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This is a colouring in book. The idea is borrowed from Balsall Heath carnival who produce a colouring in poster each year that is distributed around the local area. Whilst this has the handy advantage of cutting costs (being black and white), the poster format invites a level of instant participation - and a sense of ownership - within the yearly carnival. The colouring in poster format is one of many things we have learnt over the last six months. During this time we have been running a consultation with the local community called the Balsall Heath Biennale. Our interpretation of the concept of the Biennale is not as an event that happens every two years, but a project inception in October 2011, through a research period with the local community, the Biennale will culminate in a series of projects and events in the Summer/Autumn of 2013. This publication is a record and capturing of the consultation process; it also includes hypothetical propositions and ideas for the project in 2013 (see entries in boxes). The A-Z format was chosen for three reasons: (1) it enables a non-hierarchical, democratic presentation of the consultation activity in Balsall Heath; (3) it represents a deliberate attempt at linking up the huge amount of information we have gathered. over the consultation process as something that community groups concept within the context of the publication and the project. The going on in Balsall Heath. The publication is not exhaustive in its knowledge of Balsall based upon the views of people collected during the consultation process and our own knowledge having lived here as residents for seven years. Please colour in creatively. 3
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A Boards
The most important component of any Biennale. A street level, visible sign that something unusual is occurring. Does a Biennale require anything else other than A-Boards and merchandise?
See Community Biennale, Merchandise
Activism of activism was one of the reasons we were excited about developing a project in the area. We had downloaded a pdf of an old copy of the typewriter with hand drawn graphics and printed on a bandana machine. The front page detailed the planned closure of the Art School and the protests being organised against this.
See Art School, Balsall Heath, Balsall Heath Forum, Heathan, Common,
Adoption Agency
a particular street or individual and began to have a use value beyond dumping.
See Common, Confused Spaces, Green and Clean, Unadopted Alleys
Agricultural Show (Balsall Heath)
Building on the success of the Balsall Heath Chilli Farm and Cheddar Road Gardens, this project would incorporate two events: a day of Open
See Cheddar Road Gardens, Chilli Farm, Common, Green Trail, Open Gardens
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Al Nakheel Restaurant
A Yemeni restaurant on Edward Road. Al Nakheel opened in 2011 in a building formally run as a public house called The Coach & Horses. The staff are friendly and the food is cheap - unlike its previous incarnation as a pub which was a fairly terrifying experience.
See Pubs
Apna Town
Several years ago, there was a contest to rename the Balti Triangle. The public voted for their favourite and it it was won by a Sikh gentleman from abandoned the idea and stuck with Balti Triangle.
See Balti
Artists
The Balsall Heath Biennale project was initiated by artists Chris Poolman and Elizabeth Rowe - who have lived in Balsall Heath for seven years. Chris and Liz are based at Grand Union studios and project space in Digbeth. www.chrispoolman.com www.elrowe.com www.grand-union.org.uk
See Contemporary Art, Local, Stray Cats, Superspace
Arts Council
The Arts Council are a national funding body for the arts. They funded the consultation project through their Grants for the Arts scheme. They are based at The Hive in Manchester. www.artscouncil.org.uk
See Beekeeping, Funding
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Art School
Otherwise known as The College of Art on Moseley Road. When it opened The Moseley School of Art Association was established in 2002 as a forum slowly falling into a state of dilapidation. talks in locations on the Moseley Road in close proximity to the derelict problematics of the consultation: the role and value attributed to creative activities (i.e. art, craft, design, dance, drama and music) within education and society more generally. for our workshops with local schools.
See Engagement, Talk Series, Workshops
Awards
Organised by Balsall Heath Forum, award ceremonies are a long established part of the community calendar in Balsall Heath. The Dynamic Youth Awards (rewarding young people who have played a positive role within their community) and The Heart of Gold Awards (celebrating the long term achievements of people helping to improve the area) happened during 2012. Both events attracted up to 300 people; they also included a free curry.
See Balsall Heath Forum, Community Meal, Engagement, Food (Free), Peerages
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Badge hope to re-instate it on T-shirts, badges, tote bags and posters as Biennale merchandise in 2013.
