I was recently commissioned to write an article about cycling for the North West edition of the Skinny, to coincide with the first Manchester bike month. Read the June issue of the Skinny online:
Manchester cycle city
Despite widely-acknowledged benefits to health and the environment, not to mention the wallet, the prospect of navigating confusing cycle lanes, traffic and potholes is often enough to make would-be bikers think twice about venturing onto city roads. “Most current measures are designed to get bikes out of the way of cars, not the other way around,” says cyclist Mike Armstrong, who uses his aptly-named blog Mad Cycle Lanes of Manchester to raise awareness of cycling and call for better provision for cyclists in the city. “It is no good shoving bikes onto pavements in some places only to prosecute people for cycling on the pavement in others.”
But things could be changing. In a culture where many motorists currently see cyclists as a nuisance, Greater Manchester transport chiefs have finally recognised the need for a change in attitudes towards cycling. Plans are afoot to get three times as many Mancunians onto their bikes over the next twelve years as part of the Vélocity 2025 bid, which aims to tap into national funding to create a much-needed new network of cycle routes linking homes, jobs and leisure venues, and consultations about transforming Manchester's busiest cycle route, Oxford Road, with segregated cycle lanes, are currently underway. For transport chiefs, backing cycling makes sense. “Cycling is good for you, good for your wallet and good for the world”, explains Councillor Andrew Fender, Chair of the Transport for Greater Manchester Committee. “It’s cheaper than running a vehicle, there is no need to set off early to beat the traffic, and you’ll be fitter and healthier. What’s not to like about having the fitness level of someone 10 years younger?”
Already, there are a growing number of initiatives in the Northwest to support cyclists into the saddle and raise confidence amongst those on the roads. BikeRight! offers free bike training in Manchester, Merseyside and Warrington for cyclists at all levels, from group classes for complete beginners to sessions practising all-important skills such as signalling, turning and positioning, and one-on-one sessions for more experienced riders who want to practice particular routes. Voluntary groups and small enterprises share bike maintenance skills and, last year social entrepreneur Dipak Patel realised there was a need for secure, low-cost bicycle storage in Manchester. Patel set up his unique enterprise Popup Bikes in a railway arch on Corporation Street which, as well as being a safe place to keep bikes, offers affordable repairs and incorporates a coffee shop hosting events such as bike jumble sales and film screenings. Popup Bikes is fast becoming, says Patel, “the social glue for the cycling community, a place where people can meet and exchange stories and talk about cycling and non-cycling issues”.
As well as being a way of simply getting from A to B, sociability is often an important part of the cycling experience, and organised groups of cyclists provide safety in numbers for those who might otherwise feel discouraged from taking to two wheels. One such group is TeamGlow, which was set up in 2011 to provide a supportive network for female cyclists across Manchester and the Northwest, who often lack visibility and find it hard to feel included in the male-dominated cycling community. As well as providing advice, from buying a decent bike to cycle maintenance, and building up technique and skills, there is at least one organised ride a weekend, from short rides to long distance tours, and members are encouraged to challenge themselves to venture further on a bike. “I went from feeling like an isolated woman on a bike to being part of a group of women,” explains TeamGlow founder Glynis Francis. “I wanted to leave cycling for women in a better place than I found it and see other women have the pleasure of a social cycle ride and fresh air.”
Manchester Bike Month, which takes place this month, offers ample opportunities to team up with other likeminded cyclists, whether united around a love of real ale (Manchester cycle pub crawl, 21 June) or taking on a long distance challenge such as Manchester to Chester (June 23). Other highlights include a cyclists' float in the Manchester Day Parade (Sunday 2 June), a film night (Saturday 15 June), a unicycle taster session (Thursday 13 June) and even a bike naked ride (Friday 14 June).
Greater Manchester still has some way to go before it reaches Amsterdam-levels of bike friendliness, but attitudes towards cycling are starting to change. The more cyclists who take to the city's roads and add their support to initiatives such as Vélocity 2025 and the national Get Britain Cycling campaign, the greater visibility there is and potential to push cycling into the mainstream. In the words of Mike Armstrong: “Provision for cycling should be direct, quicker and more convenient than driving.”
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Monday, 3 June 2013
Repeat talk: 'Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?' Working Class Movement Library, Wednesday 26 June, 2pm
The talk is part of the Library's Invisible Histories series, and follows an inspiring talk by the F-Word music editor Cazz Blase on women's motivations for publishing magazines and fanzines, from punk and post-punk era zines such as City Fun to the Riot Grrrl scene. Cazz's talk included an intriguing reference to Moss Side Community Press Women's Co-op, which was active in the 1970s (find out more about the history of radical and community printing collectives and co-operatives on this fascinating website).
More information about my talk:
Woman's Outlook – a surprisingly modern magazine? For nearly five decades, Woman’s Outlook was the voice of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, the campaigning organisation which worked to raise the status of women both in the co-operative movement and in society, and its onetime editor Mary Stott later became a longstanding editor of the Guardian women’s pages.
From its origins in Manchester in 1919, Outlook provided an enticing mixture of articles addressing both the personal and the political, combining fashion, fiction, features and recipes with advice for working women – in many ways, not dissimilar to the content of women’s magazines today!
‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’ will explore some of the key issues addressed in Outlook, and look at how the magazine encouraged women to get involved in campaigning for a better world. Topics covered by Outlook such as women's representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain highly relevant today, and the talk will end by considering whether the type of content provided by 21st century women’s lifestyle magazines has really changed much since the days of Outlook.
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Swandown DVD review
I was recently asked by the Cornerhouse if I would be interested in reviewing the DVD release of Swandown, which was one of my favourite films of last year (it premiered at the Cornerhouse as part of Abandon Normal Devices festival). As a big fan of both canals and director Andrew Kötting, I was happy to take up the chance to watch the film again.
Swandown review
As Edith makes her way towards her destination, however, there is a growing sense of unease and a sense of the impending curtailment of physical and creative freedom. Not only are Sinclair and Kötting running out of time as Iain has to abandon Edith for the plane, a faster and more practical form of transport, needing to reach an appointment in America, but the journey is increasingly fraught with potential danger and obstacles, from health and safety to the tight security of the Olympic site, sealed off from canal craft by a vicious-looking fence. During the journey Sinclair expresses the hopelessness he feels when contemplating the huge enclosures of the Olympic site and, indeed, the whole project is positioned as an antidote to the pomp and excess of the Olympics. Hauling the pedalo up riverbanks and over muddy fields, spending a whole month in the same clothes and being able to wet themselves whenever they want to, an image of personal sacrifice akin to the more-celebrated figure of the marathon runner, Swandown is as much a spectacle of physical impossibility as the athletic feats which go on in crowd-lined sporting arenas.
Released in the year of the Olympics, as part of the so-called Cultural Olympiad, yet existing in a parallel universe to the competitive, corporate nature of the games, Swandown puts poetry back into the act of endurance, a timely, touching and irreverent acknowledgement that perseverance, as much as inspiration, is integral to the act of creativity – and vice versa.
To purchase the film on DVD visit www.cornerhouse.org/bookstore/product/swandown-film-dvd.
Photos copyright of Anonymous Bosch.
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Shrieking Violet talk in Bradford, Tuesday 14 May, 6pm followed by DIY discussion with Black Dogs
The talk will take place on Tuesday 14 May between 6pm and 6.30pm, and will be followed by a discussion on DIY culture featuring other self-publishers, including locally-based artists' collective Black Dogs, whose work I am a big fan of, from 6.30pm-7.30pm.
For more information visit https://bradfordbakedzines.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/natalie-bradbury-talk-tuesday-14th-may.
Monday, 6 May 2013
Music and photos from the Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair
Manchester musician and fanzine maker David Carden sings about the dirty (recycled) water swimmers might once have encountered, during his 'musical tour' of Victoria Baths. When Victoria Baths opened, swimming was segregated both by sex and by class, and water was first used in the first class males' pool, then pumped into the second class males' pool, then finally reused in the (smaller) female pool!
David Carden sings about famous Channel swimmer Sunny Lowry, who was associated with Victoria Baths for many years, during his 'musical tour' performance in the female pool.
Other songs included a story of poolside romances inspired by the hundreds of memories donated to the Victoria Baths archive, and a zombie epic.
David also drew 5 minute portraits of visitors!
Karren Ablaze reads from her recent book The City is Ablaze, discussing her motivations for starting to make fanzines as a teenager in suburban Sale and Altrincham in the 1980s – it provided a way for her to communicate – hanging out in record shops, waiting around to interview bands, getting an angry letter from Morrissey after a messy gig at the Free Trade Hall, links with other Manchester DIY initiatives of the time such as a cassette tape radio station, and practical issues regarding how her zines were funded.
John Mather, author of the self-published Pictorial Guide to Greater Manchester's Public Swimming Pools, shares the story of his journey around Greater Manchester's swimming baths for an audience of swimming enthusiasts upstairs in the superintendent's flat, discussing the role of these buildings and facilities in the social life of the region's diverse local communities, and the area's rich history of nurturing and producing swimming champions.
Manchester author David Hartley reads from his work.
Making a new edition of Victoria Baths' own zine 'the Vicky' with Pool Arts.
More photos from the event:
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair, today (12-4pm): what's on, stallholders, times!
Running order:
1pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester, cinema space (off the sports hall)
- Talk by Karren Ablaze! (superintendent's flat)
1.30pm - Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers, in the Gala Pool
2pm - Musical Tour of Victoria Baths by David Carden
2.30pm - Talk by John Mather on the Pools of Greater Manchester (subject of his hand drawn Pictorial Guide)
3pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester, cinema space (off the sports hall)
- Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers, in the Gala Pool
3.30pm - Reading by David Hartley (superintendent's flat)
Helpyourself Manchester (1pm and 3pm) tells the unsung story of Manchester's DIY music promoters, followed by a Q and A with the directors, Castles Built in Sand collective. Additionally, there will be an exhibition of original gig fliers featured in the film.
Manchester-based illustrator and zinester David Carden will give a lively musical tour inspired by the history of Victoria Baths (2pm), with songs about the ladies pool, channel swimmer Sunny Lowry, a couple meeting in the Baths and the building's beautiful stained glass, and will also be on hand to draw your portrait in five minutes (for a small fee!).
See original artwork and hear from John Mather about his Pictorial Guide to Greater Manchester Public Swimming Pools during his talk at 2.30pm upstairs in the former superintendent's flat.
Listen to readings by Manchester author David Hartley (3.30pm), including from his new book Threshold, and hear Karren Ablaze! read from her recent book the City is Ablaze (1pm), about her experiences of making zines in Manchester and Leeds in the 1980s.
Dip into a hands-on zine-inspired activity with Pool Arts throughout the day, who will be asking for your help to produce VB's very own fabulous fanzine, The Vicky. 'Bring Back Baths' will use team effort, collage, lino printing and on-the-spot reportage from the fair to compile some articles about why public wash baths should be making a comeback! The first issue of The Vicky appeared during 2003 with occasional issues ever since. Bring your old comics, your sense of humour and your glue sticks! Original copies of the early issues will be on sale on the day!
The event will be soundtracked by a choir performance by Ordsall Acapella Singers in the Gala Pool. Guided tours of the building will also be on offer, including a 'behind the scenes' tour.
Also in attendance will be the interactive Left Leg Gallery.
Listen to the Shrieking Violet talking about the event on All FM's Under the Pavement Radio show here:
Read a preview of the event, linked in with a feature on zines and DIY culture, in the Skinny magazine.
Stallholders:
Emily & Anne
LOAF (Catherine Chialton and Jimmy Edmondson)
Kristyna Baczynski
Corridor8
Knives, Forks and Spoons Press
David Carden
John Mather
Salford Illustration Department
Castles Built in Sand
Within Six
Becky Kidner Diary Drawings
Loosely Bound Zine Collective
Young Explorer/Today Zine
Twigs and Apples
Sugar Paper
Laura Brown Word
Tommy Eugene Higson
Knickers for Bonnie
Karoline Rerrie
Vapid Slackers (Vapid Kitten)
David Hartley
Joe List
Megan Price Mr PS
Paul Murray and Kat Smith
Marco Brunello
the modernist
Karren Ablaze!
