Home Movies

10 – 12 March 2011

Pioneers sought to engage with, talk to and open out moving image practice to new audiences. In 2011, this ambition was extended to an invitation to a group of first time curators, with a shared love of film, to develop a presentation as a footnote to the Pioneers programme.

Community based producers, Reel Access were commissioned to support Paula Elenor, Bryan Foster, Martin McNally, Ryan Smith, all first time curators from the Hodge Hill community to develop a film exhibition programme exploring themes of ‘home’. The group met weekly over several months, delving through the VIVID and Reel Access archives before selecting a diverse range of works, drawn from archives, television, artist libraries and personal collections and presenting them for public exhibition at VIVID, The Pump (Kitts Green) and Ward End Library.

The Home Movies exhibition and screening programme provoked concepts to belonging, development and memory. It ultimately tackled the issue of what is home – is it a building, is it a place, is it geography, is it identity?

Artists included: Robert Bradbrook, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Reel Access, and Ryan Smith alongside archive footage from mace. Films presented included Writing in the Sand (Amber Films), Handsworth Songs (dir: John Akomfrah), and Made In Birmingham: Punk Reggae Bhangra (dir: Deborah Aston) and a special discussion with the community curators form Hodge Hill, Yasmeen Baig-Clifford (Director of VIVID), George Fleming (Director of Reel Access), Roger Shannon (Swish Films) and Pogus Caesar (Oom Gallery).