Elemental

Neil Butler, Director of UZ Events was a speaker at the ‘elemental’ event in the South East. He was joined by Bill Gee and Brigitte Orasinski (Meet the Dragons) for an interesting day at the Arts Council Offices in the South East. For more about the session please visit ‘Elemental South East - The Event’

Here is the presentation by Neil Butler and live notes from the event will follow:

To download your own copy of Neil’s presentation please click here.

Were you at the event? Have you seen any of the events Neil has been involved with? Please let us know by commenting and starting a conversation on this site…

Here is a taster of Bill Gee’s presentation at the South East ‘elemental’ event held on the Wednesday 8th April – for more information about the South East please click here.

Bill Gee talked about Inside Out and used images and audience quotes to demonstrate his work.

Periplum - Arquiem

“an amazing magical night that transformed the town into a candybox of colour and fire” Audience member

“Thought provoking and wonderful - do come again - splendid use of the town centre” Mayor of Wimborne

1,370 spectators over two nights

Counter Currents - small scale mixed programme

“Just fab, every act a glorious surprise and stunning out in the open and great food! The hairdressing performance was hilarious” Audience Member

2,600 spectators through the afternoon

Fire Gardens - Carabosse

“The most amazing, magical and just stunning piece… it was a real mix of locals, students, tourists and people of all ages, and backgrounds” Audience member

“What a magical, atmospheric evening it was… we’re so pleased to see so many people attending the event” Councillor

22,100 spectators over three nights

For a full pdf of Bill Gee’s presentation please click here, all images are copyright of Roy Riley.

On Wed 8th April the Arts Council Offices in the South East welcomed delegates from around the region for the ‘elemental’ event. Our speakers were Neil Butler from UZ Events, Brigitte Orasinski from Strange Cargo and Bill Gee from Bill Gee Associates. (To find out more about the speakers click here).

The speakers shared their experience and expertise surrounding the theme of international work. The event was a success and we have received some positive and encouraging feedback from the delegates.

Neil Butler was first to talk about his experiences from UZ Events in terms of commissioning and the development of partnerships for international work.

Bill Gee gave a presentation around his role as producer of Inside Out Festival, amongst his many other productions and gave real practical insights into the budgeting requirements of making work happen.

Brigitte Orasinski gave a presentation about Strange Cargo’s work internationally and their award-winning project Other Peoples Photos. She emphasised the importance of visits overseas as a way of inspiring artists and bringing best practice to the UK.

Following lunch delegates separated into teams and began a Dragon’s Den style session pitching to the speakers and James McVeigh, Head of Resource Development at ACEse for the average spend for the sector.

And the winner was…

SCALEXTRIC M25 (In the words of Indy Hunjan)

“Using the 4 key service stations around the M25 there would be periods of time when the traffic would come to a standstill and people would reclaim the road/land. The service stations would serve as climatic spaces for huge events to take place and you may even see the odd Giant coming out the trees to take on the cars and lorries. The Giants may even have magnetic hands where cars or lorries would be lifted and dropped (naturally without people in them) as part of the finale events.

The service stations are also a great breeding ground for social history what with the 1000’s of people passing through them every day. There could be scope to capture the stories over a period of time and then to have an exhibition in each of the sites. Furthermore in 2012 the M25 will be 25years old so this would be enough time to start the development of a great project that would then happen in the run up to the anniversary.

We would use the money secured for a feasibility study working with all sectors and agencies necessary to turn this into a reality.

We successfully pitched for the full amount of money and with that got the expertise and support of all 4 Dragons - happy days :)”

More information from the day will appear on the site as soon as it is available, so please come back regularly or click here to see other ways to get involved.

If you attended the event and didn’t have chance to carry out your evaluation, please take the time to complete it today online by clicking here or give us your feedback by commenting below!

Recently we were pleased to announce the keynote speakers for the South East and now is your chance to meet the Dragon’s face to face!

