Down at the Bamboo Club

Private view at Picture This

2009-09-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Mandy finishes film

2009-05-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

The finishing touches were being done on Mandy's film this week, concluding with a visit to a dub suite in Bristol.

Mark Wilsher's Film Shoot 27 April 2009

2009-04-29T00:50:00.001-07:00

Mark's film shoot took place in the early hours of the 27 April at Cabot Circus, Bristol. He invited members of the Bristol Methodist Circuit to take centre stage in the shopping centre and stand as though they were at the pews in their respective churches.

The film was shot without audio as Mark had previously collected the audio for his film on a visit to Hanham mount, the site of John Wesley's famous open air sermons.

Special thanks to the staff of Cabot Circus for their patience and assistance on the day.

Location visit

2009-04-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

Kat and director of photography Jaime Feliu-Torres on a preparatory visit to Cabot Circus where we will be filming The Use of Money.

Hanham Mount, 9am

2009-04-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

I spent a very cold couple of hours at Hanham Mount recording birdsong and ambient sound from the area to use in the film. The beacon, first erected in 1951, marks the place where the Field Preachers including George Whitefield and John Wesley delivered sermons to the masses (sometimes thousands of people) in the 18th century. -MW

Mandy McIntosh' Film Shoot 2-6 March

2009-04-14T07:15:00.000-07:00

Mandy Mcintosh' film shoot took place in early March. We worked with 4 male participants from the Two Way Street group throughout. They were asked to participate in sugar sculpting and junk percussion workshops held at Picture This over 3 days. To the end of the week we were in the Georgian House Museum, where the group had a series of one to one art therapy sessions in the attic space said to be Pero’s room. Mandy also asked the group to place the sugar sculptures that they had made earlier in the week around the house.

Mandy is now doing her creative edit in Glasgow and will be at Picture This at the end of May to complete the film.

Mandy McIntosh' Film Shoot (Kat's photos)

2009-04-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

(Above) From Left- Tim, Daryl and Fabian from The Two Way Street, Jim from the Georgian House Museum, Nick Gordon-Smith, Marian Liebmann and Mandy Mcintosh

(Above) Fabian

(Above) Tim and Fabian

(Above) Tim

(Above) Mandy and Nick Gordon-Smith (DOP)

(Above) Mandy and Art Therapist Marian Liebmann

(Above) Series of details of the Sugar Sculpture in situ around The Georgian House Museum

(Above) Artist Mandy McIntosh placing the sugar sculptures around the Georgian House Museum, Bristol

Production Stills on Flickr Site

2009-04-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hey we have uploaded the entire collection of Barby's production stills onto the Picture This Flickr page. Follow this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/picture-this_moving-image/

Bamboo Memories Film Shoot 17-20 Feb 2009

2009-04-07T04:34:00.000-07:00

Filming took place for Barby Asante's film in Mid- February. Over the first two days we filmed a series of Tableaux with a group of young adults at the Star and Garter Pub in Bristol. The idea behind the tableaux was to create scenes that were inspired by the testimonies and conversations that the artist had with Bamboo Club members. We used this particular location because Barby felt that from her conversations with Bamboo members, it had an intimacy that they had described.

On the 19 Feb we began the video portraits and interviews at Picture This, with Tony Bullimore being the first. The visuals and audio recorded in these sessions are to be used seperately in Barby's film. The words and ambient sounds will be sampled from the audio to create a soundscape that will be interwoven with other elements, while the video portraits will be muted studies of people who made the club what it was, be they staff, friends, cooks, or regulars.

Ajax Watson (above)

Tony Bullimore (above)

In the evening the artist also hosted a dinner/ dance event for past members of the club. She wanted this element to capture moments of recognition between old friends, neighbours and staff. The event was held at the Rose Green Cricket Grounds, Bristol. The venue is home to Bristol's Caribbean Cricket Club, which was founded in the 60s. Before securing Rose Green the club held its meetings at the Bamboo Club.

On the 20 Feb, the final day of filming we comlpeted the series of video portraits and interviews.