See Festival, Heathen, Hyperlocal, Local
Balsall Heath being socially and economically disadvantaged, Balsall Heath also has a growing number of people living and working in the area who produce activism and is currently involved in a central government pilot as part of the Localism Bill to develop a Neighbourhood Plan and Neighbourhood
marketing the wider cultural offer of the neighbourhood. This is something preventing local people engaging with existing cultural provision based on lack of understanding and possibly a lack of trust.
See Activism, Health Statistics, Neighbourhood Plan, Neighbourhood Budget, Politicians, Space, Statistics
Balsall Heath Arts Forum
Despite the growing number of arts organisations in Balsall Heath, they exist with limited knowledge of each others work and the individuals who Balsall Heath Arts Forum.
See Sparkbrook Art Agenda
Balsall Heath in Bloom
Balsall Heath in Bloom is part of Britain in Bloom, an annual national been involved in Balsall Heath in Bloom and we hope to develop a number of projects as part of the Biennale that continue this interest. 13
Balsall Heath 14
Our involvement was through a chilli growing project working with 60 students at Nelson Mandela school to grow chillies for a display on the Cheddar Road Gardens - also formed part of the judging trail.
See Agricultural Show, Cheddar Road Gardens, Chilli Farm, Clean and Green, Common, Curating Balsall Heath in Bloom, Growing, Open Gardens, Planter Sculptures
Balsall Heath is Our Planet carbon emissions of our inner city neighbourhood. www.balsallheathisourplanet.wordpress.com
One idea that proved popular across the consultation was a Balsall Heath spaces associated with the Biennale, as well as Balsall Heath more widely. These would be transmitted and stored on-line for the public to access as a legacy for the project.
function as an information hub for the project and a distribution centre for on the other projects and events we are organising as part of the project (e.g. Balsall Heath World Cup, Public Art Shares) and feature a small shop series of pop-up stations around Balsall Heath.
See Balsall Heath Arts Forum, Craft Activities, Dogon Tribe, Ladypool Road, Neutral Spaces, Sparkbrook Arts Agenda 15
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Balsall Heath World Cup
This idea was used as one of the posters advertising the Biennale and proved very popular; we even had people knocking on our front door asking when the Balsall Heath World Cup was taking place. Many of the like to see more of.
The idea of a World Cup in an area that contains people from so many different countries seems to be a pertinent way to explore how people develop loyalty to where they were born, where they live and each other. sport for children (based at the end of our road), this event would be organised with their support. We plan to devise games that subvert the traditional two-sided football structure. This event draws on the idea of three-sided football, a variation of
and unlike conventional football, where the winner is determined by the highest scoring of the two teams, no score is kept of the goals which a team scores, but conversely a count is taken of the number of goals conceded and the winning team is that which concedes the least number of goals.
See Common, Local Leagues
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Ladypool Road Balti Museum 18
Balti
Balti is a British style curry cooked to please the Western palatte, prepared developed in Birmingham with Balsall Heath at the forefront of this Asian food revolution, though few restaurants still cook using this method today. masses of people into the local area and changed peoples eating habits. Our publicity poster - Ladypool Road Balti Museum - outlined a hypothetical idea for what we assumed would be a good thing for Balsall Heath: a museum celebrating and documenting the history of the Balti in the local area. The poster however, came to represent something of a problem for us. The Balti - or at least the expansion of Balti restaurants in no limit on restaurants – and this brings problems such as litter and vermin. on or near the Ladypool Road, was the litter produced by these restaurants and the effect this had on their lives on a daily basis. The Balti is also a contested issue because of the 30+ Balti houses in the Balti triangle only six of them are authentic Balti houses. They are: Al Frash, Popular, Diwan, Adil, Shabab and Shahi Nan Kebab (this one is slightly outside the area on the Stratford Road; apparently the chef is a former Pakistani navy chef whose curries are very very hot). Andy Munro, chairman of the Balti Association, is currently campaigning
See Biennale Balti, Health Statistics, Ladypool Road, Litter
Beekeeping
See Arts Council, Agricultural Show, Wastelands Twinning
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Biennale lingua franca, the information booklet we produced described the concept of a Biennale as follows:
within the art world to describe an international festival of contemporary Biennale, although other cities across the world - Berlin, Moscow and Liverpool for example - also have Biennales. We want to create a Biennale
Meetings). We now interpret the concept of the Biennale in terms of a project that has this period of time.
