding community dinners and roundtable discussions, and documenting emergent themes in a series of vivid and interactive rooms.
www.touchablestories.org

This project is supported by Friction Arts and Birmingham City Council’s Urban Cultural Programme Urban Fusion.
www.urban-fusion.info