Characters from the Festival of the Rea – part of the House of Beorma archive of the city’s lost origins

Six weeks into the Discovery season and we’re getting great feedback on our celebration of the new library. The Discovery Trail is open for you to explore throughout the season. And each week there are one off events and workshops to get involved in.

This week the Outcrowd Collective are in residency. They present the House of Beorma archive, a selection of artefacts from lost local history. Come visit them til Sunday 13th October in the Pavilion, and make your own offerings in honour of Birmingham’s lost customs and festivals.

Reference Works is an exhibition featuring new works by photographers Brian Griffin, Andrew Lacon, Michael Collins and Stuart Whipps. Each artist diplays their creative responses to the new Library of Birmingham, the ‘old’ Central Library building and the build, transition and relocation. Stuart Whipps will be giving a free exhibition tour this Saturday 12th October at 11am.

There’s still time to sign up for the Shangaan Electro dance workshops. Your chance to be part of the South African dance craze that became a youtube sensation – workshops are 1pm or 3pm on Friday 25th October at Dancexchange, Thorp Street. Workshops are totally free, you just need to sign up via [email protected]

Shangaan Electro will also perform as part of the Bring To Light weekend of adventurous music, 25-27 October. The next in the Discover New Music series, this event features the artist Dinos Chapman, roboticist Sarah Angliss, the Brain Pulse Music of Masaki Batoh and many more. Day and weekend tickets are available viawww.theticketsellers.co.uk

Building on their project The Festival of The Rea that took place at Supersonic Festival 2012, The Outcrowd Collective will turn the Pavilion into a museum of fictional and real archival material around ‘Beorma’ the chieftan of the Beormingas clan who are the first known Anglo-Saxon settlers and founders of Birmingham. Drawing on Benjamin Stone’s photographs of rural procession and folk celebrations – held in the Library of Birmingham’s archives – The Outcrowd will also present re-imagined celebrations and rituals to Beorma.

Visit The House of Beorma Archive at Library of Birmingham from Tuesday 8th October til Sunday 13th October.

Festival of the Rea from Lawrence Roper on Vimeo.

dance of the dun cow from Lawrence Roper on Vimeo.

Studio Myerscough are in residency and they’re on a mission to create a new typeface, with live contributions from you. Visit the Pavilion all this week, it’s totally free.

In addition Morag Myerscough will be presenting an instinctive journey through colours, patterns and her design practice at Volume, accompanied by fellow designer and collaborator Luke Morgan and his band The Highliners, creating a punk rock design performance! This will be headlined by Bill Drummond. Tickets available HERE

Tonight from 8pm, come see four amazing local bands at Rise of Birmingham. Tickets are £5 from www.birmingham-box.co.uk. Read more about Free School, Victories at Sea, Youth Man and Victor here.

Saturday 5th October 2pm and Sunday 6th October 11am
Laura Kate Chapman workshop, Middle Earth, Free
Join artist Laura Kate Chapman whose work takes inspiration historic Parker Collection of Children’s Books and Games, celebrating the tradition of hand drawn artistic methods.

Throughout the season you ca explore the library via the Discovery Trail, the trail includes the Theatre Jukebox, by Stand + Stare, an arcade-style cabinet that plays stories instead of records and allows you to choose the chapters you want. You can listen to accounts of imagined journeys and travel stories inspired by the Wingate Bett Transport Ticket collection. Wingate Henry Bett was the first president of the Transport Ticket Society and founder of the Electric Railways Society. He co authored Great British Tramway Networks with John C Gillham which became the bible of British tramways. His collection of transport tickets is one of the Library of Birmingham’s collections.

And at the end of the month, Capsule will be invading the library with a programme of experimental music. Very much a Supersonic Festival inspired weekend, Bring To Light features Josephine Foster, Dinos Chapman and Deafheaven as well a celebration of the work of Delia Derbyshire and a special Kids Gig with Richard Dawson. Read more or purchase tickets via www.theticketsellers.co.uk

Sarah has been working with the fossils and fauna in the university’s collections

Capsule have embarked upon a new partnership with the University of Birmingham, supporting an artist in residence to make and display work in response to the university’s fascinating and varied collections.

Sound artist Sarah Farmer has spent a number of months working and researching intensively at the Lapworth Museum of Geology  and the Winterbourne botanical collection. Farmer has explored the collections, spent time with the curators and staff, and has created a number of sound based works, as well as screenprints, in response to her time there.