See Community Biennale, Common
Biennale Balti in conjunction with a restaurant such as Al Frash or Popular Balti.
See Waitor Curator
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Bin Bags (Limited Edition)
A series of limited edition bin bags designed by artists to be distributed around Balsall Heath for a set time period. Although functional bin bags, the streets on rubbish collection day, they would also draw attention to the rubbish bag as an object we have become accustomed to in the West (and perhaps make people think about their rubbish consumption).
See Common, Dogon Tribe, Fly Tipping, Green and Clean, Litter
Birmingham City Council Cultural Commissioning
Birmingham City Council provides funding for cultural activity taking place in the region. The department is called Cultural Commissioning. You can apply to this department to fund your cultural activity. www.birmingham.gov.uk
Birmingham Surrealists
The Birmingham Surrealists were an informal grouping of artists and intellectuals associated with the Surrealist movement, based in Birmingham
included artists Emmy Bridgewater, Oscar Mellor and the young Desmond Morris. The Birmingham Surrealists would meet in the Kardomah Cafe on New house in Balsall Heath which would also often play host to more eclectic Henry Reed and Walter Allen and writers Stuart Gilbert and Henry Green.
See Surrealist Nights
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Blues
Andy Munro, chairman of the Balti Association (and also editor of a where the former pub The Crown is on St Pauls Road.
See Balsall Heath World Cup, Pubs
Buckminster Fuller
Buddhist Centre the local authorities ( by about 100 metres), the Buddhist Centre on Mary Street has been mentioned several times on questionnaires. www.birminghambuddhistcentre.org.uk
See Faith
Businesses
Although largely in favour of a Biennale, several local business owners effect on their business. One shop owner in particular, a Halal butchers on Edward Road, gave two examples when two recent events had a detrimental effect on his business. The Skyride and Bupa half marathon saw the roads closed around Balsall Heath and people unable to drive into the area to visit his shop. At the Sparkbrook Arts Agenda meeting at The Hubb, the local town centre regeneration manager outlined how arts and businesses can work together. The Arts Council publication Edge: The Business Case For Using The Arts in Town Centres and Business expands on this.
See Sparkbrook Arts Agenda 23
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Cabbadi
See Kabbadi
Calthorpe Park
Calthorpe Park is one of the largest parks in Birmingham, but perhaps a with its park keeper suggested that the park lacked a cohesive identity. communication between all of the different groups that use it. The park effective signage that captured and linked up all of the groups and people who use the park. This would make a good start in forming a stronger identity for the park, and could perhaps lead onto a Friends of the Park group being created. when the council used the area as a dumping ground for earth dug out during the building of the Belgrave Middleway.
See Common, Clean and Green, The Harborne Factor
Calthorpe Park Play Centre and Court Road residents meetings.
See Neutral Spaces
Cannon Hill Park
The questionnaires that we distributed contained an image of a map of Balsall Heath. On this we asked people to mark three of their favourite places in the local area. The most popular destination was Cannon Hill Park, which geographically sits just outside the boundary (literally by metres). Cannon Hill Park has recently been awarded Green Flag status.
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The reasons people gave for using Cannon Hill Park were predominantly recreational, such as sport and play areas, but rarely for the Midlands Arts that most of its users came from outside the local area, and had traveled to
See Mac, Space
Carnival of the local schools are involved in this, preparing costumes and props for the carnival procession. Carnival was cancelled this year because of the
See Community, Linkages
Cash Points
Hardly any. Live in Balsall Heath to save money.
Celebrating Sanctuary
Celebrating Sanctuary Birmingham works through the arts to raise awareness of the contributions that refugees make to the UK, and in particular to the city of Birmingham. Their events celebrate the tradition refugee artists to further their careers and reach new audiences. We ran an information stall at a Celebrating Sanctuary event at The Old Printworks.
Central Mosque largest mosque in the UK. www.centralmosque.org.uk
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Chaos Acoustic Night
Every Sunday night at The Old Moseley Arms public house on Tindal Street. Possibly organised by someone from The Move. Brilliant.