Invites, call outs and posters

2009-04-07T04:04:00.000-07:00

We also used this typeface to create posters to be in the background on set

Using a typeface we found on an old Bamboo Club poster, we designed posters and flyers to invite ex-Bamboo Club goers to a reunion and another to recruit young peoople for Barby's Tableaux.

Barby Images

2009-04-07T03:24:00.000-07:00

Project Manager Kat and Dutty Ken

Artist Barby and Tony Bullimore

Project Details

2009-04-07T03:22:00.000-07:00

Mandy McIntosh's project 'Session; Sugar Version (Naked Like a Star or a Stone)' is working with the history of the Georgian House Museum to explore the psychological and emotional state of slave Pero and to consider contemporary issues around the over representation of black men in the mental health system. She has been meeting with The Two Way Street which is a support group initiated and run by African and African Caribbean mental health care service users to support one another. The group is excited to participate in the activities around Mandy’s project in the early part of the New Year, which will include art therapy sessions, sugar sculpting and junk percussion workshops.

Barby Asante's project entitled 'Bamboo Memories' explores the Bamboo Club’s social and cultural legacy as one of the first spaces in Bristol for social interaction between the Caribbean and Bristolian communities in the 60s and 70s. This Autumn Barby completed a series of interviews with Club owner Tony Bullimore and ex Bamboo Club members an in the early part of the New Year she will be hosting a reunion at the Rose Green Caribbean Cricket Club in Bristol. The cricket club was founded at the Bamboo Club and as such holds great resonance to the project.

Mark Wilsher is exploring the legacy of the New Room Methodist Chapel and its founder and preacher John Wesley. The project entitled ‘The Use of Money’, after Wesley’s famous sermon draws links with the Chapel’s location in Broadmead and its historical and contemporary links with the city’s trade. Mark’s project continues in next year with a series of workshops and meetings to open discourse between himself and individuals of the Methodist community on their faith and making money.

Bamboo Blog catch up...

2009-04-07T03:02:00.000-07:00

Down at the Bamboo Club is making good progress, so well infact that we have not had much time to update the blog! We will be posting a back log of info and trying our best to keep up to date from here on, promise.

Church banners

2008-12-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

Three banners displaying visual analogies for the way that churches bring many different activities together under one umbrella. The more visible activities (like services on a Sunday) are just a small proportion of everything that takes place in pursuing their Christian mission.

Early meetings at the New Room & Broadmead

2008-11-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

John Hirst of the Broadmead shopping centre displays an overview of the masterplan for commercial activites in the area including the new Cabot Circus development.

David & Rachael from Wesley's New Room with Jo & Kat from Picture This, standing by the pulpit

Mandy McIntosh – Bristol’s Georgian House

2008-10-17T06:32:00.001-07:00

Mandy McIntosh is a Glasgow based artist who uses an array of media: animation, video and knitting in the development of her projects. Employing a variety of methods McIntosh’s work often responds to particular social, historical and geographical contexts.

'My work is very mobile, sometimes electronic, sometimes film, sometime objects. When I say mobile, I mean that it shifts context and form and methodology. Sometimes it’s made in a site-specific sociological context, for example, a virtual reality simulacrum of a real mining village in Staffordshire which hosted a hypothetical monument to miners. Sometimes it’s more simple. Recently, I made a garment which encapsulated my thinking on the symbolism of vultures in the American landscape.

For Bamboo Club, Mandy would like to develop a project out of an extended visit to Bristol and time spent at the Georgian House site.

Mark Wilsher – The New Room

2008-10-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

Mark Wilsher is an artist, curator and writer currently based in Norwich. His practice incorporates, sculpture, drawing and performance. For EAST 05 exhibition in Norwich, Wilsher performed a different speeches every Saturday for 7 weeks, his re-enactments often confront audiences with a replaying of little read and seldom heard historical documents.

a video of Mark Wilsher's performance at the opening - wherein this white, preppy-looking artist recited Martin Luther King's 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech. Presenting himself as a 'semi-subjective filter of news and witness to history', Wilsher managed with very simple means to create a heady complex of mixed emotions that alluded strongly to the present moment, and which had a leftfield bravery about it characteristic of the best of the show."
Martin Herbert, Modern Painters Nov '05

He has recently been making works that re-engage with abstract public sculptures dating from the late 1940s to the 1980s. Such works – often large composites made of metal, and many by artists that have been forgotten today – continue to have a life in the form of photographs in old journals and catalogues. Wilsher used his fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds to study these works, and the resulting body of work will be on show at the Institute in 2008.

