Meet the Superclubbers
1 May – 30 September 2014
The Black Hole Club is a lively, daring space for all kinds of creative people to share and test ideas. The emphasis is on collaboration and networking and the vibe is convivial, supportive and eclectic.
Following an open call for participants we are shaping the club with a cohort of twelve people from a broad range of creative backgrounds:
John Bradburn
John Bradburn is a Senior Lecturer in Film Production and active filmmaker. He graduated from The International Film School, Wales in 2002 with a Masters in Film and has written extensively for film journals such as Vertigo, One+One and A Nos Amours. His work has been screened at festivals including The Seattle International Film Festival, West County Los Angeles and The London Short Film Festival. He is currently involved in producing experimental short films for a variety of alternative bands and with these work is interested in the representations of a variety of subconscious mental states.
His research interests include the representation of mental illness in cinema and he has presented on this subject at The Royal College of Psychiatrists AGM as well as at Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham and Leicester Universities.
His interests also cross over into his experimental electroacoustic composition. He works with field recordings and musical improvisations degrading them through tape rerecording techniques to create an analogous experience of memories recessing and emerging from mind. He has performed these tape manipulations live at The Gallery of Modern Art Oxford and The John Hansard Gallery Southampton among others.
Coming soon…
Bobbie Gardner
Bobbie Gardner is a composer and community musician. In 2013, Bobbie received commissions from Fierce Festival to create ringtones for “Fun with Cancer Patients” led by performance artist Brian Lobel. She composed and performed in audio visual project “X” as part of Vivid Projects’ 33 revolutions programme. Bobbie is currently composing string arrangements for soul singer Lizzie Emeh’s second album. Website: http://bobbiejanegardner.com
Faisal Hussain
Faisal Hussain is an experienced Journalist, Assistant Producer and Artist. His broadcast work ranges from a BBC 2 series, original journalism reports for BBC Asian Network radio, freelance voice over work, and most recently, a TV series looking at Muslim Diasporas throughout Europe for ntr France. Faisal has also worked with many arts organisations, social enterprises and businesses, and has produced a variety of media for them, including graphic and web design, video and audio production. Faisal also produces music. Website: www.faisfx.com
Michael Lightborne
Michael Lightborne is an artist based in the UK and Ireland, who works primarily with sound and moving images. Website: www.michaellightborne.com
Bernadette Louise
Bernadette Louise is an artist, producer and project manager. Her practice encourages discourse about the fertile body and domesticity, engaging multimedia live art and installation. Influenced by agricultural themes, parenthood, health policies and statistics, she aims to articulate personal connections by using striking, explicit and abject imagery.
Bernadette has exhibited work at the Barbican Gallery, Birmingham Hippodrome, Fierce Festival and Goldsmiths, University of London amongst others. She has worked alongside Lydia Lunch, Ron Athey, Nicole Blackman, Fierce Festival, SPILL Festival and Solvenia’s ‘Aksioma’ and has received Arts Council England & National Lottery Funding for works, including 2012’s ‘Deathtripping’, a two-day ‘Cinema of Transgression’ event supported by VIVID. Website: www.bernadettelouise.com
Sian Macfarlane
Siân Macfarlane is an artist working with photography, film, and performance. She has a particular interest in archival sources, vernacular imagery, and obsolete technology. She re-stages and reconfigures elements, weaving in her own narrative, to activate the archive and re-instate it in the present. She is concerned with how we interact with place, and the relationship between the visual and other senses.
She recently graduated from London College of Communication with a Photography MA, where her installation piece won two awards; the Photofusion and MACK/MAPP awards. She is currently undertaking residencies at New Art Gallery, Walsall and Croome Park. She performs experimental music as SWLLWS. Website: sianmacfarlane.com
Ashok Mistry
Ashok Mistry works with a varied palette of media and a schizophrenic array of themes, linked by recurring formal concerns exploring the language of data. Motifs play a big part in his work and are seen as units of data or understanding. Ashok’s approach has been to remove motifs from their original context and understand their value beyond affectation. Website: ashokdmistry.com
Emily Mulenga
Emily Mulenga’s practice is based around experiences in virtual spaces and contemporary forms of consumption. She is currently focused on performative video, using her own image to explore stock characters while splicing different spaces and times. She was selected to show in the New Art West Midlands 2014 exhibition, and was last year a recipient of Eastside Projects’ graduate bursary. Website: emilymulenga.wix.com/artist
Antonio Roberts
Antonio Roberts is a new-media artist and curator based in Birmingham, UK. whose work focuses on the errors and glitches generated by digital technology. Since 2007 he has curated a number of exhibitions and projects including fizzPOP (2009 – 2010), GLI.TC/H Birmingham (2011), the Birmingham edition of Bring Your Own Beamer (2012) and Dirty New Media (2013). Website: hellocatfood.com
Ian Sergeant
Ian Sergeant is a freelance curator and project manager. He recently curated Free School Poetry, Carnival, Politics as part of Vivid Projects 33 Revolutions in 2013, commissioning a series of events depicting the life and legacy of notorious black power activist Michael X.
Ian is also project manages Kalaboration, a visual arts partnership project between the Drum Arts Centre, BIAD, School of Art, BCU and RoguePlay Theatre, a highly successful arts festival and arts exchange platform primarily aimed at helping Black-Caribbean artists, South Asian artists, disadvantaged, ethnically diverse and isolated youths connect with local, regional and international artists, researchers, curators and designers.
n 2013 I became a director of Ort Gallery, Balsall Heath. Ort Gallery is an artist-led gallery space in Balsall Heath, South Birmingham funded by Arts Council England and Birmingham City Council.
Website: http://iashent.tumblr.com/
Birmingham based Sparrow+Castice make works which often have words in but sometimes don’t. These works take the form of print, video and sculptural structures.
Website: www.sparrowandcastice.co.uk