DNYLNE and Adam Jacques
Lottie Pencheon
For more information visit www.victoriabaths.org.uk/visit/2013/family-friendly-trail, email gill.wright@victoriabaths.org.uk or phone 0161 224 2020.
Facebook event.
Please bring everyone you know!
Monday, 22 April 2013
Interview with Castles Built in Sand, directors of Helpyourself Manchester (screening at Victoria Baths on Sunday May 5)
Helpyourself Manchester, a recent film telling the story of Manchester’s unsung DIY music promoters, will be screening at this year's Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair (Sunday May 5), accompanied by an exhibition of original fliers from gigs featured in the film. The documentary focuses on a group of friends who found new and creative means of organising and promoting gigs in the mid- to late years of the previous decade, featuring bands such as Burnst, Cat on Form, the Enablers and McWat. From living rooms to basements, the promoters shown in the film put exciting and unheard bands on not for financial reward, but because they loved the music. The film, which makes uses of animation, photography, interviews and archive footage in a cut-and-paste style appropriate to the subject matter, is the work of Castles Built in Sand, a Manchester-based documentary film collective working on a DIY, not-for-profit and copyleft basis. The Shrieking Violet spoke to Castles Built in Sand to find out more about how they formed as a group and their collaborative approach to film-making.
SV: Tell me a bit about Castles Built in Sand – who are you and how did you come together as a collective?
CBIS: We are a group of visual anthropologists, artists and musicians. Paddy, Huw, Insa, Yas and Birgitta met through their studies (some of us did an MA of Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester). Simon joined us later.
SV: Why did you decide to start a film-making collective?
CBIS: After our graduation we all wanted to continue making films and to improve our skills. That's why we decided to start working together as a collective – to share skills, equipment and to motivate each other.
SV: You've also collaborated with some of the participants in your films. What do you gain from working collaboratively, both within the collective and with other groups of people such as interviewees, that you don't get working alone?
CBIS: Working collaboratively allows us to gain different perspectives on the topics we are working on. It also ensures that everyone feels engaged and represented. This is especially important for us in regards to the people we are working with. We want to ensure they feel like they had a say and are portrayed in a way that leaves them empowered. Filmmaking for us is a mutual process, a give and take and learning from each other.
SV: How does the filmmaking process work – how do you set the theme and direction of where your projects are going? Is every project a joint project, or are there some films where certain people take the lead based on their interests or choose to adopt a lesser role?
CBIS: If we work on a project together there is a lot of discussion involved. We are never quite sure what exactly a project will end up as, because of the collaborative approach, everyone has an input which means a project can change quite a bit in the process of making. For our next project we are going to define our roles a bit more, which will be an interesting new approach for us.
However, we are also not always all working together on a project. Sometimes some of us decide not to be engaged in a project due to time constraints or varying interests or because it doesn't make sense to have too many people involved.
SV: How do you choose your subjects? Is there anything that ties all your projects together, either thematically or in the approach taken to filmmaking?
CBIS: Our projects are not necessary linked in any way, we choose them according to what we are interested in or think is an important topic to portray.
SV: How did Helpyourself Manchester come about? What's your involvement with that scene, why did the film need to be made and why make the film now – in retrospect?
CBIS: The idea to make a film about Helpyourself Manchester and this part of Manchester's DIY scene came out of conversations Paddy had with Lee, one of our friends who was involved with Helpyourself Manchester. Huw was around for the last few gigs, whereas Insa and Paddy came to Manchester in 2009, a few years after Helpyourself. We wanted to look at the way people had used space in Manchester to organise culture outside of the mainstream. With all the government cuts and the current debates about gentrification it seemed like a topic that is actually quite timeless and important to discuss.
SV: How did you go about making the film and how long did it take?
CBIS: From start to finish it took us about one and a half years to complete the film. We collected material on the way, interviewed our friends and tried to get as much info as possible. Then we edited separate sequences which we thought should be in the film and which we joined up eventually. Once we had a first watchable version of the fllm (which at the time was about two hours long) we showed it to the people who we had filmed and to friends who hadn't heard about Helpyourself Manchester before. These sessions provided us with a lot of different opinions as to what would work and what wouldn't and suggestions for changes. In the end we cut the film down to 54 minutes.
SV: Your projects seem to have a political dimension running through them to do with power, voice and representation. Do you consciously try to make films from that
perspective?
CBIS: It's less a conscious choice to make films which might be considered political, but it rather comes out of our interests and ways of looking at the things going on around us. So it happens naturally rather than us trying to provide a political stance.
SV: Whether focusing on DIY promoters, the residents of a temporary care home, protestors or young people affected by cuts to education, your films quite often depict the type of subjects and people that might not normally have a film made about them. What do the subjects get out of being part of the filmmaking process – and what do we get out of it as viewers?
CBIS: It is important to show what wouldn't be shown otherwise and to make people conscious of what is going on around them. Film, photography and sound are powerful tools which offer people outside the media focus a way to express themselves. The collaborative way in which we are working hopefully leaves the people we are working with with a feeling of actually having had a possibility to say what they wanted to say.
SV: You've collaborated with bands like Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra and Tubers in the past; can you explain the importance of sound in your work?
CBIS: Sound lets us see things differently. When the sound is good, the images seem more powerful and engaging.
SV: There is also a really strong sense of place in your films. How would you describe your approach to representing and describing place?
CBIS: We try to engage with the place or space we portray – you could almost say we let it speak to us. Using different media is very important for this approach. We don't confine ourselves to one medium but use whatever medium we think best conveys a sense of the place. That's where sound is also very important – if we listen we discover different aspects of what contributes to our notion of a place.
SV: Your webpage has quite a few texts as well as films, which seem to stand together – what is the relationship between the texts and the films, and do you find it to be a useful process to write about the processes of making and conceiving films?
CBIS: What we tend to forget is that each medium has its own qualities and its own place in the context of representing a topic. We try to use different methods and media depending on their usefulness to portray a topic as complete and from as many perspectives as possible. Film can't express or explain everything but it gives a good sense of place and people's personalities. Sound lets us experience place from another standpoint. And texts can help us putting everything into a greater context or to deconstruct the images we present. It is important to question different methods of representation and using mixed media allows us to bear the construction of these representations in mind.
SV: What are you working on at the moment and what are you planning to do next?
CBIS: We have just started working on a trailer for our next project, which will be an apocalyptic photo essay film. This should keep us busy for a while.
SV: Where can people see your work?
CBIS: We have a blog which we update as regularly as possible. There you can also find a list of upcoming screenings, the next one being Helpyourself Manchester at Victoria Baths on 5 May, as part of the Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair (12-14pm).
Helpyourself Manchester trailer:
.
SV: Tell me a bit about Castles Built in Sand – who are you and how did you come together as a collective?
CBIS: We are a group of visual anthropologists, artists and musicians. Paddy, Huw, Insa, Yas and Birgitta met through their studies (some of us did an MA of Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester). Simon joined us later.
SV: Why did you decide to start a film-making collective?
CBIS: After our graduation we all wanted to continue making films and to improve our skills. That's why we decided to start working together as a collective – to share skills, equipment and to motivate each other.
SV: You've also collaborated with some of the participants in your films. What do you gain from working collaboratively, both within the collective and with other groups of people such as interviewees, that you don't get working alone?
CBIS: Working collaboratively allows us to gain different perspectives on the topics we are working on. It also ensures that everyone feels engaged and represented. This is especially important for us in regards to the people we are working with. We want to ensure they feel like they had a say and are portrayed in a way that leaves them empowered. Filmmaking for us is a mutual process, a give and take and learning from each other.
SV: How does the filmmaking process work – how do you set the theme and direction of where your projects are going? Is every project a joint project, or are there some films where certain people take the lead based on their interests or choose to adopt a lesser role?
CBIS: If we work on a project together there is a lot of discussion involved. We are never quite sure what exactly a project will end up as, because of the collaborative approach, everyone has an input which means a project can change quite a bit in the process of making. For our next project we are going to define our roles a bit more, which will be an interesting new approach for us.
However, we are also not always all working together on a project. Sometimes some of us decide not to be engaged in a project due to time constraints or varying interests or because it doesn't make sense to have too many people involved.
SV: How do you choose your subjects? Is there anything that ties all your projects together, either thematically or in the approach taken to filmmaking?
CBIS: Our projects are not necessary linked in any way, we choose them according to what we are interested in or think is an important topic to portray.
CBIS: The idea to make a film about Helpyourself Manchester and this part of Manchester's DIY scene came out of conversations Paddy had with Lee, one of our friends who was involved with Helpyourself Manchester. Huw was around for the last few gigs, whereas Insa and Paddy came to Manchester in 2009, a few years after Helpyourself. We wanted to look at the way people had used space in Manchester to organise culture outside of the mainstream. With all the government cuts and the current debates about gentrification it seemed like a topic that is actually quite timeless and important to discuss.
SV: How did you go about making the film and how long did it take?
CBIS: From start to finish it took us about one and a half years to complete the film. We collected material on the way, interviewed our friends and tried to get as much info as possible. Then we edited separate sequences which we thought should be in the film and which we joined up eventually. Once we had a first watchable version of the fllm (which at the time was about two hours long) we showed it to the people who we had filmed and to friends who hadn't heard about Helpyourself Manchester before. These sessions provided us with a lot of different opinions as to what would work and what wouldn't and suggestions for changes. In the end we cut the film down to 54 minutes.
CBIS: It's less a conscious choice to make films which might be considered political, but it rather comes out of our interests and ways of looking at the things going on around us. So it happens naturally rather than us trying to provide a political stance.
SV: Whether focusing on DIY promoters, the residents of a temporary care home, protestors or young people affected by cuts to education, your films quite often depict the type of subjects and people that might not normally have a film made about them. What do the subjects get out of being part of the filmmaking process – and what do we get out of it as viewers?
CBIS: It is important to show what wouldn't be shown otherwise and to make people conscious of what is going on around them. Film, photography and sound are powerful tools which offer people outside the media focus a way to express themselves. The collaborative way in which we are working hopefully leaves the people we are working with with a feeling of actually having had a possibility to say what they wanted to say.
SV: You've collaborated with bands like Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra and Tubers in the past; can you explain the importance of sound in your work?
CBIS: Sound lets us see things differently. When the sound is good, the images seem more powerful and engaging.
SV: There is also a really strong sense of place in your films. How would you describe your approach to representing and describing place?
CBIS: We try to engage with the place or space we portray – you could almost say we let it speak to us. Using different media is very important for this approach. We don't confine ourselves to one medium but use whatever medium we think best conveys a sense of the place. That's where sound is also very important – if we listen we discover different aspects of what contributes to our notion of a place.
SV: Your webpage has quite a few texts as well as films, which seem to stand together – what is the relationship between the texts and the films, and do you find it to be a useful process to write about the processes of making and conceiving films?
CBIS: What we tend to forget is that each medium has its own qualities and its own place in the context of representing a topic. We try to use different methods and media depending on their usefulness to portray a topic as complete and from as many perspectives as possible. Film can't express or explain everything but it gives a good sense of place and people's personalities. Sound lets us experience place from another standpoint. And texts can help us putting everything into a greater context or to deconstruct the images we present. It is important to question different methods of representation and using mixed media allows us to bear the construction of these representations in mind.
SV: What are you working on at the moment and what are you planning to do next?
CBIS: We have just started working on a trailer for our next project, which will be an apocalyptic photo essay film. This should keep us busy for a while.
SV: Where can people see your work?
CBIS: We have a blog which we update as regularly as possible. There you can also find a list of upcoming screenings, the next one being Helpyourself Manchester at Victoria Baths on 5 May, as part of the Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair (12-14pm).