Neil Butler (UZ Events):

Neil Butler is an artist, cultural strategist and creator of festivals and
events. In the 80¹s he founded the Brighton Zap Club, curated programmes at the ICA and directed shows for the South Bank in London. He worked as an artist and performer in several performance and music groups and toured with them around the Europe. In 1988 he was invited to Glasgow to create festivals and events as part of a programme to prepare the city for being European City of Culture in 1990. In 1994 he founded UZ Events with directors from Unique Events and Zap Productions and became a specialist in closing down cities to create venues. In 1999 he created signature events for Glasgow when it was UK City of Architecture and Design. Butler was Event director of the STUC Centennial celebrations and Glasgow¹s Millennium Hogmanay.

In 1999 his art-work Wrap the World involved simultaneous events in
Johannesburg, Delhi, Sydney, New York, Porto and Glasgow and was broadcast worldwide by the BBC. The work was exhibited at Gallery of Modern Art Glasgow and toured Scotland in a travelling exhibition. Butler has always been interested in exploring the line between art and entertainment and the tension between the instrumental use of art and ³art for art¹s sake². His current work focuses on the nature of identity.

He has devised and presented cultural programmes for the Scottish Government in Europe, USA and Canada. In 2009 he was appointed Director of the event that will open Scotland¹s ³Year of the Homecoming²

Neil Butler is Festival Director of Glasgow’s Merchant City Festival and Big in Falkirk Scotland¹s National Street Arts Festival. He is the British
representative of In Situ a pan-european network that funds the commissioning of major cross border arts projects. He is also the Chairman of the Hikkaduwa Area Relief Fund a Scottish charity created to support an area of Sri Lankan following the tsunami. In 2006 he established the Chandrasevana Centre in Dodanduwa as a local arts centre and community resource that also offers a residency programme for international artists.He was responsible for brokering and directing a multi faith peace concert in Sri Lanka in January 2007 at a time of increasing hostility and violence.

Brigitte Orasinski (Strange Cargo):

Strange Cargo is a highly evolved arts organisation, whose ability to respond creatively and professionally to an increasingly broad range of creative opportunities and challenges has led to the company occupying an exclusive position in the arena of cultural provision.

Our core aims are Access, Participation & Excellence with a broad
programme which includes Public Art, Celebratory Arts, Gallery based
projects and exhibitions, Training and Education. We deliver high
profile creative projects, often incorporating large-scale participation
as central to delivery. High production values underpin everything we
do, and the legacy value for participants within our programme is
exemplary. The diversity of our creative team enables us to deliver
unique responses to commissions, often working with significant numbers of participants. We devise and coordinate large, complex projects, employing professional expertise to support the programme.

2008 National and International Awarding bodies include RTPI, Charity
Awards, Arts & Business, European Urban Prize for Public Space.

Brigitte is Artistic Director of Strange Cargo and a Fellow of the Royal
Society of the Arts. She studied Fine Art at Kent Institute of Art and Design Canterbury, before embarking upon a professional creative career which has involved developing strategies for engagement in the arts, including large scale celebratory programmes, the development of Georges House Gallery, Folkestone and creating award winning public realm artworks.

Bill Gee (Bill Gee Associates):

Bill Gee has worked in a variety of roles, art forms and contexts for the past 20 years, most recently as a creative producer working with a diversity of art form practices for diverse audiences, particularly presented in outdoor and public realm contexts. He is supported by ACE, London as an RFO for his development time on new projects, his advisory work to emerging and mid-career artists and his leadership role within the Outdoor sector and advocating for the continuing support of Independent Producers.

He operates through a combination of programming seasons or festivals and directly producing artist’s projects. Whilst specialising in outdoor and public realm work, Bill continues to work with artists from a range of art from disciplines and through the years has worked with theatre, dance, music, visual arts, live art, spoken word, participative arts, film and video. Recent projects include the Inside Out festival in Dorset; Nutkhut’s Movieplex; Theatre Consultant Programmer for the National Theatre’s Watch This Space programme and touring work by Dutch theatre maker Dries Verhoeven. He is an Associate Producer with Artsadmin.

As the inaugural Coordinator of the Independent Street Arts Network (ISAN), Bill was responsible for developing between 2001 and 2004 a series of influential symposia, conferences and subsequent publications on street arts and outdoor work. Directly influencing the 2003 Licensing Act to promote local authorities to licence public space for cultural events. He has developed and chaired high level discussion panels as part of Artichoke’s Larger than Life conference; XTRAX international showcase Manchester and Festival aan de Werf, Utrecht.

