Political ARt Month : Celebrating the World of Arts and Politics 



  
National Politeacal ARt Month 
July 2011: 


Celebrating the World 
of Arts and Politics.
 

 






   July 2011 will be the second year for National Political ARt Month. More and more artists, museums and galleries along with street theatre and muscians are feeling the need to participate in this important movement. 
    So what is your city doing? July is a difficult month for some art communities, but panel discussions and art critics are taking the time to sum up what has gone on throughout the year.  The world is waiting. 
Gene Elder, Texas artist. 
 













Elder Gene

 











   



No Fly Zone between buildings in Norwich lifted for festival 
The city will permit aircraft to fly in the lower airspace between buildings 


 
Photo: Plane Jam © HeHe 2011 


Open everyday 11am-5pm, 6th-21st May 2011, Central Norwich Location 


In May unmanned aircraft will enter the lower airspace of the city of Norwich and will be targeting the consciences of the people beneath them. The installation is by internationally acclaimed artists Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen (collectively known as HeHe) whose urban installations are renowned for playing with scale. 


The artists hope the miniature Airbus 380’s (1:200 scale), which will be seen by thousands of pedestrians using the city, will challenge the everyday perception of low cost air travel and highlight its effect on global warming. 


The work entitled ‘Plane Jam’ will be sited in the centre of Norwich. The planes will release remote controlled emissions at various times throughout the day. These emissions will be highly visible thereby drawing attention to the high-cost of low-cost air travel that is damaging our fragile atmosphere, the envelope of gases surrounding the earth. 


We never actually see the harmful toxins emitted by aircraft. They are invisible. The contrails or vapour trails we can see following aircraft are composed of only water droplets whereas the toxic and harmful emissions escape our attention because they cannot be seen by the naked eye. 


The illusion of flight will be achieved by an imperceptible and ingenious network of high tensile steel cables stretched between buildings. The flight paths of the planes has been carefully pre-mapped by the artists for maximum impact from the pedestrian streets below.  


By placing aircraft into the lower atmosphere of the Norwich skies ‘Plane Jam’ makes it impossible for the casual passer-by to ignore the issues around air pollution and air travel. The artist’s miniaturisation of the AB 380 aircraft will literally place the jumbo passenger jet into a different relationship with a person on the ground. When seen against the backdrop of the sky, moving slowly between two buildings, the viewer might mistake the mini-craft for a real plane flying high above the city, were it not for the disproportionate vapour trail behind it.  


Science Art collaboration 


The project was conceived during the artists’ residency at the Environmental Sciences Department at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. The project was inspired by the open wide skies in Norwich and discussions with researchers, including Professor Peter Brimblecombe an Atmospheric Chemist, about the phenomena of the clean skies in the UK during the flight restrictions in the aftermath of the Icelandic Eyjafjöll volcano eruption. Helen Evans says: “These discussions led us to think about the curious visual paradox of air traffic pollution: When planes fly high in the atmosphere the clean component of their emissions are visible (as the water vapour condenses), but their dirty emissions remain invisible and imperceptible.” 


Norwich river becomes one giant artwork 


 
Photo: Tracing Water © Liz Ballard 2011 


Saturday 7 May 2011 from 4.00 pm onwards 
Location: In the River Wensum downstream from Norwich Playhouse, St George’s Street. (Best viewed from Friars Quay, the riverside walk behind Elm Hill, and along Quayside.) 


Liz Ballard’s installation entitled 'Tracing Water' will consist of circular icebergs floating across the River Wensum in Norwich’s city centre. As they melt, the floating frozen forms will simultaneously release a luminous coloured dye into the water, thereby transforming the entire river into one giant fluorescent artwork.  


This spectacular installation will use a tracer dye called fluorescein sodium, a bright green organic acid. The dye is entirely harmless to the environment.  


Injecting tracer dyes into river systems is a technique normally employed by scientists to measure the time it takes for surface and ground water to travel; the process also indicates how water moves. It is useful for tracing pollutants and for studying both aeration and dispersion.  


Inspired by research into the movement of water Ballard developed the art work after her collaboration with Dr Kevin Hiscock, a hydrogeologist at the School of Environmental Sciences (SES), University of East Anglia.  


During the artist’s residency at SES, Ballard took part in experiments with Dr Hiscock and his students, and attended field trips investigating the water quality of the River Wensum, which flows through some of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the United Kingdom. It is one of the most important chalk river habitats in the country with over 100 plant species and a rich invertebrate fauna, yet is affected by diffuse pollution mainly through farming. Three quarters of land in the UK is under agricultural production and eighty percent of rivers and seventy five percent of groundwater bodies experience diffuse pollution from agriculture. 




Time travel by bicycle: a journey into the future of a city 


Artists: Townley and Bradby, Magnificent Revolution and Jonathan Watts 
Event takes place on the 13th, 14th and 15th of May 2011 at 7:30pm details below. 