Helpyourself Manchester trailer:
.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
A PowerPoint about the Shrieking Violet (Unit X lecture)
I spent the weekend doing battle with the Open Office version of PowerPoint in order to create a presentation to go alongside an hour-long guest lecture I was invited to do for Unit X students at Manchester Metropolitan University this morning (making a PowerPoint was an unbelievably slow process, probably because of the size/amount of photos I used). The students are working on a project to create zines, mainly in groups, and organise a zine fair. I decided to try and sum up the Shrieking Violet in pictures rather than in text, so my PowerPoint includes lots of screenshots from various issues over the years, as well as photos of zines which have inspired me, mainly about cities, both before I started making the Shrieking Violet and on an ongoing basis. While I was taking photos of my dad's early '80s collection of punk/goth/indie zines to include, I came across a couple of letters which were written to my dad (Simon), obviously in response to letters he had sent to editors of zines he enjoyed offering words of praise. Both letters, from the Cramps zine Rockin' Bones, and Scottish zine Deadbeat, are on letter-headed paper, so I included them in the presentation both as a curiosity and perhaps as something to aspire to; maybe one day the Shrieking Violet will have its own letter-headed paper!The presentation also attempts to show the number and range of contributors to the Shrieking Violet to date (circa 100); some key themes and content areas; collaborations; production; design (including examples of bad design in the early days of the Shrieking Violet, when I thought all text had to be justified and in boxes, and I had a habit of putting images behind the text, rendering it almost illegible, along with some examples of better design, mainly done by other people!); illustrations and photography; the process of photocopying and folding print copies; print and online distribution; the Shrieking Violet contributions in zine libraries; publicity such as interviews; and events such as the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention.
The presentation I made is a really, really big file, and the image quality is not good now it has been compressed to PDF, however it can be read online below. I have vowed that next time I have to make a presentation I am going to try and use Prezi instead!
Friday, 5 April 2013
The Shrieking Violet in the Skinny (magazine launch tonight)
The Shrieking Violet is pleased to feature in the first issue of the Northwest edition of the Skinny, a free arts and culture magazine for Manchester and Liverpool which launches in Manchester at 2022NQ this evening (from 6pm, Facebook event here. Conveniently, the latest edition of the modernist magazine, themed 'Capital', is also launching this evening just down the road at the CIS tower, also from 6pm). The Shrieking Violet is represented in the feature 'What's Your Northwest', for which interviewees were asked questions about place, community and belonging. I was asked interesting questions, and answering them has really helped me think about how to approach the lecture I am doing about the Shrieking Violet for Unit X students at Manchester Metropolitan University in a couple of weeks, so I decided to reproduce the questions, and my answers, in full below.
Read the full magazine online here, or look out for paper copies around Manchester:
I've not read the whole magazine yet, but there are some great features by former Shrieking Violet contributors and collaborators Lauren Velvick (who previews an upcoming show at the Cornerhouse) and Sam Lewis, who interviews Shrieking Violet favourite Rozi Plain.
TS: What motivated you to set up The Shrieking Violet, and get involved in independent publishing and particularly in Manchester? Who/what were you inspired by, and what did you hope to do with the Shrieking Violet, both personally and in a wider community sense?
SV: I moved to Manchester for university in 2005 and realised quickly that I wanted to make it my long-term home. After graduating I did a qualification in newspaper journalism but it was a terrible time to be trying to enter the media and it was difficult to even get work experience. I was unemployed for nine months, but decided to make the best of the situation so started blogging about the city around me. In summer 2009, I decided to put the skills I'd learnt on my journalism course to use and take the Shrieking Violet off the page to become a printed zine – if I couldn't be part of the established media then I was going to make my own media, covering things I found interesting that weren't being written about elsewhere. I was disillusioned with the way in which Manchester was marketed, which was all about shopping and consumption, so the Shrieking Violet was conceived as an alternative guide to Manchester which encouraged readers to make their own fun, think creatively and realise the adventures they could have in the city without spending a penny. Having a project and putting something out into the world helped focus my life and lift me out of depression.
I'd wanted to make a zine since I was a teenager, as my dad had loads of old punk/indie/goth zines in the attic, but when it came to making my own I decided to stay away from music as there were already Manchester zines which were covering music very well. Belle Vue zine (which started in December 2008) was a major influence on me realising that the city itself, its residents and their memories and experiences, joys and frustrations, could be the subject of a zine.
TS: And what keeps you motivated to do it – what's your favourite thing about what you do?
SC: The great thing about blogs and zines is that as soon as you've written about a subject you will find someone else who is writing about something related to that topic too, and more often than not discovering each other starts a dialogue and reciprocal relationship. My favourite thing about making the Shrieking Violet is all the people I have met, who have gone on not just to be contributors but regular correspondents and sources of motivation and inspiration. One of the most rewarding things has been being asked to collaborate with other people, and take part in one-off projects. In 2010 the organisers of Salford's Sounds from the Other City music festival asked me to design the official programme as a special edition of the Shrieking Violet, so I teamed up with illustrator Dominic Oliver to create a souvenir guide to the festival's highlights and the surrounding area. In 2011, the Shrieking Violet got together with psychogeographic walking group the Loiterers Resistance Movement and architecture enthusiasts Manchester Modernist Society for a project called Manchester's Modernist Heroines, which celebrated ten overlooked Manchester women from the twentieth and twenty first centuries through a publication and series of walks.
TS: You write extensively about Manchester and the Northwest region on themes of place, history, society, belonging, architecture, and more. What particularly fascinates you about the place you live, its people, its community, if you had to define it...?
SV: What fascinates me about Manchester is how much history is written into the streets and buildings, to experience as you go about your everyday life. From street names based on the textile trade to churches, public parks and swimming baths, you really get a sense of Manchester's past and how society used to be. You can marvel at the infrastructure of the industrial age by looking at canals and railway viaducts which are still in use today, get a sense of textile magnates' wealth by looking up at grand warehouses (even if they are now turned into warehouses or apartments), try to imagine life in the former mass workplaces of mills and factories, now standing silent, and see remnants of industrial philanthropy in lads' clubs and ragged schools. These aren't the kind of heritage venues where you have to pay a tenner to get in, put plastic coves on over your shoes or peer at rooms over velvet ropes – these are buildings which in many cases are still getting on with a job and fulfilling a use, even if it's not their original purpose. Manchester's cityscape tells you just as much as any palace or castle about how people used to live, work and socialise, as well as constantly changing and embracing the future.
TS: What's the most unexpected or surprising thing you've discovered about this city/its culture/its people while researching and writing about it (or indeed reading articles others have contributed to the zine)?
SV: What is unexpected and surprising is some the subjects which crop up over and over again as being important to people living in Manchester. One of these is public transport. The Shrieking Violet has featured articles on everything from never-realised plans to build a tunnel linking the city's two main stations – along with a specially-drawn, London-style map showing what an underground system for Manchester might look like – to an illustrated article about Metrolink, a reappreciation Manchester's neglected Victoria station and even an homage to Finglands buses! I also loved being introduced to some of the inspiring and often overlooked stories of the women celebrated in the Manchester's Modernist Heroines project, who might not have crossed my radar otherwise – from mummy expert Rosalie David to radio producer and presenter Olive Shapley and sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe.
TS: And what's your most treasured revelation - what are you really glad you found out?
SV: The thing I treasure most is the range of the people who have featured in the Shrieking Violet, whether as interviewees or as contributors. Some of my favourite interviews have been with Manchester's street buskers, who have really interesting stories to tell yet many people never stop to talk to them. I also love finding out about the particular passions or expertise of contributors – for example one man, who has been speaking Esperanto since 1967, wrote about all the international adventures the language has enabled him to have. Another took it upon himself to swim in all of Greater Manchester's numerous public swimming baths, and has now produced an illustrated guide. I've also enjoyed finding about other people's projects, for example film-makers who have written about their work. In 2010 I made a media special of the Shrieking Violet focusing on Manchester's history as a centre of the newspaper industry and this prompted someone who once worked inside Manchester's Daily Express building to get in touch, leading to an article about what it is really like to work for the Daily Sport! I've also loved it when members of Manchester Modernist Society have shared their enthusiasm for some of the overlooked and often neglected mosaics, murals and other artworks which brighten the walls of university buildings and various other places around Manchester.
TS: There seems to be a very strong, visible independent print community in Manchester, Liverpool and beyond. Would you say it's changed/evolved since you first got involved – maybe got bigger, wider...? What kind of community have you encountered, why do you think it's so fertile and what binds you all together?
SV: The thing that makes self-publishing so attractive is that anyone can do it, whether they are just photocopying pencil drawings and poems or lovingly screenprinting original designs, and there's a growing audience for that tactile, hand-printed, limited edition format. There have never been more opportunities for self-publishers and members of the print community to show off their work, and one area which is really booming is zine fairs and print fairs. Another interesting development is how established zines have become within institutions such as colleges and universities – it's quite common now for illustration, design, photography and fashion courses, for example, to include a student project on making a zine, and it's nice when groups formed at university stay together and continue to publish after graduation.
TS: What is 'your' Manchester? If you had to choose just five places for people new to the city to visit on a sort of 'alternative' tour, what would they be and why?
SV: 'My Manchester':
1. Canals
The Ashton, Bridgewater, Rochdale and Manchester Ship canals are the city's underlooked green spaces. Whereas once canals would have been polluted and congested, today they are places for pleasure, from canal boating, foraging and bird-watching to walking and cycling. For an awe-inspiring sight head to Barton (near the Trafford Centre), where the Bridgewater Canal makes a spectacular crossing of the wide Manchester Ship Canal by aqueduct, and cars drive over a swing bridge.
2. Ancoats
Ancoats is dubbed 'the world's first industrial suburb', or the cradle of the industrial revolution, and a number of centuries-old mills still remain. Today the area is being converted to residential and commercial use, but Dan Dubowitz's public art project the Peeps, which teases viewers to find a number of small viewing holes dotted around the outside of buildings, gives a tantalising glimpse of what might once have gone inside the area's factories and workshops.
3. Public parks
Manchester is not known for its green spaces, but in fact some of the county's first public parks were in Manchester and Salford; Philips Park in east Manchester, Queen's Park, Harpurhey and Peel Park, Salford all opened in 1846, whilst Heaton Park in Prestwich is one of the largest parks in Europe. In the city centre, too, there are plenty of quiet places to sit and eat your lunch, lay around in the sun or have picnics and barbecues in summer. Like most places in Manchester, the city's green spaces sit on layers of history – literally in the cases of some of the city centre gardens like Angel Meadows and St John's Gardens, Castlefield, which are on the site of slums and mass burial sites.
4. Residential suburbs
Wander around some of the city's suburbs and residential communities to see how other people have lived over time, from the Georgian cobbled streets of Fairfield Moravian settlement, nestled amid the suburban sprawl of Tameside, to the big houses around Old Broadway in Didsbury and Chorltonville, an Arts and Crafts-style village-within-a-village in Chorlton complete with its own village green.
5. Star and Garter
Manchester is known for its music and party culture after all! It may not be the city's most glamorous venue, but the Star and Garter really caters for music fans (and people like me who might not go to clubs otherwise) by offering theme-nights for lovers of certain bands, from Belle & Sebastian to Pulp and Pixies and, of course, the Smiths/Morrissey! It's been a big part of my life since I arrived in Manchester as a student – the first Manchester gig I went to was at the Star and Garter – but there's a chance it might get knocked down to make way for an extension to Piccadilly train station, so I recommend making the most of it while it's still here!
TS: If you had to evoke the character of the city you live in in just a few words, how would you describe it?
SV: (This was the question I found hardest.) The rain's just a distraction.
Read the full magazine online here, or look out for paper copies around Manchester:
I've not read the whole magazine yet, but there are some great features by former Shrieking Violet contributors and collaborators Lauren Velvick (who previews an upcoming show at the Cornerhouse) and Sam Lewis, who interviews Shrieking Violet favourite Rozi Plain.
TS: What motivated you to set up The Shrieking Violet, and get involved in independent publishing and particularly in Manchester? Who/what were you inspired by, and what did you hope to do with the Shrieking Violet, both personally and in a wider community sense?
SV: I moved to Manchester for university in 2005 and realised quickly that I wanted to make it my long-term home. After graduating I did a qualification in newspaper journalism but it was a terrible time to be trying to enter the media and it was difficult to even get work experience. I was unemployed for nine months, but decided to make the best of the situation so started blogging about the city around me. In summer 2009, I decided to put the skills I'd learnt on my journalism course to use and take the Shrieking Violet off the page to become a printed zine – if I couldn't be part of the established media then I was going to make my own media, covering things I found interesting that weren't being written about elsewhere. I was disillusioned with the way in which Manchester was marketed, which was all about shopping and consumption, so the Shrieking Violet was conceived as an alternative guide to Manchester which encouraged readers to make their own fun, think creatively and realise the adventures they could have in the city without spending a penny. Having a project and putting something out into the world helped focus my life and lift me out of depression.
