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Cultural Heroes
22nd July 2009. Posted by Ruth Ward. Trackback
The announcement that Birmingham is going to bid to become the UK’s first City of Culture has got people talking. And making lists.
Coming to a consensus about Birmingham’s cultural heroes, and how the city should present itself, will be a huge challenge. In the meantime, the more noise and debate the better. I hope the next few months will encourage everyone who feels passionate about arts and culture in our city to draw attention to those individuals and organisations that make Birmingham worthy of the title.
Here are my highlights, inspired by the people that we’ve been lucky enough to work with over the past 12 months.
Working with the internationally acclaimed Birmingham Contemporary Music Group opened my eyes to a whole new cultural experience, the highlight being a performance of John Cage’s Living Room Music on crockery, newspapers and books.
Welcoming over 500,000 visitors each year, the Birmingham Hippodrome has also been home to some of the Rewired team’s best nights out, from our Christmas do at the magical Nutcracker, to a girls night out at Flashdance.
Plus International Design Festival
Enjoying its third consecutive year in 2008, Plus brought national and international experts in graphic and typography design to Birmingham, and who could forget the Type Tart Cards!
Punch Records
Working with the Punch team to promote the 4th annual BASS Festival was a highlight of our year, in particular the unforgettable launch party at Rich Mix and unveiling of the Arts Own Kind exhibition, featuring the work of Lemi Ghariokwu.
Seeing Stan’s Cafe’s new performance space @AEHarris transformed into a miniature Le Mans, complete with non-stop, 24 hour commentary. Wow.
Photographer Karen Strunks sweet-talked us into supporting her ambitious project to document the world at 4am, and we’re glad she did! Karen’s passion and creativity got people from as far afield as Australia, China, Portugal and the Philippines connected by an inspired idea that was born in Birmingham.
Comments
Birmingham has undoubtedly so much to be proud of, culturally. However, I dislike these bidding 'contests' because they pitch region against region, bringing out spiteful stereotypes and sneering. Remember all the scoffing when Liverpool 'won' the European City of Culture? I remember the piss-taking of Birmingham's 1992 Olympics bid (maybe that was deserved) My preferred strategy is, and always has been, let others demean themselves in the attention-seeking circus. Birmingham is brilliant - let people realise it for themselves without demanding that they find us so. The chances are if you grab someone and insist that they find a city vibrant, highly cultured, fun, friendly ... they will more than likely offer some resistance. I don't recall Leeds, Nottingham or Bristol having campaigns to tell the world how great they were ... but they still have good reputations as places to visit.
Steve Nicholls
22nd July 2009
Interesting point Steve. I'm with you on the potential for unhelpful stereotyping etc. The thing is, for whatever reasons, I don't think Birmingham is widely recognised as a brillaint cultural city. Although the bid process may seem like a forced way of doing so, it could give us the leg up that we need. At the very least it could provide a focus over the next few months for as many of us as possible to talk up our city and what makes it great. Birmingham has developed a strong reputation as a leader in social media. In part, this has to be down to those involved having the skills and passion to tell their own success stories. If we can get people talking about Birmingham's culture to the same degree, maybe it will start to enjoy the same recognition.
Ruth Ward
22nd July 2009