CURRENT NEWS & EVENTS
Encounters open new shop premises
June 2008
We will establish an office, workshop and public shop at 16 Wostenholm Rd, Sheffield - the location of the original Encounters shop five years ago. We have plans for the shop to become a space for learning, for working, for sharing practice and for others to use.
The shop will open on 17th June 08 with an exhibition of hundreds of small photo collages created by visitors to the Encounters Room in the British Pavillion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 06.
The Encounters shop will be open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1.00 - 7.00 pm, please call in.
Opening event Tuesday 17th June 2008 7.00 - 9.00pm
all welcome
See more info about the Venice Exhibition
Batley Family Encounters
June 2008
An exhibition of the Batley Family Encounters project a three month creative project that collected stories, images, journeys, family portraits, from families in Batley, is now showing in Batley Library.
The project has culminated with the publication of, Batley Family Encounters a visual feast designed by DED that shares the collections and includes a section that describes in detail the Encounters street based collecting and connecting process.
Exhibition dates 31st May - 21st June, 2008
Batley Library, Market Place, Batley, WF17 5DA, Tel: 01924 326021
Batley Book
The Book is on sale for £5.00.
If you would like to buy a copy of the book please email finance[AT] encounters-arts.org.uk and we will give you details.
Read more about Batley Family Encounters
Coming soon
We are beginning a new creative project on the Wybourn and Richmond Park Estates in Sheffield, meeting residents and collecting stories about Wybourn past, present and future. We will be working with students from the University of Sheffield Architecture course on this project as part of the live projects programme.
PREVIOUS NEWS
& EVENTS
Contents:
Creative Development Day (Mar 08)
Artsadmin Associates (Mar 07)
Encounters in Liverpool (Mar 07)
Encounters
at the Crucible Theatre (Feb 07)
Sharrow Stories (Mar 07)
Encounters
in Venice (Sept 06)
Encounters
publication: The Shop Collections (Sept 06)
Farewell
to 127 Club Garden Road (April 05)
Encounters will be talking about their work on March 12th 08 as part of
Elevate
An artists training day exploring the role that creative activity can play in housing regeneration and how artists can be involved in this process.
Wednesday 12 March 08 | 10am -5pm
Accrington Town Hall, Blackburn Road, Accrington, Lancs BB5 1LA
Delivered by Elevate together with Creative Partnerships East Lancashire
For more information and to book click here
or contact Sonya Eden at Elevate East Lancashire
(T 01254 304550 |
E sonya.eden@elevate-eastlancs.co.uk)
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We are pleased to announce that Encounters have recently been
invited to be Artsadmin Associate Artists. Artsadmin provides
a comprehensive management service and unique national resource
for contemporary artists who cross the spectrum of new theatre,
dance, music, live art and mixed media work. As Associate Artists,
Artsadmin will be supporting and promoting our work. Click here
for go to the Artadmin website.
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The Moey
Encounters’ Mobile Shop in Liverpool
Launched on 16 April 2007
Encounters and gmproducts
worked in South Liverpool as part of Capital of Cultures
Four Corners project 07. We modified a police pod, transforming
it into a mobile shop and touring it around the area from 16
April for five weeks. Each week we followed the same route
around South Liverpool as determined by the Neighbourhood Management
Team. We placed ourselves at various stops along the route
(shopping areas, community centres, open spaces and streets)
where we engaged passers by and groups in creative and interactive
activities that had as their focus questions around the theme
of neighbourhoods, neighbours and neighbourliness. Click here
for more info.
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Encounters
are pleased to be working in collaboration with Sheffield Theatres
in 2007, running a shop residency in the former Cues premises
during February and March 2007. Visit encounters
shops for more information and for regular updates about
activity taking place throughout the project. Click here for
a full press release
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To
follow on from the shop residency, Encounters will also be creating
Sharrow Stories, a multi media performance piece for the Studio
theatre. This will be based on the hundreds
of verbatim stories we collected in the Sharrow shops and will
involve both professional and non-professional performers. The
performance will be presented in the studio theatre 13–16
June 2007. Visit performance for
more details.
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Encounters
were part of Echo City, the showcase exhibit at the British
Pavilion at the tenth Biennale of Architecture, Venice.
The Exhibit has been conceived and designed by Architect Jeremy
Till and other members of the creative team are Ian Anderson,
Jim Prevett, Tim Etchells, Hugo Glendinning, Martyn Ware and
Sarah Wigglesworth.
There
are four side rooms in the pavilion and our exhibit has been
designed so that each room reflects urban experience at a particular
architectural and social scale; either 1:1 1:100 1:10,000 1:10,000,000. All these rooms feed into a central room, which will be an interactive space in which visitors will be able to create
their own Echo City at different scales.
Encounters
have been responsible for designing the 1:1 room reflecting the
intimate scale that we have been working on. We're very excited to
be part of this event and we've been working over the last few
months to explore how the three shop projects could be represented
within the exhibition. We've been working with fellow artist Jim
Prevett on designing our room, Jim worked with us on the third shop.
We didn't want to literally re create the shops or create an
exhibition that was too far away from them either. Our exhibition
contains traces, echoes of the Sharrow shops; the stories, objects,
journeys, animals that we collected as well as a new invitation to
visitors to participate to leave their own trace. It was important
for us that this invitation was at the heart of the exhibition and
it will be interesting to see the response.
The
exhibition was open from 10 September 2006 until 19 November
2006 and is at the British Pavilion, giardini di castello, Venice.
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Encounters
have published
a book called Encounters, The shop collections, which
presents text and images from the vast catalogue of everyday
life that we collected during out time as shopkeepers.
It also contains written contributions from a diverse range
of Sheffield based professionals. The book is being published
by Site Gallery, Sheffield and distributed worldwide by Cornerhouse.
Click here for more information.
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The closed sign now hangs on the door of the third encounters shop. We had nearly 300 visits and have had the privilege of meeting some most remarkable people. The shop space became a meeting point for many local people as well as for visitors to the Sharrow area and to Sheffield. Conversations have taken place about Art, Place, Neighbourhood, Choc Chip Biscuits, Performance, Community, Cars, Cars and Cars, Design, Litter,
Graffiti, History, The Weather, Creativity, Samosas, Regeneration - amongst other relevant and topical subjects. Wonderful journeys have been left in the shop along with memories and stories, collaged imagery, traces, comments, found objects, drawings, photographs.
The 'your choice' project has been very successful, with visitors enthusiastically taking part and voting for their favourite
paintings and leaving thoughts and comments. That project continues with local groups and the three top paintings (the real thing hopefully) will be displayed in Sharrow in the autumn for
people to view.
What happens next? The encounters shop is no more, but the spirit of hope and possibility goes on. The hope for the growth of creative and inclusive neighbourhoods and communities, safe spaces and places, green and urban, and the continual presence of people with courage, dignity, faith, humour, creativity, and vision.
We would like to thank all those who supported the encounters team and the project. It has been a most remarkable journey. All those who gave their help in all sorts of ways will probably never know how much it meant.
I would personally like to thank Jo, Jim and Tam for their care, commitment and hard work, their support and guidance has proved invaluable. I would also like to thank Ruth for her courage, creativity, passion, faith and trust.
What happens next ..... we shall see
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