Shadow Catching

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Jul 302010
Wendy Daws’ ‘Shadow Catching’ will be part of re:bourne on 13-14 August. Her thoughts on the project thus far:

“For me, Sittingbourne has been somewhere you drive by on the way to somewhere else. I’ve not had a reason to visit the High Street, but it has a fascinating history and I’m very happy to be immersing myself in it.”

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 11:08 am

Tide & Time

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Jul 292010
Today we’re posting the first of several bits of reflection from some of our re:bourne artists about the process of creating their re:bourne work; its impact on them as artists, and their hopes for its effect on Sittingbourne, Swale and beyond. We’ll post some random shots we’ve taken of the event site over the past few months of working there to accompany each bit of reflection…a small, slightly random bit of associative virtual art in advance of our big, non-virtual event on 13-14 August.

The following is from Swale-based artist Julie Bradshaw, whose interactive work ‘Tide & Time’ will be on our programme:

“Taking part in re:bourne has excited and enthused me. It has acted as a catalyst in making me more determined to raise the profile of Sittingbourne and Swale as an area to host art events that are both challenging and enjoyable, contemporary and traditional, and which would have people from many different locations wanting to visit and participate.”

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 7:04 pm

Just a bit of cleaning…

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Jul 282010
…of a long-unused shop, and amazing things happen. This is Lucy doing a bit of tidying in one of our re:bourne event spaces. So many people came up to us asking what we were doing, remarking on how great it was to see these shops occupied, even for an hour or two.

In a small way, this is a demonstration of the potential for arts-led community events to shed new and positive light on familar places. And for us it’s wonderful motivation as we close in in our re:bourne weekend: Friday and Saturday, 13 and 14 August, 2:30 to 5:30 on both days.

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 6:45 pm

Guerrilla Radio

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Jul 262010
Keepin’ it real at BRFM’s (96.5 FM) seacliff studio…talking re:bourne tonight from 7ish.

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 8:39 pm

6A

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Jul 232010
The re:bourne team today, getting to grips with one of the performance spaces. With us are the fantastic mixed-ability performance group, Risky Business, who are planning something very special for this space.

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 6:59 pm

Drat!

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Jul 232010
Bonus shopfront space not available after all. Time to go with Plan D (Plans B and C having long since been rendered obsolete). Still, we’ve a healthy roster of unused and unusual spaces to work with so can’t complain. Well, maybe a little…

Sent from my iPhone

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 6:47 pm

Three weeks out…

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Jul 232010
…and it’s a day in the re:bourne trenches with the production team, all of us surely hoping there are no major obstacles waiting to be unearthed. Of course if they ARE waiting, if we haven’t unearthed them maybe they’ll remain buried? Yeah, I know…I know…

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 10:22 am

The re:bourne canvas

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Jul 212010
Here’s a modestly panoramic shot of the section of Sittingbourne High Street that will host re:bourne. What you can’t see, and what even ‘regular’s don’t see (because we’ve asked them), is the very beautiful architecture on much of the street: lovely Victorian crenellation on rooftops, sturdy Tudor carriageway arches, and much more. Strange as it may sound, we’ve worked on and in a lot of high streets and have concluded that this is one of the nicest!

Over the next few weeks, keep an eye on the lampposts if you find yourself down Sittingbourne way…just one of many surprises to follow.

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 8:05 pm

Taking the ’slack’ out of slack spaces

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Jul 202010
The re:bourne event will happen on Sittingbourne High Street, but it’s where on the high street that makes it interesting. Yes, there will be activities on the pavement and even in the streets; there will be nooks and crannies to explore, interesting things happening under carriageways, in churchyards. This is one of our goals with re:bourne–to find innovative and intriguing ways to bring alive places that, on a day to day basis, never get a second look.

But perhaps the most exciting type of space we’re working with is even further off the proverbial beaten path. Due to the hard work of some friends at Swale Borough Council and the generosity of some private landlords, several re:bourne events will take place inside unused commercial spaces. You’ll have to come along to find out which ones (and what will be happening), but we can guarantee that no one who enters these spaces will ever seem them again in quite the same way, regardless of their future as commercial units.

Loosely, this aspect of re:bourne connects with something called the slack space movement. Calling it a movement, though, is perhaps a bit grand. Rather, it is a fairly recent recognition by artists and civic and commercial leaders that something more interesting than boarding and hoarding can be done with commercial properties that remain unoccupied over long periods of time, an unfortunately frequent phenomenon in these recessionary times. A Guardian article late last year estimated that as many as 70,000 commercial units were to have become vacant last year. That’s an awful lot of empty space. And when that space is smack in the middle of a high street, it tends to cast a pall over those businesses that are making a go of it.

Some slack space activities, like the Brixton Market, have become viable commercial activities in their own right. But more often, the creative or artistic use of these unused spaces is a temporary affair of mutual convenience: landlords like the positive attention, artists like the opportunity to have an interesting (and of course very public) space to work in. Is it an affair to remember? Come along to re:bourne next month and decide for yourself.

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Posted by Greg Klerkx at 3:37 pm

Only four weeks to go…

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Jul 152010

Well, it’s coming soon, folks. Re:bourne. The event. The happening. The reinterpretation/reinvention/revisioning of the lower half of Sittingbourne High Street via art, performance, sound and music…and most importantly of all, through interaction with our audiences, who we hope will muck in, have fun and through participating make the event truly come alive.

Here are a few more spaces and places to be transformed for re:bourne by Nimble Fish, Workers of Art, and the 14 artists and performers working with us. We hope to dazzle those visiting Sittingbourne for the first time; for regulars, we hope that this new look at their community is a welcome one, good for smiles, laughs and more than a few, ‘Hmmm, never thought about it that way before’ moments.

Working as we have done in Sittingbourne over the past few months, we’ve become very fond of the innate beauty of the high street: its history, its architecture, and most certainly its people. Re:bourne is about capturing and focusing this beauty and finding, we hope, a new way of conveying it to the people of Sittingbourne, Swale and beyond. We hope you’ll join us…

Posted by Greg Klerkx at 6:56 pm
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