See Old Moseley Arms, Pubs
Cheddar Road Gardens Birmingham, if not the UK, for prostitution. Although no longer the case, the road still retains a reputation of a sort with people coming from outside along Cheddar Road. Behind many of the houses on Cheddar Road, there are a number of legally binding shared gardens – literally common spaces - that no one takes ownership of. Balsall Heath Forum have been cleaning one particular space for years (approximately the equivalent of seven back gardens) only for it to become neglected again. First to develop the space into a community garden. Whilst its a gardening project, and now includes a polytunnel and raised beds, the space is primarily conceived of as a social space in which people might come litter problems. The garden formed part of the Balsall Heath in Bloom 2012 judging trail. The judges were impressed, except for the three metre high Giant poisonous plants whose sap can cause scarring and permanent blindness. Later in the year we will be organising an event and a chilli plant sale; money raised from this will be re-invested into the garden, buying seeds and compost for 2013. www.cheddarroadcommunitygarden.tumblr.com
See Agricultural Show, Chilli Garden, Clean and Green, Common, Contemporary Art, Extra Curricular, Health Statistics 29
for young children and parents. Situated off Clifton Road next to the City Farm. www.stpaulstrust.org.uk
Chilli Farm
During our initial research into Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook in 2011, we came across a little known, but pioneering community food growing project was called Ashram Acres, and it involved local people, many of them unemployed migrants, reclaiming derelict land to establish a large community growing initiative. Although pioneering as a model of self-organisation, in that it resisted interested in the projects growing practices: it specialised in producing knowledge and expertise brought by migrants from abroad. culinary landscape. The chilli for example, is synonymous with Balsall Heath, in that the area is home to the famous Balti Triangle. We began to develop a project called Balsall Heath Chilli Farm, which was conceived as a mass community growing initiative. Balsall Heath Chilli Farm would have no permanent base; rather it would be the sum of its many parts and be based across Balsall Heath in peoples gardens, in kitchens, on windowsills and scraps of wasteland. Alongside the growing side of things, the project would include an ambitious programme of events related to growing, including a Balsall Heath Chilli Festival.
because of global warming).
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school students at Nelson Mandela school to grow chillies for Balsall Heath in Bloom.
See Balsall Heath in Bloom, Cheddar Road Gardens, Curating Balsall Heath in Bloom
Church Centre gatherings and as a meeting place for local elderly people, the Church Centre is on the corner of Mary Street and Edward Road. A venue for with an auditorium. www.balsallheathandedgbaston.org.uk
See Faith
Cinemas unusual locations around Balsall Heath (i.e Raja brothers, the global food superstore on the Ladypool Road that used to be a cinema). The Balsall information on all the cinemas that used to be in Balsall Heath.
City Farm located just off Clifton Road. Balsall Heath also used to have a Zoological gardens in the 1800s. The stray cats that now stalk the local area may be www.stpaulstrust.org.uk/community/balsall-heath-city-farm
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Clifton Primary School
Clifton School is quite unique in that the week prior to Balsall Heath Carnival, the school has a creative arts week dedicated to preparing for Balsall Heath carnival. We went into the school during this week and
www.cliftonprimary.bham.sch.uk
See Fictionalising, Workshops
Clifton Road Mosque
Large mosque off the Moseley Road.
See Faith
The carnival organisers produce colouring in posters for Balsall Heath carnival each year. They then run a competition off the back of this for the best entries. Apparently grown men still dispute their lack of prizes 20 years down the line. The colouring in posters create opportunities for ownership of an event. We used the colouring in model for the street party we helped to organise distributed posters to the 60 houses on Eastwood Road. This was something of an experiment for us, as we had no idea how many would go up along the road, but over the course of the week the road became peppered with
As a next step we would produce 10 different colouring in posters to public space and present 10 famous public sculptures digitally integrated into the Balsall Heath landscape.
See Common, Experiment, Ownership, Public Art Shares, Reasons, Street Party 33
Commissioning
An idea we are currently exploring is the possibility of commissioning people who live or work in Balsall Heath. This was framed by an interest in neighbourhood budgeting, and discussions around how a Biennale might be shaped by local people. Unlike a conventional Biennale the funding
Something that prompted this model was the number of creative people we met who are simply unfamiliar with making any form of application for funding, as well as all of the professional creative people that we know who are based in Balsall Heath.
