News
Culture Club, Week 10: Animation 2
After a few hundred photos and a broken pencil or two, we have come to the end of the pilot for Culture Club. There were a few tears and an extended session due the young people not wanting to log off. I am so proud to see the personal progressions that came from exploring so […]
Culture Club, Week 9: Animation 1
Last week was the penultimate week of Culture Club and I can hardly believe it. Where has the time gone? After eight weeks of exploring an array of art, week nine of Culture Club brought it all together: the members chose their favourite week from the programme and began to interpret their theme (self-portraits, extinct […]
Culture Club, Week 8: Portraits
Last week was great and not just because of how much the young people loved the session but also because of the weather! As we approach the final weeks of Culture Club, we took a closer look at ourselves, which really helped with the theme for this week: portraits! We started off the session by […]
Culture Club, Week 7: Photography
What a coincidence that we had picture perfect weather this week as our young people take a look at photography! Photography is what some of us would call the greatest human invention: the ability to capture moments and memories with the simple click of a button. It means that people from all across the world […]
Bringing Politics to Life: Shakespeare and Applied Theatre
Today is Shakespeare’s birthday (and deathday). Friction Arts’ Placement Student Mia Walters talks about Shakespeare, her area of expertise Applied Arts, and why the two are more closely interlinked than you might think… Applied Theatre is an umbrella term used to describe theatrical practice and creativity that pushes its audience and participants to interrogate […]
Culture Club, Week 6: Fashion
This week was about Textiles and Fashion and our learners who made family prints learnt the importance of representation in fabric and design. The first part of the session looked at traditional clothing from all over the world. As pointed out by an eager learner, we see some of them every day. From the sarees […]
Culture Club, Week 5: Spoken Word
Culture club marked its halfway point this week. And we celebrated it by looking at spoken word. Week Five was fantastic and Savhanha and I took a leading role by giving our young members an introduction to spoken word. The session started off with me leading an activity called “impostor” developed from the wildly popular […]
Art Club: A Year After Lockdown
Art Club has moved to online lessons during the pandemic, and we have continued to deliver classes virtually until we know it is safe to return to our usual home at The Edge. We still have lots of Art Clubbers turn up each week and we are glad that they still want to join us and […]
Culture Club, Week 4: Animals and Nature
Get ready to read up on this week’s Culture Club in which we focused on animals and nature! Our members got to create drawings of different animals and learn about the tragedies that have led to them being extinct or endangered. We began the session by discussing what extinct animals our members already knew about. […]
Culture Club, Week 3: Landscapes!
Landscapes! And is there a better place to start than with our city itself? In Week Two, Culture Club created landscapes featuring Birmingham architecture. Last week, members focused instead on famous artists. We began last week’s session by learning about two Birmingham artists: first was Santhanha Nguyen, whose depiction of the Birmingham Wholesale […]