“Please note: This course will make use of visual imagery which some may find offensive.”

There’s a reason to go if any.

Thanks to the publishers of the British leftfield arts magazine Nude, Cornerhouse is hosting this new 6 week course that will explore artistic notions of counterculture with reference to the visual legacy of some of the most quietly influential subcultures and underground youth movements since the early 1960s.

Book now to avoid disappointment and start the new year finding out about the art of the Pin-Up, Surf and Kustom Culture, Psychedelia,  underground Comix, the Tiki revival, punk graphics, lowbrow art, Pop Surrealism, designer toys and indie crafting, touching upon the work of Ed Roth, Robert Williams, Shag, Coop, Kozik, Jamie Reid and James Cauty .

Naomi Kendrick remembers Gary Thompson who tragically passed away last week.

Dead rabbit – a blog: Gary Thompson – A Celebration of his Work.

Last couple of days for UK orders of Andrew Brooks prints if you would like them before Christmas, all the images are available in Andrew Brooks’ Shop.

This Saturday head down to Cornerhouse from 4pm to 6pm to get  a taste of what’s happening in the minds of some of the city’s best leftfield innovators.

Bringing together Manchester’s visual arts community and the thriving digital design sector in a playful and informal setting Show and Tell invites ten artists and designers to make lightning-quick presentations about a current project, experiment or source of inspiration. The only rule – it mustn’t be something from the day job.

This time around our speakers are a mix of invited people, nominations from previous speakers and open spots that you can offer to fill.

The line-up includes:

Cherry Tenneson ‘Artist-informant-cartographer’ of redundant objects and information. Often seen documenting crumbs and plastic at an everyday desk top.

Michael Trainor founder of Pop Empires, Art makers and commissioners of art and events.

Richard Schofield from weareboy, 3D guys in Manchester serving the creative industries with still and animated 3D CGI, video, and all things ‘motionified’.

Mark Jermyn and Sally Gilford from one69a, a creative collective who specialise in screen printing, run educational workshops and run live screen printing sessions at events.

Mishka Henner Belgian born photographer whose recent work included No Man’s Land and recipient of the world’s smallest photography award! which seeks to emphasise the importance of coincidence, grace and humility in photography.

Amanda Bellantara from Kinokokophone, an artist collective that collects and composes sounds, stories and imagery from around the world.

Filmmaker, creator and compere extraordinaire Maria Ruban.

Plus more to be announced – including YOU!

The ideal way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Following the first event we’ve responded to your requests to include open spots and there will be two available at this event for anyone who wants to present a cool, interesting project they are working on if you’re a designer please remember to focus on personal projects rather than pitching company work.

A collaboration between Cornerhouse and FutureEverything

via Show & Tell November 2011 | Cornerhouse.

The Insane Choices You Face At The Drugstore.

Over 5 days an incredible group of 47 participants selected by the British Council from 18 countries discussed the power and worth of cultural policy, the impact of culture on society and the opportunities afforded to cultural practices by digital technologies.  I was one of the participants but I also worked with the superb filmmaker Maria Gabriella of LittleStar and social media expert Jenny Jones to document the whole programme in a format developed by Curated Place and LittleStar that we’ll be rolling out across the arts and cultural world later this year (get in touch for more details if you’re doing an event and want it professionally covered with more panache than a corporate sales pitch).

Some on-the-fly films and audio are already available but we’ll be producing more lyrical mood pieces over the next two weeks that completes the package as a useable resource post-event.  Here’s a link to Audioboos with participants, and you can see some of the films here. Should give a hint at where we’re going with it.

Josephine Burns, BOP Consulting at Cultural Leadership International, Istanbul from British Council Arts on Vimeo.

The full list of CLI participants is on the British Council website and it makes for impressive reading but meeting these impressive people in the flesh exceeded my already sky-high expectations.  With a professional development programme to implement over the next year I’m extremely excited to capitalise on the networks created and the friendships started in Istanbul.  My head is still spinning from the whole experience but somehow I’ve got back to the UK with a remarkable clarity about the possibilities and the priorities I need to focus on over the next 12 months.

Thanks to all CLI participants.  2012 is going to be incredible.

Tamara Takishvili at Cultural Leadership International, Istanbul from British Council Arts on Vimeo.

Salwa Mikdadi, Head of Arts and Culture Program at Emirates Foundation from British Council Arts on Vimeo.

Out of a field of incredible applicants (all of whom looked amazing) Curated Place’s Andy Brydon has been selected to take part in this year’s Cultural Leadership International programme along with 6 other UK based Cultural leaders thanks to the British Council. It’s an incredible opportunity to work with artists, producers and cultural visionaries from 18 countries that represent massive diversity in outlook but also massive similarity in a belief in the power of culture.  Exciting times ahead.

The Lucky 7 from the UK are:

Andy Brydon, Creative Director Curated Place / Festival Producer, FutureEverything
Haidee Bell, Innovation Programmes Manager, Creative Economy, NESTA
Daniel Gorman, Director, Firefly International
Rohan Gunatillake, Lead Producer, Edinburgh Festivals Innovation Lab
Karena Johnson, CEO/Artistic Director, The Broadway
Laura McDermott, Joint Artistic Director, Fierce Festival
Elhum Shakerifar, Director/Producer, Postcode Films and Tourist with a Typewriter

“Inaugurated some days ago to London, this fleeting structure of drinks and of metal decorates l’entrée principal of the Victoria & Albert Museum.”

Stunning new public artwork conceived by l’architecte Amanda Levete in collaboration with the engineers d’ARUP

via Timber Wave by Amanda Levete | Muuuz – Webzine Architecture & Design.

Postcards from Europe is the culmination of a pan-European art project set up by a group of young artists and producers based in the UK.

In May of this year four young people from the UK, tired of frequent rejection letters and facing imminent unemployment, decided to come together to do something positive.

Interested in travel, stories, collaboration and creative practices, this group of young people set out to create conversation between emerging artists and designers from across Europe, to foster international collaboration, and to explore what it means to be a young artist in different corners of the world.

Through blogs, social networks, creative forums, and universities they invited emerging artists to create a piece of work responding to the place in which they lived and worked. The work had to express something interesting and real about their relationship to their environment. The only other limitation was the size – 120mm x 170mm – the size of the average postcard.

The result is an exhibition of original postcard sized artwork selected from over 100 emerging artists from 14 European countries including Turkey, Romania, Croatia, Portugal, Greece, Serbia, Italy and the UK. Varying widely in tone and media but united by their format and subject matter, the postcards offer glimpses into the lives and working practices of emerging European artists.

Alongside the exhibition, the design collective ‘Portmanteau’ (the group behind the exhibition) will be running workshops with local schools and colleges.  These will take place at Wem Town Hall throughout October.

A publication featuring the work in the exhibition, interviews with selected participants, and conversations with established artists, including German illustrator Sophia Martinek, collage artist Mark Lazenby, and Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen, will be launched on Saturday 22nd October.

The project’s website, www.postcardsfromeurope.org, featuring the work in the exhibition, profiles of participating artists, as well as news and updates on the project.

Both the exhibition and the publication will be launched on 3rd October at Wem Town Hall.  

The exhibition is now open at the Stadsmuseum Zoetermeer until February with the next Secret Cities project in the Netherlands already taking shape.