I'd wanted to make a zine since I was a teenager, as my dad had loads of old punk/indie/goth zines in the attic, but when it came to making my own I decided to stay away from music as there were already Manchester zines which were covering music very well. Belle Vue zine (which started in December 2008) was a major influence on me realising that the city itself, its residents and their memories and experiences, joys and frustrations, could be the subject of a zine.
TS: And what keeps you motivated to do it – what's your favourite thing about what you do?
SC: The great thing about blogs and zines is that as soon as you've written about a subject you will find someone else who is writing about something related to that topic too, and more often than not discovering each other starts a dialogue and reciprocal relationship. My favourite thing about making the Shrieking Violet is all the people I have met, who have gone on not just to be contributors but regular correspondents and sources of motivation and inspiration. One of the most rewarding things has been being asked to collaborate with other people, and take part in one-off projects. In 2010 the organisers of Salford's Sounds from the Other City music festival asked me to design the official programme as a special edition of the Shrieking Violet, so I teamed up with illustrator Dominic Oliver to create a souvenir guide to the festival's highlights and the surrounding area. In 2011, the Shrieking Violet got together with psychogeographic walking group the Loiterers Resistance Movement and architecture enthusiasts Manchester Modernist Society for a project called Manchester's Modernist Heroines, which celebrated ten overlooked Manchester women from the twentieth and twenty first centuries through a publication and series of walks.
TS: You write extensively about Manchester and the Northwest region on themes of place, history, society, belonging, architecture, and more. What particularly fascinates you about the place you live, its people, its community, if you had to define it...?
SV: What fascinates me about Manchester is how much history is written into the streets and buildings, to experience as you go about your everyday life. From street names based on the textile trade to churches, public parks and swimming baths, you really get a sense of Manchester's past and how society used to be. You can marvel at the infrastructure of the industrial age by looking at canals and railway viaducts which are still in use today, get a sense of textile magnates' wealth by looking up at grand warehouses (even if they are now turned into warehouses or apartments), try to imagine life in the former mass workplaces of mills and factories, now standing silent, and see remnants of industrial philanthropy in lads' clubs and ragged schools. These aren't the kind of heritage venues where you have to pay a tenner to get in, put plastic coves on over your shoes or peer at rooms over velvet ropes – these are buildings which in many cases are still getting on with a job and fulfilling a use, even if it's not their original purpose. Manchester's cityscape tells you just as much as any palace or castle about how people used to live, work and socialise, as well as constantly changing and embracing the future.
TS: What's the most unexpected or surprising thing you've discovered about this city/its culture/its people while researching and writing about it (or indeed reading articles others have contributed to the zine)?
SV: What is unexpected and surprising is some the subjects which crop up over and over again as being important to people living in Manchester. One of these is public transport. The Shrieking Violet has featured articles on everything from never-realised plans to build a tunnel linking the city's two main stations – along with a specially-drawn, London-style map showing what an underground system for Manchester might look like – to an illustrated article about Metrolink, a reappreciation Manchester's neglected Victoria station and even an homage to Finglands buses! I also loved being introduced to some of the inspiring and often overlooked stories of the women celebrated in the Manchester's Modernist Heroines project, who might not have crossed my radar otherwise – from mummy expert Rosalie David to radio producer and presenter Olive Shapley and sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe.
TS: And what's your most treasured revelation - what are you really glad you found out?
SV: The thing I treasure most is the range of the people who have featured in the Shrieking Violet, whether as interviewees or as contributors. Some of my favourite interviews have been with Manchester's street buskers, who have really interesting stories to tell yet many people never stop to talk to them. I also love finding out about the particular passions or expertise of contributors – for example one man, who has been speaking Esperanto since 1967, wrote about all the international adventures the language has enabled him to have. Another took it upon himself to swim in all of Greater Manchester's numerous public swimming baths, and has now produced an illustrated guide. I've also enjoyed finding about other people's projects, for example film-makers who have written about their work. In 2010 I made a media special of the Shrieking Violet focusing on Manchester's history as a centre of the newspaper industry and this prompted someone who once worked inside Manchester's Daily Express building to get in touch, leading to an article about what it is really like to work for the Daily Sport! I've also loved it when members of Manchester Modernist Society have shared their enthusiasm for some of the overlooked and often neglected mosaics, murals and other artworks which brighten the walls of university buildings and various other places around Manchester.
TS: There seems to be a very strong, visible independent print community in Manchester, Liverpool and beyond. Would you say it's changed/evolved since you first got involved – maybe got bigger, wider...? What kind of community have you encountered, why do you think it's so fertile and what binds you all together?
SV: The thing that makes self-publishing so attractive is that anyone can do it, whether they are just photocopying pencil drawings and poems or lovingly screenprinting original designs, and there's a growing audience for that tactile, hand-printed, limited edition format. There have never been more opportunities for self-publishers and members of the print community to show off their work, and one area which is really booming is zine fairs and print fairs. Another interesting development is how established zines have become within institutions such as colleges and universities – it's quite common now for illustration, design, photography and fashion courses, for example, to include a student project on making a zine, and it's nice when groups formed at university stay together and continue to publish after graduation.
TS: What is 'your' Manchester? If you had to choose just five places for people new to the city to visit on a sort of 'alternative' tour, what would they be and why?
SV: 'My Manchester':
1. Canals
The Ashton, Bridgewater, Rochdale and Manchester Ship canals are the city's underlooked green spaces. Whereas once canals would have been polluted and congested, today they are places for pleasure, from canal boating, foraging and bird-watching to walking and cycling. For an awe-inspiring sight head to Barton (near the Trafford Centre), where the Bridgewater Canal makes a spectacular crossing of the wide Manchester Ship Canal by aqueduct, and cars drive over a swing bridge.
2. Ancoats
Ancoats is dubbed 'the world's first industrial suburb', or the cradle of the industrial revolution, and a number of centuries-old mills still remain. Today the area is being converted to residential and commercial use, but Dan Dubowitz's public art project the Peeps, which teases viewers to find a number of small viewing holes dotted around the outside of buildings, gives a tantalising glimpse of what might once have gone inside the area's factories and workshops.
3. Public parks
Manchester is not known for its green spaces, but in fact some of the county's first public parks were in Manchester and Salford; Philips Park in east Manchester, Queen's Park, Harpurhey and Peel Park, Salford all opened in 1846, whilst Heaton Park in Prestwich is one of the largest parks in Europe. In the city centre, too, there are plenty of quiet places to sit and eat your lunch, lay around in the sun or have picnics and barbecues in summer. Like most places in Manchester, the city's green spaces sit on layers of history – literally in the cases of some of the city centre gardens like Angel Meadows and St John's Gardens, Castlefield, which are on the site of slums and mass burial sites.
4. Residential suburbs
Wander around some of the city's suburbs and residential communities to see how other people have lived over time, from the Georgian cobbled streets of Fairfield Moravian settlement, nestled amid the suburban sprawl of Tameside, to the big houses around Old Broadway in Didsbury and Chorltonville, an Arts and Crafts-style village-within-a-village in Chorlton complete with its own village green.
5. Star and Garter
Manchester is known for its music and party culture after all! It may not be the city's most glamorous venue, but the Star and Garter really caters for music fans (and people like me who might not go to clubs otherwise) by offering theme-nights for lovers of certain bands, from Belle & Sebastian to Pulp and Pixies and, of course, the Smiths/Morrissey! It's been a big part of my life since I arrived in Manchester as a student – the first Manchester gig I went to was at the Star and Garter – but there's a chance it might get knocked down to make way for an extension to Piccadilly train station, so I recommend making the most of it while it's still here!
TS: If you had to evoke the character of the city you live in in just a few words, how would you describe it?
SV: (This was the question I found hardest.) The rain's just a distraction.
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine? publication
The publication I made to present my talk about co-operative women's journal Woman's Outlook at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum can be read online below (I made some mistakes in the original version of this booklet, like mixing up a Labour and Conservative Prime Minister, but am trying to change any mistakes I spot!).
Download and print your own copy as a PDF here (NB, all pictures are for illustrative purposes only – please don't reproduce them!). It was good to meet some local Co-operative members, and people from the Rochdale branch of the Workers' Educational Association, and there were some interesting questions at the end. My talk can be listened to online as a podcast:
After presenting a history of Woman's Outlook, I finished my talk by showing some pages I had compiled from current-day women's magazine Stylist, on the basis that it is the only women's magazine I have ever really read (I read it because it is given out free on the streets each Wednesday, and I also read the male version of the magazine, Shortlist, also because it is free!). Whilst there are clear differences between the two magazines – Outlook was a political, campaigning magazine with a very defined audience, whereas Stylist is basically an advertising channel and sees itself as reflecting the 'age of coffee cup politics', where issues are something to be chatted about over a cup of coffee – I wanted to show the types of topics which are considered to be of interest and relevant to women today, from reader surveys aimed at building up a picture of what it's like to be a modern women, to quizzing readers about their sex lives, to highlighting issues like abortion, equal pay, women's continued underrepresentation in Parliament, childcare and flexible working. I find it interesting that Stylist continues to profile women with interesting careers, from an oceanologist to a reverend, and how it features articles about women's status in other countries – for example, Italy – and how the lives of women elsewhere in Europe have been affected by the financial downturn. There is also a weekly international page summarising news stories concerning women across the world, and ahead of elections Stylist profiles political parties and the ways in which their policies would affect women. Woman's Outlook ran a number of profiles of Eleanor Roosevelt, and she is still being held up in Stylist today as an exemplary first lady and woman in public life. On top of that, Stylist features the type of content you would expect to see in a woman's magazine, from recipes to beauty and fashion.
I went to see the new Ken Loach film, Spirt of 45, the evening before my talk, to get some inspiration and context about the period, and would highly recommend seeing it.
I have been invited to repeat the talk 'Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?' at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, which also contains volumes of Woman's Outlook, on Wednesday 26 June at 2pm as part of its Invisible Histories series.
Also related, Cazz Blase will also be revisiting the talk she did at the 2012 Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention as part of the series, on Wednesday 29 May at 2pm. 'Worlds within worlds: punk ladies, riot grrrls and fanzine culture' will discuss the role women played in the UK punk scene and the UK incarnation of the female focused, female dominated riot grrrl scene.
After presenting a history of Woman's Outlook, I finished my talk by showing some pages I had compiled from current-day women's magazine Stylist, on the basis that it is the only women's magazine I have ever really read (I read it because it is given out free on the streets each Wednesday, and I also read the male version of the magazine, Shortlist, also because it is free!). Whilst there are clear differences between the two magazines – Outlook was a political, campaigning magazine with a very defined audience, whereas Stylist is basically an advertising channel and sees itself as reflecting the 'age of coffee cup politics', where issues are something to be chatted about over a cup of coffee – I wanted to show the types of topics which are considered to be of interest and relevant to women today, from reader surveys aimed at building up a picture of what it's like to be a modern women, to quizzing readers about their sex lives, to highlighting issues like abortion, equal pay, women's continued underrepresentation in Parliament, childcare and flexible working. I find it interesting that Stylist continues to profile women with interesting careers, from an oceanologist to a reverend, and how it features articles about women's status in other countries – for example, Italy – and how the lives of women elsewhere in Europe have been affected by the financial downturn. There is also a weekly international page summarising news stories concerning women across the world, and ahead of elections Stylist profiles political parties and the ways in which their policies would affect women. Woman's Outlook ran a number of profiles of Eleanor Roosevelt, and she is still being held up in Stylist today as an exemplary first lady and woman in public life. On top of that, Stylist features the type of content you would expect to see in a woman's magazine, from recipes to beauty and fashion.
I went to see the new Ken Loach film, Spirt of 45, the evening before my talk, to get some inspiration and context about the period, and would highly recommend seeing it.
