What is a gwaan?

Quite a lot, actually.  Heard And Not Seen is still on at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery – check out Gallery 36, just past the Egyptian stuff on the third floor.  It’s been great having it in the gallery, much better than some contemporary art ghetto, the audience is so diverse – and it’s been a great challenge making the show ‘school holiday proof’!  We’ve been getting some fantastic comments in the book, though we do have to keep checking it for ‘ call this number for sex’ type messages.  The show runs until August 22nd.

We’re gearing up for this year’s two ‘mini festivals’ – Highgate Fun Day and the Inside Out Festival.  On September 4th we’re running the funday in Highgate Park, in partnership with local residents and community groups, and there’ll be the usual face-painting, balloon twisting, bouncy castle type fun – with a few surprises – please feel free to pray for good weather!

Swiftly followed from the 24th-26th of September by the Inside Out Festival.  The launch night at the Edge on the 24th of September features a return visit by our favourite Canadian four-part harmony, cello and banjo playing funsters, the Wilderness of Manitoba - not to be missed.  This will be coupled with a whole weekend of art, performance, intervention, film screenings and the like, all centred at the Edge, with a whole range of stuff going on in the surrounding streets.  The theme for the festival is ‘Come and have a day off at the Edge’ and is looking at themes of leisure, the inside-out and back to front – and anything else we feel (in)appropriate – watch this space for more details.

If you’d like to get involved in any of these events, please email us at info@frictionarts.com or phone on 01217726160 and we’ll have a chat.  If you are an artist and would like to show some work or get involved in the Inside Out Festival, drop us a line, too, the more, the merrier we say!

Iration in the nation