The last month has for BaseNorth been all about writing applications and now finally on Tuesday our efforts have paid off. Well not yet been PAID but the application has been submitted. We have also been working on individual projects and at the same time refining skill through several workshops. We even did a short course in German and are now able to say “Ein bier bitte”(one beer please) and also “Ich bin kunstlerin”(I am an artist). Exciting stuff, and will certainly be of use when we reach Berlin. That is if the money comes through, here’s hoping.
’On Screen In Street’ where our Sexing up the Whiteboard was shown has come and gone. Due to change in dates we were unfortunately unprepared to advertise it on our blog. Sorry to all of you who had been waiting for it. The Event went well even if the arctic winds were not for the light hearted. BaseNorth have been busy writing off the application to the arts council and we are hoping to get it finished in the next few weeks to be sent off.
Our film, Sexing up the whiteboard will be shown at the end of the month in the exhibition On Screen In Street in Sunniside, Sunderland. Films will be projected from inside shops onto the shop window fronts. We are really excited about this as we were looking at empty shop spaces last year to exhibit in, so seems fitting for the work to be placed on a window front. We will publish the exact dates and times as soon as we know on our blog. All of us have been researching towards our Berlin trip; we would like to make another film together but in a totally different location. Berlin seems the perfect contrast to Sunderland the German city has also undergone massive regeneration of social/political/artistic kind. We aim to get our proposal for further funding done in the next few weeks and hope to get to Berlin April/May time
The holiday season is upon us, yet the work is never done for an artist. Last week BaseNorth started writing our funding application to the arts council. We are hoping to get enough money to finance a research and work trip to Berlin. We are busy researching possible places to work and live and also contacts that we may wish to make while there. We have given ourselves until the end January to finish up our application. If all goes to plan we should be heading off to Berlin this spring for about three weeks.
A few weeks ago we were asked to make a short film relating to the sunniside area in some way for a film project. It was all quite last minute meaning we didn’t have long to plan exactly what we wanted to do. However as we have been working in the area and making work relating to regeneration we felt we could bring together out thoughts and ideas to produce something relevant. This also presented us with the challenge / opportunity to work collaboratively something which is quite new to all of us. After an initial discussion of ideas for the film we set a day a side to buy some materials, film and see what the result was. We decided from out initial discussion to primarily use text as we all use text in our own work in some way and we felt it was a quick direct way of communication.
On the day of filming we each brought with us words and phrases to use. We decided on a small white board each which we could write on the wipe off quickly which we wrote on and held up to the camera. We also wanted to make something which was spontaneous so for the first go at filming we didn’t know what each other was writing. The words and phrase created their own narrative and worked very well together in an energetic way. We did try another second version in which we planned out the text resulting in a methodical feel which was quite dull. So the first film was chosen and named sexing up the whiteboard.
As we have struggled for many months to find a venue for out exhibition we now feel that this work will fulfil the part of the project we intended to complete in Sunderland. We are all ready to move on to the second part of the project in another city in the U.K or abroad.