I have been invited to repeat the talk 'Woman's Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?' at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford, which also contains volumes of Woman's Outlook, on Wednesday 26 June at 2pm as part of its Invisible Histories series.
Also related, Cazz Blase will also be revisiting the talk she did at the 2012 Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention as part of the series, on Wednesday 29 May at 2pm. 'Worlds within worlds: punk ladies, riot grrrls and fanzine culture' will discuss the role women played in the UK punk scene and the UK incarnation of the female focused, female dominated riot grrrl scene.
Saturday, 16 March 2013
Talk: Woman's Outlook – a surprisingly modern magazine, 6pm, Thursday March 21
If you would like to attend, please book here. The event will start at 6pm and is free to attend.
For nearly five decades, Woman’s Outlook was the voice of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, the campaigning organisation which worked to raise the status of women both in the co-operative movement and in society, and its onetime editor Mary Stott later became a longstanding editor of the Guardian women’s pages.
From its origins in Manchester in 1919, Outlook provided an enticing mixture of articles addressing both the personal and the political, combining fashion, fiction, features and recipes with advice for working women – in many ways, not dissimilar to the content of women’s magazines today!
‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’ will explore some of the key issues addressed in Outlook, and look at how the magazine encouraged women to get involved in campaigning for a better world. Topics covered by Outlook such as women's representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain highly relevant today, and the talk will end by considering whether the type of content provided by 21st century women’s lifestyle magazines has really changed much since the days of Outlook.
The talk will take place in the Rochdale Pioneers Museum, which is based in the original building where the first successful co-operative shop opened in 1844 and has recently been refurbished. The Museum is well worth a visit and is a 15 minute walk from Rochdale train station, which has regular trains to Manchester. There are also buses to Rochdale, and a recently-opened tram!
Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.
Facebook invitation
I had the opportunity to test my talk out at the most recent Islington Mill Art Academy open crit. Read about it at http://islingtonmillartacademy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/art-academy-open-crit-150313.html.
Monday, 4 March 2013
Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair, Sunday 5 May 2013
The fanzine fair will be accompanied by a film screening of Helpyourself Manchester, which tells the unsung story of Manchester's DIY music promoters, followed by a Q and A with the directors, Castles Built in Sand collective. Additionally, there will be an exhibition of original gig fliers featured in the film.
Manchester-based illustrator and zinester David Carden will give a lively musical tour inspired by the history of Victoria Baths, with songs about the ladies pool, channel swimmer Sunny Lowry, a couple meeting in the Baths and the building's beautiful stained glass, and will also be on hand to draw your portrait in five minutes (for a small fee!).
See original artwork and hear from John Mather about his Pictorial Guide to Greater Manchester Public Swimming Pools during his talk at 2.30pm upstairs in the former superintendent's flat.
Dip into a hands-on zine-inspired activity with Pool Arts throughout the day, who will be asking for your help to produce VB's very own fabulous fanzine, The Vicky. 'Bring Back Baths' will use team effort, collage, lino printing and on-the-spot reportage from the fair to compile some articles about why public wash baths should be making a comeback! The first issue of The Vicky appeared during 2003 with occasional issues ever since. Bring your old comics, your sense of humour and your glue sticks! Original copies of the early issues will be on sale on the day!
Listen to readings by Manchester author David Hartley, including from his new book Threshold, and hear Karren Ablaze! read from her recent book the City is Ablaze, about her experiences of making zines in Manchester and Leeds in the 1980s.
The event will be soundtracked by a choir performance by Ordsall Acapella Singers in the Gala Pool. Guided tours of the building will also be on offer, including a 'behind the scenes' tour.
Listen to the Shrieking Violet talking about the event on All FM's Under the Pavement Radio show here:
Read a preview of the event, linked in with a feature on zines and DIY culture, in the Skinny magazine.
Running order on the day:
1pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester, cinema space (off the sports hall)
- Talk by Karren Ablaze! (superintendent's flat)
1.30pm - Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers, in the Gala Pool
2pm - Musical Tour of Victoria Baths by David Carden
2.30pm - Talk by John Mather on the Pools of Greater Manchester (subject of his hand drawn Pictorial Guide)
3pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester, cinema space (off the sports hall)
- Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers, in the Gala Pool
3.30pm - Reading by David Hartley (superintendent's flat)
Some of the stallholders confirmed so far:
Emily & Anne
LOAF (Catherine Chialton and Jimmy Edmondson)
Kristyna Baczynski
Corridor8
Knives, Forks and Spoons Press
David Carden
John Mather
Salford Illustration Department
Castles Built in Sand
Within Six
Becky Kidner Diary Drawings
Loosely Bound Zine Collective
Young Explorer/Today Zine
Twigs and Apples
Sugar Paper
Laura Brown Word
Tommy Eugene Higson
Knickers for Bonnie
Karoline Rerrie
Vapid Slackers (Vapid Kitten)
David Hartley
Joe List
Megan Price Mr PS
Paul Murray and Kat Smith
Marco Brunello
the modernist
Karren Ablaze!
DNYLNE and Adam Jacques
Lottie Pencheon
For more information visit www.victoriabaths.org.uk/visit/2013/family-friendly-trail, email gill.wright@victoriabaths.org.uk or phone 0161 224 2020.
Facebook event.
Please invite everyone you know!
Monday, 18 February 2013
The Shrieking Violet issue 20
Issue 20's cover is by Manchester-based freelance illustrator and designer Catherine Chialton. Her work is generally inspired by science, nature and food, and is split between using ink and vectors. Continuing Catherine's normal linear and patterned aesthetic, this piece was inspired by the usually grim Manchester weather, but with a brighter finish to it.
Manchester-based filmmaker Richard Howe continues his series on mental health in the movies by looking at Betty Blue, which he fell in love with at the tender age of nine. Check out Richard's films at https://vimeo.com/18599252, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhye0hzz72Q and www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj6H_eCz_4s and tweet Richard about films @rikurichard.
Artist, writer and arts administrator Jack Welsh has contributed an article about old and new public artworks by Eduardo Paolozzi and Daniel Buren in Tottenham Court Road tube station, London, which has been undergoing extensive renovation. Jack is based in Liverpool, but frequently works in Manchester. He recently completed a Masters in Arts Management, Policy and Practice at the University of Manchester. His dissertation, examining how the Art on the Underground programme contributes to the economic development of London, is part of a longstanding research interest in the role of art and design in underground transport networks.
Joe Austin writes in praise of twentieth century artist Frank Dobson, sometimes referred to as the first truly British Modern sculptor. His interest was sparked by the discovery of a sculpture by Dobson in his local park. Joe is a qualified architect, originally from the Midlands but a naturalised Londoner for the last 23 years or so. Joe's interests are wide (his blog best illustrates his scattergun mind), but generally revolve around writing, design, architecture, art, culture and history. He likes nothing better than learning new aspects of things he thought he knew about.
Midlands-based writer, musician and occasional wrestler JT Wilson has written about the Mystery Castle, a folly in the Arizona desert. JT first heard about the Mystery Castle while researching his forthcoming novel (about cryptozoology, love and other animals). He shares the hero's fondness for grandiloquent gestures, but not his architectural talent. Say hello to JT @jt_stories.
Sam Lewis, a London-based musician, and occasional music writer, interviewed Michael Azzerad, author of Our Band Could be Your Life, as part of his Master's dissertation on how technology affects music. Listen to Being There at http://beingthere.bandcamp.com.
Freelance illustrator Fuchsia MacAree has contributed two drawings, one of Queen Victoria and her border collie, and one repeat pattern originally created for a fundraising Movember exhibition. After degrees in graphic design and illustration, she is now doing a year-long residency in Dublin.
Rebecca Willmott has written a children's story about the January Blues, hoping this will become a longer story in time. Rebecca graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2011, specialising in Children's Literature in her final year. The story shows how baking (in particular, gingerbread men) brings the two characters together whilst mourning a great loss. It is influenced by the Shrieking Violet and Rebecca's many culinary experiments. Rebecca also submitted a gingerbread man recipe for the Shrieking Violet's third issue.
Richard Bilsborough, who has spent the past 14 years being told he should take up cookery, has contributed a recipe for pork, barley and apple stew. He is from Preston, plays guitar for a band called Fighting and has a very dull administrative job.
Valentina Orrù has recently completed a MA in Arts Management, Policy and Practice at the University of Manchester, researching urban regeneration and cultural planning. In love with Manchester and with a passion for cities, cultures and travelling, she loves discovering new worlds without forgetting her origins. Valentina is very pleased to contribute a traditional recipe from her Italian region of origin Sardinia, translated into the Sardinian dialect of her home village Mogoro, to this edition of the Shrieking Violet.
Read issue 20 online here:
Download and print your own copy as a PDF here. To request a free paper copy email your name and address to Natalie.rose.bradbury@googlemail.com.
I have been asked to do a guest lecture about self-publishing and the Shrieking Violet blog/zine for undergraduate students on Manchester Metropolitan University's interdisciplinary Unit X in April.
Read about issue 20 of the Shrieking Violet on Creative Tourist here.
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Histories written in metal: UHC's Tin Town at Campfield Market
From the late seventeenth century up until his death in 1758, the Second Earl of Warrington amassed a large silverware collection at his country home in Dunham Massey in Cheshire, encompassing everyday household objects ranging from plates, cutlery, candlesticks, bread baskets and chamber pots to large water cisterns.
More than 250 years later, Manchester artists' co-operative Ultimate Holding Company has used this precious collection – much of it sold off over the years but now being returned to its original home – as the starting point for a project to refashion these glittering, valuable objects, at once functional and decorative, in one of this century's most ubiquitous materials, common domestic tin foil. With only an hour to spend with the collection at Dunham Massey, some of UHC's works copy the design and decoration of the Earl's silverware, approximating the scale and complexity of items in the collection, whereas others are entirely new constructs inspired by the history of the time and the webs of stories woven by the industrial revolution, which formed the backdrop of the Earl's lifetime.
The resulting exhibition Tin Town, currently on show in makeshift structures in the centre of the vast, underused, functionally ornate space of Campfield market hall just off Deansgate in Manchester, meditates on how we place value on materials and which objects we hold dear. UHC's tinware collection, moulded, engraved and held together with metal tape, is both beautiful and fragile, comprising lightweight yet fully formed replicas of the solid, heavy pieces which inspired it, made all the more impressive by the objects' underlying delicacy and transience. The product from which UHC's tinware is made, today commonly known as tin foil is, in fact, aluminium foil; tin was superseded in the mid-twentieth century both because aluminium is more flexible, and because tin slightly tinged the taste of food in kitchen use. Once a rare and expensive material, today aluminium is both readily available and highly sought after for recycling. Far from being disposable in the way we understand the word (ie, implying a lack of value), part of the value of aluminium comes from the fact that it can be recycled easily, and used again and again and again.
Tin Town also refers to one of the lesser-acknowledged aspects of the industrial revolution, temporary, overcrowded settlements of navvies, the undersung (often immigrant) labourers who built the infrastructure of the industrial revolution, such as canals – including Britain's first canal, the Bridgewater Canal, designed as a way for the Duke of Bridgewater to transport coal to Manchester from his mine at Worsley (begun shortly after the Earl of Warrington's death, the Bridgewater Canal eventually extended out to Dunham Massey). Tin towns grew up alongside major building projects such as these, a fact acknowledged both by the show's title and presentation and by the painstaking engraving of a typical navvy settlement on one of UHC's decorative tin plates. Like the Earl's silverware, which over the years has gone from existing as objects of use to becoming ornaments in glass cases, the value and role of the canals which powered the industrial revolution has changed too – from places of industry, toil and commerce to quiet backwaters and pleasure spots, part of the repackaging of the sites of our industrial history as destinations of as much interest for daytrippers and historians as the elegant stately home or traditional country park.
Tin Town is at Upper Campfield Market, Liverpool Road, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4FH until Sunday February 24, open daily from 11am-7pm, and is free to visit. There are also a number of drop-in art workshops on Tuesday 19, Thursday 21 and Saturday 23 February from 1pm-3pm. For more information visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/local-to-you/north-west/things-to-see-and-do/article-1355767317799/?campid=tintown.