He has recently become a Board Member of ISAN and a member of the Regional Council for ACE East Midlands.

Since the publication of the ‘New Landscapes’ report by ACE in 2008, the South East Office has been leading an number of programmes that have been providing development and support to meet current demands and aspirations for Outdoor Arts from artists, producers and commissioners.

Outdoor Arts engages people in their everyday environments. It seeks out its audience; makes people feel differently about where they live and the communities they live in, it fosters community dialogue and promotes ideas of public ownership and as such reaches across socio-economic or education backgrounds.

Outdoor Arts has formed a key area of the south east region’s Arts Council Plan. £80,000 was committed to the programme in the first year with additional support from the region’s Combined Arts team and further funds set aside in 2009 and 2010. By 2011 we will have invested £270,000 into developing Outdoor Arts.

Nearly 60 independently led Outdoor Arts events and projects were awarded almost £1.5m in 2009, 24% of the total Grants for the Arts budget. A similar amount awarded in 2008.

Awards included investment into programmes of work, new commissions, participatory initiatives, the development of facilities, organisational development and research.

The initiatives have been championing under-represented areas and has included support of diverse artists and development of mela and carnival networks and is working in partnership with leading national advocates such as ISAN (Independent Street Arts Network) and NASA (National Association of Street Artists).

The picture within the south east region is strong. Current work includes major festivals (Hat Fair, Brighton Festival) and companies of international repute such as World Famous and Periplum. There have also been good partnerships with local authorities and these have resulted in major commissions with artists (‘Light up Dover’, Kent County Council and ‘Celebrate! West Sussex’, West Sussex Arts Partnership). Also the vision of experienced creative producers like Dave Reeves and Simon Chatterton and new and emerging ones like Jaswinder Singh, Karen Pooley and Ian Ross.

In Visual Arts and Public Realm Work Artpoint are expanding into the growth areas in East Kent while Folkestone Triennale and Whitstable Biennale are developing rapidly. In addition Strange Cargo have won a number of prestigious European awards with their remarkable ‘Other People’s Photographs’ project.

In Carnival - The nationally unique Isle of Wight Carnival Learning Centre opened in April 2008 and High Wycombe-based SV2G are chairing the first Regional Carnival Network in the country that is gradually raising the ambition of Carnivals in the region. There are already more than 100 members on its mailing list.

In West Sussex, a number of regional creative, disability and local authority partners are coming to together to devise the trailblazing Blue Touch Paper Carnival project that aims to create the most inspiring integrated Carnival in the country by 2012.

We also have a number of companies who are starting to work on a national level - Strange Cargo (Liverpool), Periplum (Without Walls) and potential new festivals in Oxford (Oxygen) and Brighton (Nuits Blanches) that have strong links with continental Europe.

The south east region has set up 6 programmes to build capacity across the entire Outdoor Arts sector:

Outdoor Arts Leadership Network

Carnival and Mela Network

Knowledge Transfer Project

Commissioning Project ‘The Great Outdoors’

Diversity

SEEDA Festival Clusters

OUTDOOR ARTS presents a huge opportunity in terms of breadth and depth of engagement. In 2005, Groupe F in Preston Park attracted 60,000 people in one evening while throughout the region WHILE Carnival reaches across social and education backgrounds with increasingly ambitious and inspiring parades.

The run up to the Olympics and Paralympics gives us an unprecedented opportunity to develop capacity, partnerships, markets and opportunities for Outdoor Arts and a legacy of exciting new partnerships that can change the cultural landscape of the country for generations to come.

Information supplied by Arts Council England, South East.

We are delighted to announce that Neil Butler from UZ Events, Brigitte Orasinski from Strange Cargo, and Bill Gee from Bill Gee Associates will be our key note speakers to give an insiders view of the South East theme.

RSVP NOW to avoid disappointment - places are limited for this special event!

More information about the speakers will be available here on the run up to the event on the 8th April!

Map for the venue is located here.

The date and invitations have now gone out for the Elemental event for the South East. (Click the invite to see it in your browser!)

We hope to see you there!

More information about speakers and the event will be coming soon!

For your your map to the venue click here.