For Down at the Bamboo, Mark is interested in exploring the rich history of sermons and speeches at The Wesley Rooms, with its social function within Bristol and historical links to the abolitionist movement. Mark in conjunction with a group of participants might research, develop and stage a series of re-enactments.

Barby Asante – The Bamboo Club

2008-10-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

Barby Asante is a London-based artist who uses engagement and participatory strategies to explore her interest in performativity, particularly in relation to her cultural identity. Many of her ideas consider that we are all complicit in the creation and construction of our identities and the identities of those around us. She is interested in how we perform our identities and wants to create works that do not assign the problem of identity to particular groups in society, but rather consider identity as something that effects us all.

She has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. Projects include I Accept Your, Image I am You, 198 Gallery, Journey Into The East, The Showroom Gallery and Futurology: Black Country 2024, New Art Gallery, Walsall. She was Lead Artist for the Bow Festival Roman Road Revel (2004) and is currently working on You Should See Kaba Styles for Africa Remix, at the Hayward Gallery in London. ). In 2006 she began collaborating with Andrea Encinas on the Funk Chorus, which invites people to share their desire to sing. She is currently working on a project with older people exploring karaoke and the possibility of this popular activity as being an outlet for our personal histories and memories. Barby also has extensive experience in running workshops and she talks regularly to artists about practice.

Barby is very interested in the Bamboo Clubs’ Social and cultural legacy and is very keen to develop the project through meeting individuals like founder Tony Bullimore and musicians and regular club members. She’s also interested in re-engaging young and contemporary audiences in Bristol with this rich social and oral history.

Harold Offeh. Introduction

2008-10-17T05:42:00.000-07:00

Hello

I am Harold Offeh and with Picture This, I am co-curating "Down at the Bamboo Club". The project consists of programme of activity exploring aspects of Bristol's social and political histories using devices such as irony, oration and filmic re-creation. The project will use re-enactments to enable participants to explore subjects such as community relations, the legacy of slave trading on the city's economy and communities, histories of division and solidarity, and the heritage of their own roles in the city today.

My involvement stems from an invitation from Picture This Director Joesphine Lanyon to help develop and curate a series of projects that negotiated aspects of Bristol's history, particularly in relation to the Abolition 200 commemorations taking place in Bristol and cities like London and Liverpool. Picture This and I identified a number of project partners that would form a base for the invited artists research and production.

Up until June 2009 the invited artists Barby Asante, Mark Wilsher and Mandy McIntosh will developed separate projects engaging participants in the history and legacy of 3 sites. This blog will attempt to map out and document some the artists research and the development of the project leading up to group exhibition to be staged in bristol in the Summer 2009. I hope the blog with also act as a forum for comment, discussion and debate. I'll be making regular contributions to contextualize the project and hopefully the page will archive the overall projects development

Barby Asante, Mark Wilsher and Mandy McIntosh are working with:

Bristol’s Georgian House is an 18th century townhouse built for John Pinney, a West India merchant who retired to Bristol from the plantations. Due to conservation issues, it is difficult for the institution to increase its but the curator is keen for artists to explore the meanings present within the building and create greater understandings around its history.

The New Room – John Wesley's Chapel, is the oldest Methodist Chapel in the world with a unique history in relation to the bicentenary of the parliamentary Abolition, it was here Wesley wrote his paper Thoughts Upon Slavery in 1774. The Chapel is keen for its history to be re-interpreted and made relevant to contemporary debates around human trafficking.

The Bamboo Club – a legendary venue in St Pauls – encouraged social interaction between communities through music and dance at a time when there was still a colour bar preventing employment of black people drivers or conductors on Bristol buses. The venue held powerful resonance for many Bristolians now aged 55 and over, and its heritage exists largely through reminiscences, the ongoing friendships it fostered and the positive affirmation of community relations it represented. The Bamboo Club burnt down in 1977.