More than 250 years later, Manchester artists' co-operative Ultimate Holding Company has used this precious collection – much of it sold off over the years but now being returned to its original home – as the starting point for a project to refashion these glittering, valuable objects, at once functional and decorative, in one of this century's most ubiquitous materials, common domestic tin foil. With only an hour to spend with the collection at Dunham Massey, some of UHC's works copy the design and decoration of the Earl's silverware, approximating the scale and complexity of items in the collection, whereas others are entirely new constructs inspired by the history of the time and the webs of stories woven by the industrial revolution, which formed the backdrop of the Earl's lifetime.
The resulting exhibition Tin Town, currently on show in makeshift structures in the centre of the vast, underused, functionally ornate space of Campfield market hall just off Deansgate in Manchester, meditates on how we place value on materials and which objects we hold dear. UHC's tinware collection, moulded, engraved and held together with metal tape, is both beautiful and fragile, comprising lightweight yet fully formed replicas of the solid, heavy pieces which inspired it, made all the more impressive by the objects' underlying delicacy and transience. The product from which UHC's tinware is made, today commonly known as tin foil is, in fact, aluminium foil; tin was superseded in the mid-twentieth century both because aluminium is more flexible, and because tin slightly tinged the taste of food in kitchen use. Once a rare and expensive material, today aluminium is both readily available and highly sought after for recycling. Far from being disposable in the way we understand the word (ie, implying a lack of value), part of the value of aluminium comes from the fact that it can be recycled easily, and used again and again and again.
Tin Town also refers to one of the lesser-acknowledged aspects of the industrial revolution, temporary, overcrowded settlements of navvies, the undersung (often immigrant) labourers who built the infrastructure of the industrial revolution, such as canals – including Britain's first canal, the Bridgewater Canal, designed as a way for the Duke of Bridgewater to transport coal to Manchester from his mine at Worsley (begun shortly after the Earl of Warrington's death, the Bridgewater Canal eventually extended out to Dunham Massey). Tin towns grew up alongside major building projects such as these, a fact acknowledged both by the show's title and presentation and by the painstaking engraving of a typical navvy settlement on one of UHC's decorative tin plates. Like the Earl's silverware, which over the years has gone from existing as objects of use to becoming ornaments in glass cases, the value and role of the canals which powered the industrial revolution has changed too – from places of industry, toil and commerce to quiet backwaters and pleasure spots, part of the repackaging of the sites of our industrial history as destinations of as much interest for daytrippers and historians as the elegant stately home or traditional country park.
Tin Town is at Upper Campfield Market, Liverpool Road, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4FH until Sunday February 24, open daily from 11am-7pm, and is free to visit. There are also a number of drop-in art workshops on Tuesday 19, Thursday 21 and Saturday 23 February from 1pm-3pm. For more information visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/local-to-you/north-west/things-to-see-and-do/article-1355767317799/?campid=tintown.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
The Shrieking Violet rice pudding
However, I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of food in my life, not just as sustenance but also as a way of experiencing experimentation, adventure, comfort and familiarity. I feel like thinking about what I am going to eat, where I am going to get the ingredients from, and how I am going to cook them, gives my days and weeks structure, as well as something to look forward to, and I hope that however busy I became I would still have time to cook for myself. As well as trying out new recipes, I also love making old favourites. Strangely enough, I had never made rice pudding until recently, but it is a great dish as it pretty much looks after itself – once you have put the ingredients in the oven you can just leave them for a couple of hours until it's ready. I'm not a big eater of desserts, so I tend to make it into a main meal, or eat it cold for breakfast. I've also started making sure I have a pomegranate around (they are fairly cheap on the fruit and vegetable stall on High Street in the Northern Quarter and, once deseeded, last in the fridge for several days) as their seeds can be added to any number of dishes, sweet and savoury (see also the Shrieking Violet porridge recipe below, and an aubergine, walnut, pomegranate seed and brown rice salad I invented recently).
On one of the occasions I made rice pudding for a communal dinner lately, my friend Lauren Velvick commented that she would love to make rice pudding but didn't know where to buy pudding rice. It was her birthday last weekend, so I made her a 'rice pudding kit' based on the ingredients and recipe below.
The Shrieking Violet rice pudding
Ingredients
100g pudding rice
50g sugar
700ml soya milk (or other type of milk. I really want to try using coconut milk from a can but have not got round to trying it yet)
Freshly grated nutmeg
1 bayleaf
5-6 cardamon pods
½ of one pomegranate (seeds)
Serves 2
Method
Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees celsius. Grease a large oven dish. Wash and drain rice and add to dish. Add sugar and milk and stir. Grate in a generous amount of nutmeg and add the bay leaf and cardamon pods. Cook for two hours until the rice has reached the desired consistency (I like mine quite runny). Remove from the oven, remove the bayleaf and cardamon pods (if wished), stir in the pomegranate seeds and serve.
The Shrieking Violet porridge
I never used to be a great porridge eater (it’s the stodgiest food I know of, but strangely, and contrary to popular myth that it will keep you full until lunchtime, I’m always ravenous again an hour or two after eating it), but I have found myself eating it a lot in the winter mornings as it’s relatively warm, quick and convenient. As a savoury aficionado, I’m also not a big fruit eater (perhaps because I’ve never been much of a snacks or desserts person) and fruity porridge is also my way of feeling like I’m doing my bit to keep my diet varied and vitamin-filled.
My main complaint about porridge is that it’s often runny or bland (unlike rice pudding, which I prefer runny), but I get around that by cooking it until all the liquid is absorbed and making as much of a meal out of it as possible. Using up some leftover desiccated coconut and chopped nuts one day was inspired, if I say so myself, as it lends the porridge some crunchiness; further ammunition against the blandness!
Ingredients
50-70g porridge oats
½ cup soya milk or water
½ pomegranate (seeds only)
1 apple (or peach/nectarine or plum), chopped
1.5cm ginger, chopped or grated in while the porridge is cooking
½ teaspoon cinnamon and/or ground ginger
½ teaspoon golden syrup or honey
Desiccated coconut or chopped hazelnuts
Serves 1
Method
Heat milk/water in a large pan. Add chopped fruit and simmer for 5-10 minutes depending on how much time you’ve got and how soft you like your fruit. Once fruit has softened, stir in oats, adding more liquid if required. Stir in ginger and cinnamon and sprinkle liberally with coconut/nuts. Keep stirring until porridge has reached desired consistency (up to a couple of minutes). Remove from the heat, stir in pomegranate seeds and serve in a bowl with a teaspoon of golden syrup or honey.
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Delia Derbyshire Day 2013 at Band on the Wall
Coventry-born Derbyshire was also behind many other sonic experiments and sound effects, which she termed 'psycho-acoustics', and the Delia Derbyshire Day seeks to reappraise her ongoing influence on electronic, experimental and popular music. As Caro C explains, “She is best known for her realisation of Ron Grainer's original Dr Who theme tune but she also came up with so much more interesting and curious creations." Naomi Kashiwagi added: "One of the things that drew me to Delia Derbyshire was the tactile, systematic and meticulous processes she used, cutting and splicing tape together to construct music. Manipulating sounds from everyday objects created something extraordinary and in many cases otherworldly and timeless."
An afternoon event will include a screening of award-winning film the Delian Mode, followed by a Q&A with director Kara Blake, and a panel discussion featuring experts on Derbyshire's intriguing life and work (3pm-6pm). This will be followed by performances of new commissions undertaken by the Delia Darlings, who have created new works based on their adventures in the Delia Derbyshire archive, accompanied by live visuals from Kara Blake (8-10.30pm). Caro C explains, “We felt it was rather exciting that her audio and other material archives happen to be held here in Manchester. So we thought why not make a day of it and with some true Delian experts on board and present."
Derbyshire's archive, which contains original tapes and other materials, is held by the University of Manchester at the John Rylands Library. David Butler, senior lecturer in screen studies at the University, who helped bring the archive to Manchester, said that the Delia Darlings were among the first to delve extensively into the archive, and he was delighted with the project's aims and potential impact: "It's always been our hope that Delia's tape and written archive would provide the inspiration for new works responding to Delia's life and extraordinary music,” he said.
Caro C enjoyed listening to the digitised tape archives and hearing pieces in construction, such as the spacey, reflective 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands'. "The craft and grace in this piece really moved me," she explains. "I was also particularly blown away by a synth pop piece she made in 1971 and the techno track that she made in the late 1960s. She really was ahead of her time and I love it when my concept of time being linear is challenged."
Among the most interesting artefacts were Derbyshire's school books, which Caro C says she found "really touching, maybe because I had not kept my own and they reminded me of all the care and learning we put into our school work (sometimes)". She said: "The Latin exercise books and English essays were really interesting for me – with hindsight you can see signs of her career there already."
Caro C's piece uses some of Derbyshire's school exercise books and sine tones, as well as her sampling or her own voice, for inspiration for lyrics and sounds. She explains that she was inspired by how visionary the music of sound pioneers like Delia Derbyshire was, and the “technical ingenuity, time and dedication required to do what they did”. In today's age of laptop software, which makes it easy to experiment with new sounds, she feels Derbyshire's efforts, as well as the work of other sound pioneers like Daphne Oram, are more worthy of respect than ever.
The film and performances will also appear at FACT in Liverpool (Wednesday 16 January), Queens Social Club, Sheffield (Friday 18 January, supporting Eccentronic Research Council) and Newcastle's Star and Shadow cinema (Sunday 20 January).
Delia Derbyshire Day takes place at Band on the Wall on Saturday January 12.
Full Day: £12. Afternoon event only: £6. Evening event only: £7.50
http://deliaderbyshireday.wordpress.com
The Delian Mode illustration by Brigitte Archambault
Saturday, 29 December 2012
Things I enjoyed in 2012
Music
Big Star Third, Barbican, London
Big Star are my favourite ever band, and I have my dad to thank for getting me into them when I was a teenager. Whilst I love individual songs on #1 Record and Radio City, for me their final album Third/Sister Lovers works best as a complete piece of work, with its surprise mix of rocking pop songs, strange, otherworldly clanging and heart wrenching string and horn arrangements – it's one of those records I used to spend hours listening to in the dark trying to work out how the arrangements fitted together and how all the sounds the record were achieved. In 2008, my dad offered to take me to see their singer, Alex Chilton, at Shepherd's Bush Empire, but I decided to move house that weekend instead. I came to regret this a lot, as Chilton died a year and a half later at the age of 59, of a heart attack, so I never got to see him. When I heard about an event at the Barbican with a guest cast of musicians playing Big Star's third album in its entirety with the original string and horn arrangements, a few weeks after my dad's 50th birthday, therefore, it seemed like the perfect present. We decided to make a day of it in London, but my dad was in an unbelievably grumpy mood and barely spoke to me all day, and I was worried the gig wasn't going to interest him either. I've never seen someone perk up so suddenly, though. The revolving cast of musicians from bands like REM, Yo La Tengo and Teenage Fanclub really worked (with the exception of John Bramwell from I Am Kloot, whose nasal whining was completely out of place) and my dad was on the edge of his seat throughout the gig, smiling broadly – not least when Ray Davies was brought out as a surprise guest to rock the stage at the end. The Barbican concert hall is beautiful too – all wooden inside with really clear acoustics.
Chain and the Gang, Kraak Gallery, Manchester
I went to this gig as all girl punk band Trash Kit, one of my favourite bands of recent years, were on the bill, not knowing anything about headline band Chain and the Gang. In between bands, my friend excitably said 'There's Ian Svenonius, shall we go and have our photo taken with him?', to which I replied 'Who's that?'. Turns out Chain and the Gang singer Ian Svenius is a bit of an indie hero, having played in several cult bands over the years. It suddenly made sense why the audience was noticeably older than the usual crowd at this type of gig, and John Robb jumped up on stage to introduce them (possibly the only time I have ever been at the same gig as John Robb). Whilst Chain and the Gang are indisputably punk rock, their music is classy, stylish, musically slick and, most of all, fun, with front man Svenonius and front woman Katie Alice Greer dancing around the stage and playing off one other.
Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield , Academy 2, Manchester
No surprises here – Dando and Hatfield duetted on classic Lemonheads tracks and took it in turn to play their own songs – except I'd never realised what a strong singer, guitarist and songwriter Hatfield is in her own right.
Trust Fund/Two White Cranes, my garden, Manchester
The last gig I'll ever have in my canal-side garden (I'm moving house soon) was a good one: Roxy Brennan, formerly of the Mountain Parade, writes sweet, simple folk songs as Two White Cranes, whilst Ellis Jones, formerly of the Bumblebees, sings falsetto over a Casio keyboard and sparse guitar under the name Trust Fund.
Dan Deacon, Islington Mill, Salford
I maintain that Dan Deacon provides the most fun you can have at a gig – including dance-offs, a strobe light app for iPhones and making the audience create a tunnel with their hands then run through it to come out outside the building and then do the same again to go back inside. The music – euphoric dance – isn't bad either.
ATP, Minehead
I admit the appeal of ATP isn't really about the music – watching bands is always going to come second to wandering around charity shops, and exploring up and down hills and along the beaches in Minehead itself, interspersed with trips to Butlins' cinema and wave pool, but it was also great to see Minutemen, Young Marble Giants and Apples in Stereo, who were as fun as I'd hoped they would be.
Wake Up Dead, Wim Wams, Irma Vep, the Hipshakes, Hotspur House, Manchester
Top floor punk party with a view over the rooftops and train tracks of Manchester, in one of my favourite spaces in the city.
Honourable mentions go also to Francois and the Atlas Mountains, Rozi Plain and Being There, all at the Castle in Manchester.
Art
Jane and Louise Wilson, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
The best exhibition I've seen in Manchester in a while, Jane and Louise Wilson's photos, videos and sculptural installations show both the human and environmental impact of the Chernobyl disaster (and, elsewhere in the exhibition, recreate the scene of the murder of a Dubai businessman), in an exhibition that exposes the limits of human planning, surveillance and control. Read my review of the exhibition for Corridor8 here.
Martin Creed, All the Bells
Martin Creed's Work No 1197, a mass artwork which involved trying to get all the bells in the country to ring as loudly and quickly as possible for three minutes as a wake-up call heralding the start of the Olympics, was definitely the event I was most looking forward to during the Olympic year – although I found it frustratingly hard to find other people who shared my enthusiasm for getting up at 8.12am to make a noise. Other towns, villages and cities had organised All the Bells events; Manchester had none, and I had visions of being reduced to standing outside ringing my doorbell by myself for three minutes. However, I borrowed an agogô bell from the samba band I play with just in case, and at the last minute joined up with Alison Kershaw to ring some bells at St Luke's art project in the Longsight suburb of Manchester. St Luke's is based in a modern church on busy Stockport Road – one of the main roads into Manchester – and, it turns out, the church does not have physical bells but uses old cassette recordings of peals which are blasted out ahead of services and events. Calls to worship are on one side of the tape, weddings and funerals on the other; the church would be stuck if it lost the tape, said Alison! Alison had downloaded the special ringtone Martin Creed had created for the event (I couldn't, as it was only available for smartphones), and we stood, smiles on faces, banging away outside the church, church bells ringing in the background, as local residents came to their doors and windows in bewilderment. Admittedly, these were the only bells we we heard in Manchester, and some wags started the Twitter hashtag '#noneofthebells'.
Mark Leckey, Manchester Art Gallery
For this show, Leckey faced off a huge speaker stack against a giant, metallic piece of industrial machinery formerly used in a factory. On the opening night, Leckey's DJing made the room reverberate with sheer, bone-shaking noise, contrasting with the monumental solemnity of the two pieces of redundant equipment during usual exhibition hours, facing each other in silence, and the frantic activity of his youth culture film Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore.
Victoria Lucas, Untitled Gallery, Manchester
The best use of birds in an art gallery since Birds on Guitars (the Barbican, 2010), this simple yet lovely installation transformed tiny Untitled Gallery into an aviary by projecting a film of the gallery, temporarily populated by small, brightly coloured birds, onto the back wall, placing the viewer in a mirror image of the space. Watching the birds fly around the room was strangely captivating in itself, but what really made the film was the accidental presence of a strange figure (supposedly a bird expert) wandering in and out of the frame, failing over and over again to catch the birds with his hands and line them up on a low wire strung across the gallery.
Seven Sites, various locations, Manchester/Salford
Laura Mansfield and Swen Steinhauser's series of artistic interventions into everyday sites across the two cities, from a church to a curry house.
Hans Haacke, Reina Sofia, Madrid
Fun but thought-provoking installations that make you look again at the art world and art's relationship with power, money and prestige.
Tracy Emin, Turner Contemporary, Margate
I went to this exhibition expecting to be underwhelmed, but found Emin's personal, confessional drawings on the subject of sex, and her self-portraits, moving and affecting. It's rarely that I feel I can relate to a feminine topic, writer or artist just on the basis that I am a woman and am therefore supposed to have some kind of shared, woman-specific outlook on life, but I did feel a connection with Emin's work and experiences. She may not be the most subtle of artists, but I also thought her tapestries were really quite beautiful. We were there on the opening weekend, when the artist herself was wondering the building amid the crowds gathered to see this solo show in her home-town.
Michael Dean, Henry Moore Institute Leeds
One of several exhibitions I saw in Leeds in 2012, and Henry Moore Institute is another small gallery whose exhibitions always impress. Michael Dean fundamentally transformed the visitor experience, from creating sculptural door handles to carpeting the gallery's floor spaces, placing gallery assistants on the floor and filling the space with huge, tactile objects, some of which were so large they had to be made in situ.
The Humble Market, FACT, Liverpool
Part of Abandon Normal Devices festival, Brazilian/UK theatre collective Zecora Ura led viewers on a group tour through several scenarios, forcing the viewer to reevaulate their relationship to the artworks, as well their relationship with other members of the audience.
I've also really enjoyed all the exhibitions I've seen at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, which I feel really punches above its size. The venues impressed more than much of the art at Liverpool Biennial this year – with the exception of John Akomfrah's video installation The Unfinished Conversation at the Bluecoat, which refracted memories through snippets of archive film to explore the ideas and life of Stuart Hall. In a rare (at least in my experience) occurrence for a gallery, members of the public sat still for forty odd minutes to watch the film in its entirety instead of hovering uncertainly at the back or wandering in and out. In Manchester, I enjoyed small solo shows by Daniel Fogarty and Mary Griffiths at Bureau Gallery.
Books
Whilst neither of these books were published in 2012 (or, indeed, recently), they are both among the best books I have ever read and had me engrossed during 2012.
Waterlog, Roger Deakin
The type of book you wish you could carry with you all the time for inspiration, guidance and a bit of comfort on bad days, Deakin uses a uniquely beautiful turn of words as he swims his way around the country's waterways, evoking the sense of freedom, excitement and spontaneity that swimming al fresco brings.
Our Band Could Be Your Life, Michael Azzerad
I wish I'd read this book, about the bands, record labels and publications that spread the DIY spirit across America, ten years ago: it should be compulsory reading for anyone with ambitions for forming a band, putting gigs on or releasing records (skip the Mudhoney chapter, but the Minor Threat, Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Fugazi and Beat Happening chapters are particularly inspiring amidst the fights, drugs and decadence).
Film
Lawrence of Belgravia
One of the most honest and least contrived 'rockumentaries' I've ever seen, Lawrence of Belgravia follows Felt/Go-Kart Mozart frontman Lawrence over a period of years in a warts and all, fly on the wall journey into the life of a pop star. Sometimes frustrating but mainly just heartwarming, the film makes you cross your fingers for Lawrence to get his big break, snag Kate Moss, and become an indie superstar. If anyone deserves it, he does.
Make Your Own Damn Art
A documentary following the life and work of artist Bob and Roberta Smith. I found Smith's ethos, attitude and approach to making art refreshing and inspiring. From creating a gallery in his garden shed (anyone can make a gallery, he suggests) to selling affordable artworks at art car boot fairs and playing in a middle aged punk rock band, if Smith had a manifesto it would be 'Make your own damn art: don't expect me to make it for you', something which resonates with the Shrieking Violet. It's an important message for anyone who's ever wanted to make an artwork, a piece of music or even a zine but not known where to begin, so never quite got round to it.
Utopia London
Utopia London pays homage to twentieth century town planning and the city in which its director, Tom Cordell, grew up. Comprising interviews with some of the key architects in the rebuilding of a city left ravaged by the Second World War, the film shows the ideals and aspirations of those behind the Modernist movement, demonstrating how they aimed to build a better, more equal world by fusing design with artistic and scientific innovation. Many of the architects are now in their eighties, yet still full of spirit and idealism, and some of the film's most moving movements are when they are taken back to the sites of their buildings to see how they fared. Utopia London is thought-provoking, inspiring and uplifting: a must-see for anyone who has ever looked around and wondered: how did our towns and cities get to be the way they are?
Bata-ville: we are not afraid of the future
On the list of things I want to achieve before I die is making a documentary film. Bata-ville, in which a coach full of (mostly elderly) former employees of paternalistic shoe company Bata is taken by two lively artists on a pilgrimage from Bata's now defunct factory in East Tilbury to the company's Moravian hometown, is surreal, funny and subversive in its attitude towards history and the meaning of memories. Bata-ville is the type of film I would love to be able to call my own.
Swandown
Whilst I find Iain Sinclair's writing difficult to read, he made for good entertainment in this travelogue with a difference. Swandown follows Sinclair and Andrew Kötting (director of the wonderful, poignant coastal odyssey Gallivant) on an unlikely, intrepid adventure by swan pedalo, which begins with the pair bobbing up and down on the sea off Hastings and culminates inland in the waterways of London, with plenty of laughs along the way as well as opportunities for reflection.
Nostalgia for the Light
Beautifully filmed and soundtracked yet devastatingly sad documentary which intertwines the wonders of Chile's observatory centre in the Atacama desert with the search by groups of women for the remains of loved ones missing, presumed dead, under the Pinochet regime. Nostalgia for the Light captures the grandeur, emptiness and openendedness of both the landscape and human existence, in which there sometimes are no answers, only mysteries.
TV
I know he's a nasty man, but Michael Portillo is still my favourite TV present (his genial nature and colourful outfits make me smile), so I was pleased that the year started with another series of Great British Railway Journeys and ended with a new spin on the concept, Great Continental Railway Journeys, which saw the episodes extended into hour-long explorations of various European destinations.
Also worth a mention is the Jeremy Deller Culture Show special (for roughly the same reasons I enjoyed the Bob and Roberta Smith film).
Theatre
The Royal Exchange never disappoints, and the costumes and music are always particularly impressive. I saw a swinging production of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and a tense take on Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending there.
Radio
2012 was the year in which I finally started listening to 99% Invisible's short podcasts on architecture, urbanism and design; recent highlights have included instalments on Buckminster Fuller, Kowloon Walled City and dazzle ships. As well as covering diverse subjects in a diverse, engaging way, Roman Mars has my favourite voice on the radio.
Big Star Third, Barbican, London
Big Star are my favourite ever band, and I have my dad to thank for getting me into them when I was a teenager. Whilst I love individual songs on #1 Record and Radio City, for me their final album Third/Sister Lovers works best as a complete piece of work, with its surprise mix of rocking pop songs, strange, otherworldly clanging and heart wrenching string and horn arrangements – it's one of those records I used to spend hours listening to in the dark trying to work out how the arrangements fitted together and how all the sounds the record were achieved. In 2008, my dad offered to take me to see their singer, Alex Chilton, at Shepherd's Bush Empire, but I decided to move house that weekend instead. I came to regret this a lot, as Chilton died a year and a half later at the age of 59, of a heart attack, so I never got to see him. When I heard about an event at the Barbican with a guest cast of musicians playing Big Star's third album in its entirety with the original string and horn arrangements, a few weeks after my dad's 50th birthday, therefore, it seemed like the perfect present. We decided to make a day of it in London, but my dad was in an unbelievably grumpy mood and barely spoke to me all day, and I was worried the gig wasn't going to interest him either. I've never seen someone perk up so suddenly, though. The revolving cast of musicians from bands like REM, Yo La Tengo and Teenage Fanclub really worked (with the exception of John Bramwell from I Am Kloot, whose nasal whining was completely out of place) and my dad was on the edge of his seat throughout the gig, smiling broadly – not least when Ray Davies was brought out as a surprise guest to rock the stage at the end. The Barbican concert hall is beautiful too – all wooden inside with really clear acoustics.