Lapworth Museum of Geology

The exhibition will begin at Winterbourne on Thursday 24th October, her work will be on display in the Cactus House for two weeks, before moving to Lapworth Museum of Geology on Thursday 7th November until Sunday 24th November. Come and explore the university’s collections in a way you’d never imagined.

Winterbourne House & Garden / 10am – 4pm weekdays 11am – 4pm weekends /58 Edgbaston Park Road

Lapworth Museum / 9.00am – 5.00pm weekdays 12.00pm – 5.00pm weekends / Aston Webb building, Edgbaston Campus

This project is supported through Connected – a University of Birmingham Cultural Engagement initiative.
www.birmingham.ac.uk/culture

Huge thanks to MortonUnderwood and everyone who got involved with The Sound Trolley residency last week. Causing a right old racket in the Pavilion at the entrance to the Library of Birmingham, sounds were triggered as the trolley was pushed around on floor patterns made from vinyl – these designs determined what sound the trolley made. Images are by Katja Ogrin.

David Morton and Sam Underwood

As the trolley moved along the vinyl, different patterns triggered different sounds

Image by Gush Sohal

This week sees the return of Studio Myerscough’s typography workshops, come along to the Pavilion to join in designing a new typeface.

Juneau Projects’ returned at the weekend to deliver another Vegetable Quest workshop where families made vegetable people from plasticine.

And this Wednesday 2nd October at 8pm is Rise of Birmingham. Free School, Victories at Sea, Victor and Youth Man are four brilliant bands from the region, check em out for only a £5. Tickets are available from www.birmingham-box.co.uk

All this week MortonUnderwood are in residence with their Sound Trolley. It is controlled through an accessible interface and features an optical sequencer at its core; triggering sound as the trolley is pushed around on floor patterns made from vinyl. These designs will determine what sound the trolley emits when it is maneuvered over them. It’s a playful vehicle of sonic delights, waiting to be driven by you.

If you enjoyed the 2arttoyguys’ Vintage Sci Fi residency last week, there’s a ‘Robots and Technology’ lunchtime talk by Nick Hoares of University of Birmingham 12.30-1.30pm.

If you missed the amazing Vegetable Quest workshop in the opening week, you can join Juneau Projects this Saturday at 2p to make your own veggie characters.

Read more about the Discovery season here

The Discovery Pavilion is housing an amazing series of residences, with each creative setting up home in the bespoke space for only a week, so catch each residency while you can!

2arttoyguys spent last week making beautiful vintage sci fi models, and decorated the space all things retro science fiction, including a full size recreation of HG Wells’ Time Machine! Lot’s of people joined in, creating their own models from recycled materials.

This week you can explore The Sound Trolley, a collaborative effort between David Morton and Sam Underwood, it is a whimsical audio creature that contains an array of electronic and acoustic sounds. It is controlled through an accessible interface and features an optical sequencer at its core; triggering sound as the trolley is pushed around on floor patterns made from vinyl. These designs will determine what sound the trolley emits when it is manoeuvred over them. It’s a playful vehicle of sonic delights, waiting to be driven by you.

The best way to experience The Sound Trolley is by having a go. Drop in and try it out, or sign up for a workshop to explore its full potential. Be treated to an extremely fun installation from a wildly unorthodox pair of artists. In the words of Sam Underwood “It’s what humans do with it that really brings it alive.”

Image courtesy of Morag Myerscough

This weeks residency in the Discovery Pavilion is led by Studio Myerscough,based in the foyer of the brand new Library of Birmingham. They are inviting as many people as possible to come along to The Pavilion to join in designing a new typeface using the facade pattern of the building as the base grid. Each day they want you to create 4-5 letters, you can design all 4 or just one whatever you fancy. Tuesday was A-B-C-D Wednesday E-F-G-H Thursday I-J-K-L and so on.

They are also creating a full alphabet by decorating the outline letters as shown above, these letters need multiple contributions, so please come along and join in, you’ll be surprised at how addictive making patterns can be.

Thanks to everybody who got stuck in yesterday we are collecting an amazing set of designs. Studio Myerscough are in residence until Sunday and all activity is free – what’s not to love.

In addition Morag Myerscough will be presenting an instinctive journey through colours patterns and her design practice at Volume, accompanied by fellow designer and collaborator Luke Morgan and his band The Highliners (including Ginge former Meteors drummer) creating a punk rock design performance! This will be headlined by Bill Drummond. Tickets available HERE