Digbeth First Friday

Artists Behind Bars at Grand Union, Digbeth, 2 December 2016

What sort of landscape do artists in other cities operate in? How do they solve problems like money, space, resources, profile-building, critical dialogue and networking? Can productive connections (both real and conceptual) be made between their environment and the community in which I work?

I was lucky enough to join Preston Street Union's December trip to Digbeth First Friday, a co-ordinated monthly opening of Birmingham visual arts venues. Over seven intense hours we toured this thriving industrial area on the edge of the city centre, getting a flavour of Birmingham's artist-led activity. We also reconnected with PSU's founder Trevor Pitt and other artists such as Juneau Projects and Cathy Wade who were involved in our early days with Spacex. 

First stop was the Daphne Francis Gallery in the landmark Custard Factory where we met the Cobalt Blue artist group and viewed their show Balance. From there we went on to the Eastside Projects Winter Art Fair, where we also saw Simon Bayliss' show Frantic Romantic and glimpsed elements of The Production Show with works by Linda Brothwell, Alice Channer, Nicolas Deshayes, Des Hughes and Peter Nencini. 

At Grand Union we visited shows at Vivid Projects: Black Hole Club and Centrala, then stopped for food at Digbeth Dining Club - a weekend street-food market.  Next up: A3, a space run by Trevor Pitt and Oliver C Jones, to see Catching Rabbits & Starting Fires, an event by Tom James focused on survival skills. We caught up with Juneau Projects, who we'll be working with next year, and met Mark Murphy who has a show of collage works - Remains - in the A3 project space with John Bennett. 

Back at Grand Union, we ended the evening at the Artists Behind Bars Christmas party with Fierce, where invited artists ran themed bars within a warehouse party setting. It made me think of the recent talk in Exeter by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and her belief that enabling other people to play is a legitimate way to make art.

The quality and quantity of affordable space for art and artists close to city centre is a key factor in the success of the Birmingham visual arts scene. But its extraordinary level of ambition and energy is also driven by a strong local art school, a young and diverse population, and a high volume of resident artists. Exeter will never match it, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from it.