Chain and the Gang, Kraak Gallery, Manchester
I went to this gig as all girl punk band Trash Kit, one of my favourite bands of recent years, were on the bill, not knowing anything about headline band Chain and the Gang. In between bands, my friend excitably said 'There's Ian Svenonius, shall we go and have our photo taken with him?', to which I replied 'Who's that?'. Turns out Chain and the Gang singer Ian Svenius is a bit of an indie hero, having played in several cult bands over the years. It suddenly made sense why the audience was noticeably older than the usual crowd at this type of gig, and John Robb jumped up on stage to introduce them (possibly the only time I have ever been at the same gig as John Robb). Whilst Chain and the Gang are indisputably punk rock, their music is classy, stylish, musically slick and, most of all, fun, with front man Svenonius and front woman Katie Alice Greer dancing around the stage and playing off one other.
Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield , Academy 2, Manchester
No surprises here – Dando and Hatfield duetted on classic Lemonheads tracks and took it in turn to play their own songs – except I'd never realised what a strong singer, guitarist and songwriter Hatfield is in her own right.
Trust Fund/Two White Cranes, my garden, Manchester
The last gig I'll ever have in my canal-side garden (I'm moving house soon) was a good one: Roxy Brennan, formerly of the Mountain Parade, writes sweet, simple folk songs as Two White Cranes, whilst Ellis Jones, formerly of the Bumblebees, sings falsetto over a Casio keyboard and sparse guitar under the name Trust Fund.
Dan Deacon, Islington Mill, Salford
I maintain that Dan Deacon provides the most fun you can have at a gig – including dance-offs, a strobe light app for iPhones and making the audience create a tunnel with their hands then run through it to come out outside the building and then do the same again to go back inside. The music – euphoric dance – isn't bad either.
ATP, Minehead
I admit the appeal of ATP isn't really about the music – watching bands is always going to come second to wandering around charity shops, and exploring up and down hills and along the beaches in Minehead itself, interspersed with trips to Butlins' cinema and wave pool, but it was also great to see Minutemen, Young Marble Giants and Apples in Stereo, who were as fun as I'd hoped they would be.
Wake Up Dead, Wim Wams, Irma Vep, the Hipshakes, Hotspur House, Manchester
Top floor punk party with a view over the rooftops and train tracks of Manchester, in one of my favourite spaces in the city.
Honourable mentions go also to Francois and the Atlas Mountains, Rozi Plain and Being There, all at the Castle in Manchester.
Art
Jane and Louise Wilson, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
The best exhibition I've seen in Manchester in a while, Jane and Louise Wilson's photos, videos and sculptural installations show both the human and environmental impact of the Chernobyl disaster (and, elsewhere in the exhibition, recreate the scene of the murder of a Dubai businessman), in an exhibition that exposes the limits of human planning, surveillance and control. Read my review of the exhibition for Corridor8 here.
Martin Creed, All the Bells
Martin Creed's Work No 1197, a mass artwork which involved trying to get all the bells in the country to ring as loudly and quickly as possible for three minutes as a wake-up call heralding the start of the Olympics, was definitely the event I was most looking forward to during the Olympic year – although I found it frustratingly hard to find other people who shared my enthusiasm for getting up at 8.12am to make a noise. Other towns, villages and cities had organised All the Bells events; Manchester had none, and I had visions of being reduced to standing outside ringing my doorbell by myself for three minutes. However, I borrowed an agogô bell from the samba band I play with just in case, and at the last minute joined up with Alison Kershaw to ring some bells at St Luke's art project in the Longsight suburb of Manchester. St Luke's is based in a modern church on busy Stockport Road – one of the main roads into Manchester – and, it turns out, the church does not have physical bells but uses old cassette recordings of peals which are blasted out ahead of services and events. Calls to worship are on one side of the tape, weddings and funerals on the other; the church would be stuck if it lost the tape, said Alison! Alison had downloaded the special ringtone Martin Creed had created for the event (I couldn't, as it was only available for smartphones), and we stood, smiles on faces, banging away outside the church, church bells ringing in the background, as local residents came to their doors and windows in bewilderment. Admittedly, these were the only bells we we heard in Manchester, and some wags started the Twitter hashtag '#noneofthebells'.
Mark Leckey, Manchester Art Gallery
For this show, Leckey faced off a huge speaker stack against a giant, metallic piece of industrial machinery formerly used in a factory. On the opening night, Leckey's DJing made the room reverberate with sheer, bone-shaking noise, contrasting with the monumental solemnity of the two pieces of redundant equipment during usual exhibition hours, facing each other in silence, and the frantic activity of his youth culture film Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore.
Victoria Lucas, Untitled Gallery, Manchester
The best use of birds in an art gallery since Birds on Guitars (the Barbican, 2010), this simple yet lovely installation transformed tiny Untitled Gallery into an aviary by projecting a film of the gallery, temporarily populated by small, brightly coloured birds, onto the back wall, placing the viewer in a mirror image of the space. Watching the birds fly around the room was strangely captivating in itself, but what really made the film was the accidental presence of a strange figure (supposedly a bird expert) wandering in and out of the frame, failing over and over again to catch the birds with his hands and line them up on a low wire strung across the gallery.
Seven Sites, various locations, Manchester/Salford
Laura Mansfield and Swen Steinhauser's series of artistic interventions into everyday sites across the two cities, from a church to a curry house.
Hans Haacke, Reina Sofia, Madrid
Fun but thought-provoking installations that make you look again at the art world and art's relationship with power, money and prestige.
Tracy Emin, Turner Contemporary, Margate
I went to this exhibition expecting to be underwhelmed, but found Emin's personal, confessional drawings on the subject of sex, and her self-portraits, moving and affecting. It's rarely that I feel I can relate to a feminine topic, writer or artist just on the basis that I am a woman and am therefore supposed to have some kind of shared, woman-specific outlook on life, but I did feel a connection with Emin's work and experiences. She may not be the most subtle of artists, but I also thought her tapestries were really quite beautiful. We were there on the opening weekend, when the artist herself was wondering the building amid the crowds gathered to see this solo show in her home-town.
Michael Dean, Henry Moore Institute Leeds
One of several exhibitions I saw in Leeds in 2012, and Henry Moore Institute is another small gallery whose exhibitions always impress. Michael Dean fundamentally transformed the visitor experience, from creating sculptural door handles to carpeting the gallery's floor spaces, placing gallery assistants on the floor and filling the space with huge, tactile objects, some of which were so large they had to be made in situ.
The Humble Market, FACT, Liverpool
Part of Abandon Normal Devices festival, Brazilian/UK theatre collective Zecora Ura led viewers on a group tour through several scenarios, forcing the viewer to reevaulate their relationship to the artworks, as well their relationship with other members of the audience.
I've also really enjoyed all the exhibitions I've seen at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, which I feel really punches above its size. The venues impressed more than much of the art at Liverpool Biennial this year – with the exception of John Akomfrah's video installation The Unfinished Conversation at the Bluecoat, which refracted memories through snippets of archive film to explore the ideas and life of Stuart Hall. In a rare (at least in my experience) occurrence for a gallery, members of the public sat still for forty odd minutes to watch the film in its entirety instead of hovering uncertainly at the back or wandering in and out. In Manchester, I enjoyed small solo shows by Daniel Fogarty and Mary Griffiths at Bureau Gallery.
Books
Whilst neither of these books were published in 2012 (or, indeed, recently), they are both among the best books I have ever read and had me engrossed during 2012.
Waterlog, Roger Deakin
The type of book you wish you could carry with you all the time for inspiration, guidance and a bit of comfort on bad days, Deakin uses a uniquely beautiful turn of words as he swims his way around the country's waterways, evoking the sense of freedom, excitement and spontaneity that swimming al fresco brings.
Our Band Could Be Your Life, Michael Azzerad
I wish I'd read this book, about the bands, record labels and publications that spread the DIY spirit across America, ten years ago: it should be compulsory reading for anyone with ambitions for forming a band, putting gigs on or releasing records (skip the Mudhoney chapter, but the Minor Threat, Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Fugazi and Beat Happening chapters are particularly inspiring amidst the fights, drugs and decadence).
Film
Lawrence of Belgravia
One of the most honest and least contrived 'rockumentaries' I've ever seen, Lawrence of Belgravia follows Felt/Go-Kart Mozart frontman Lawrence over a period of years in a warts and all, fly on the wall journey into the life of a pop star. Sometimes frustrating but mainly just heartwarming, the film makes you cross your fingers for Lawrence to get his big break, snag Kate Moss, and become an indie superstar. If anyone deserves it, he does.
Make Your Own Damn Art
A documentary following the life and work of artist Bob and Roberta Smith. I found Smith's ethos, attitude and approach to making art refreshing and inspiring. From creating a gallery in his garden shed (anyone can make a gallery, he suggests) to selling affordable artworks at art car boot fairs and playing in a middle aged punk rock band, if Smith had a manifesto it would be 'Make your own damn art: don't expect me to make it for you', something which resonates with the Shrieking Violet. It's an important message for anyone who's ever wanted to make an artwork, a piece of music or even a zine but not known where to begin, so never quite got round to it.
Utopia London
Utopia London pays homage to twentieth century town planning and the city in which its director, Tom Cordell, grew up. Comprising interviews with some of the key architects in the rebuilding of a city left ravaged by the Second World War, the film shows the ideals and aspirations of those behind the Modernist movement, demonstrating how they aimed to build a better, more equal world by fusing design with artistic and scientific innovation. Many of the architects are now in their eighties, yet still full of spirit and idealism, and some of the film's most moving movements are when they are taken back to the sites of their buildings to see how they fared. Utopia London is thought-provoking, inspiring and uplifting: a must-see for anyone who has ever looked around and wondered: how did our towns and cities get to be the way they are?
Bata-ville: we are not afraid of the future
On the list of things I want to achieve before I die is making a documentary film. Bata-ville, in which a coach full of (mostly elderly) former employees of paternalistic shoe company Bata is taken by two lively artists on a pilgrimage from Bata's now defunct factory in East Tilbury to the company's Moravian hometown, is surreal, funny and subversive in its attitude towards history and the meaning of memories. Bata-ville is the type of film I would love to be able to call my own.
Swandown
Whilst I find Iain Sinclair's writing difficult to read, he made for good entertainment in this travelogue with a difference. Swandown follows Sinclair and Andrew Kötting (director of the wonderful, poignant coastal odyssey Gallivant) on an unlikely, intrepid adventure by swan pedalo, which begins with the pair bobbing up and down on the sea off Hastings and culminates inland in the waterways of London, with plenty of laughs along the way as well as opportunities for reflection.
Nostalgia for the Light
Beautifully filmed and soundtracked yet devastatingly sad documentary which intertwines the wonders of Chile's observatory centre in the Atacama desert with the search by groups of women for the remains of loved ones missing, presumed dead, under the Pinochet regime. Nostalgia for the Light captures the grandeur, emptiness and openendedness of both the landscape and human existence, in which there sometimes are no answers, only mysteries.
TV
I know he's a nasty man, but Michael Portillo is still my favourite TV present (his genial nature and colourful outfits make me smile), so I was pleased that the year started with another series of Great British Railway Journeys and ended with a new spin on the concept, Great Continental Railway Journeys, which saw the episodes extended into hour-long explorations of various European destinations.
Also worth a mention is the Jeremy Deller Culture Show special (for roughly the same reasons I enjoyed the Bob and Roberta Smith film).
Theatre
The Royal Exchange never disappoints, and the costumes and music are always particularly impressive. I saw a swinging production of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and a tense take on Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending there.
Radio
2012 was the year in which I finally started listening to 99% Invisible's short podcasts on architecture, urbanism and design; recent highlights have included instalments on Buckminster Fuller, Kowloon Walled City and dazzle ships. As well as covering diverse subjects in a diverse, engaging way, Roman Mars has my favourite voice on the radio.
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