The Bowthorpe Experiment 


 
Photo: Bowthorpe cycle route © Townley and Bradby 


The Bowthorpe Experiment will visit moments in history by bicycle. Moments when Norwich could have chosen a different development path and moments which are deep in the future. It will be a mobile think-tank, a free-wheeling and ephemeral utopia, a chance for groups of up to fifteen people to re-imagine the city of Norwich as they literally travel through it. 


Bicycle Health Check 


Beginning at Chapelfield Gardens in the city centre, participants will have a  quick and free ‘bicycle health-check’ (height of saddle, tyre pressure, brake cables).  If they don’t have a bike, will be able to borrow one from The Bowthorpe Experiment.  


Megaphone 


Using a megaphone, Townley and Bradby will ask participating cyclists to imagine the city of Norwich has been transformed by a radical and extensive series of one-way systems, cycle-priority routes and traffic blocks (which allow bikes to pass through).  


This mobile discussion will be a collaborative venture designed to allow people the chance to explore their own imaginings and understandings of how we have arrived at the current city layout, and our dependence upon the car. 


3 Way Bicycle Time Travel and Re-imagining 


Participants will firstly travel back in time and will be invited to experience key moments in the city’s history: the planning and development of the new district of Bowthorpe which took place in the 70’s and early 80’s.  


Secondly they will travel forwards in time and imagine how life in the rest of Norwich would be changed if some of the benefits of the Bowthorpe street layout were extended to the rest of the city.  


Thirdly they will be transported into the world of cinema when a film is projected onto the side of a building in Bowthorpe. 


The Bowthorpe Experiment will be a fun opportunity to discuss visionary changes to the city.  


Cinema powered by bicycle 


The cycle tour will be taking with it a fabulous bike-powered cinema system, designed, built and run by Magnificent Revolution. This system is packed into two bike trailers which will be towed by two of the cyclists. 


Date: Event takes place on the 13th, 14th and 15th of May 2011 


Location 
Tours leave Chapelfield Gardens at 7.30 pm each day (lasts 2.5 hours) 
Booking is essential £3/£2 per place (bike reservation). 
Festival box office 01603 766400 
For more info:  






A Good Clean Run 


 
Photo: other/other/other performance in 2010 entitled 'Longwinded in Five Parts' 


Location: Outside Gildengate House, Anglia Square, Norwich 
Time: 12 noon Saturday 21st May 2011 


On the opening day of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival an artist collective named other/other/other will erect signs that react to air quality along major roads in the city. Words will appear on the signs according to the prevailing levels of pollution in the immediate vicinity of each sign. Commands such as WALK or RUN will become apparent as the sign reacts to the surrounding air quality. 


Some of members the artist collective are runners, and have noticed the impact of city air quality on their health. On 21st of May the artists have therefore organised a run with a difference. Members of the public are invited to join the artists on this slightly absurd sporting event where the route and speed of pace will be determined by the newly revealed commands on the signs, which change according to the levels of air pollution on the particular street. 




Norfolk and Norwich Festival Family Days 
May Daze, Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th May 2011 
11-5pm Chapel Field Gardens  


Create ink 'breath' drawings and musical instruments, drop dirty water onto a polluted landscape, measure Norwich air quality and learn about how clean the River Wensum is. 


Artists and Scientists Talk 
6pm Monday 9th May 2011 
Assembly House, Norwich 
UEA scientists and artists HeHe, Liz Ballard and Townley and Bradby talk about their work. 
  
Science Café 
3pm on Saturday 28th May 2011 
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery 
Artists Lawrence Bradby and UEA hydrogeologist Dr Kevin Hiscock in conversation. 


The HeHe artwork is part of a series of art commissions ‘Invisible Breath’ in Cambridge, Norwich and London around air pollution and breathing that are supported by the Wellcome Trust. 


Norfolk and Norwich Festival website 


Contact: 
Simon Steven 
Invisible Dust Press Office (UK) 
simon@simonsteven.net 


NB: Please email me for all press enquiries. If your enquiry is urgent call UK mobile: 079391 40071 


Notes for Editors: 


About Invisible Dust 


Invisible Dust is a commissioning organisation that works with leading artists and scientists to produce new and exciting works of contemporary art. It provides the opportunity for both disciplines to share and explore common ground. Invisible Dust aims to produce significant and far reaching artists commissions in the Public Realm both in the UK and internationally, as well as supporting the creation of new scientific ideas whilst engaging audiences with large scale events, education and community activities. 


Invisible Dust was founded by Alice Sharp who has worked as an Independent Curator of projects with visual artists in the Public Realm since 1997. Sharp set up Invisible Dust to involve Artists and Scientists in exploring the effects of climate change and pollution.  
www.invisibledust.com 


About the Wellcome Trust 


The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. 
www.wellcome.ac.uk