Exchange
Common
Across the consultation, there is one word that has continually re-surfaced in relation to Balsall Heath: community.
and crime to what it is today. organisations, a network of residents associations and a packed calendar the streets. But as a community space the area still has problems: litter and dumping on shared public spaces, vermin, low levels of job opportunity and high levels of health problems among residents. Balsall Heath Forum and local councillors are currently developing a series attempt to revitalise the physical fabric of Balsall Heath to compliment the social fabric of the area. understand Balsall Heath as a community and a geographical space. 34
then all over Europe, the meadows, where animals grazed, and the forests,
The common as a concept is multi-faceted. Etymologically it is related to
open access to cultural products such as information and ideas. Our interpretation of the common as a concept within the context of Balsall Heath is that it is concerned with the politics of sharing - be that space, captures the good of Balsall Heath (the community spirit) but also the bad (litter and common spaces that have become neglected).
See Balsall Heath in Bloom, Balsall Heath World Cup, Cheddar Road Garden, Community Art, Confused Spaces, Contemporary Art, Public Art Shares, Neutral Spaces, Street Party, Unadopted Alleys
Community Art art coming into contact with the methods, structures and thinking of audience? How do we talk about contemporary art with a non-specialist audience? as a community art project. By this we mean that it is a project within as artists, can play a role within this community (or be chased out for witchcraft).
See Commissioning, Common, Community Biennale, Contemporary Art, Local, Stray Cats 35
Neighbourhood Plan for Balsall Heath 2012 36
Community Biennale proposition put forward by Lucy Lippard at the 2010 Falmouth convention:
inserting a practice often scorned by the global art world. Curators could issues in the location, the community and activist organizations dealing with them, and seek out artists who could provide models for thinking and Our consultation period was modelled upon this idea of consulting with space. As artists we will select the most relevant and interesting projects that respond to this period of research.
Community Meals
Balsall Heath Forum organise communal meals roughly every three months. These are open to anyone within the community. These involve a form of entertainment, (music, poetry, dance or drama) and a free curry at the end. Often they attract over 300 people and are an important way of people coming together over food.
See Faith, Free Food, Picnic, Reasons
Confused Spaces patches of land owned by the City Council or Housing Associations that have become neglected and under used.
See Common, Curating Balsall Heath in Bloom, Green Trail, Open Gardens, Planter Sculptures, Wasteland Twinning
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City Farm gets a whale 38
Consultation
We developed a proposal for Arts Council England that sought to initiate a period of consultation to develop ideas and relationships for the Biennale project. The consultation included:
Meetings talking to people in person, was central to the success of the project. We had 24 meetings during the consultation period.
Residents Meetings out about the local area in detail and form key relationships with active residents. We attended 20 residents meetings. We held 4 public information sessions at Mac, Ort CafĂŠ, The Old event).
Workshops We worked with four partnership organisations, The Hubb, Clifton Primary
Stray Cat Sock Puppets, Tour Guides, Workshops
Contemporary Art
Adorno described the Avant Garde as:
roll about secretly in a monstrous hall, a fact which they do not themselves
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Craft Activities something people would like to see more of in Balsall Heath. We would incorporate these as part of another project - The Recycled Cosmology of the Zaffs Tribe of Balsall Heath. An unusual craft activity that took place at the Balsall Heath Festival in
See Carnival, Commissions, Common, Dogon Tribe, Festival, Picnics, Zaffs
Cultural Differences may encourage vermin, but it is often underpinned by a religious belief; the correct etiquette for a mosque; leeks are big in Yemeni culture – they will make a leek go further by continually cutting off the top to eat and allowing it to grow back.
Curating Balsall Heath in Bloom
We hope to continue our relationship with Balsall Heath in Bloom and build upon the current Green & Clean agenda initiated by Balsall Heath Forum and spaces will form a permanent trail through Balsall Heath, working in conjunction with the Map and Open Gardens event. A good example of an artist developing a conceptually rigorous growing
Eastside district. The artist researched and catalogued these specimens occupied.
See Agricultural Show, Bin Bags (Limited Edition), Common, Dogon Tribe, Green and Clean, Map, Planter Sculptures, Wastelands Twinning 41
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Dark Room
Balsall Heath now has a community darkroom, run by Dan Burwood at The Old Printworks. www.darkroombirmingham.co.uk
Hourly rate : Off peak £6 / hour, peak time £8 / hour Email: danburwood@gmail.com
Decorate Your House Competition
This came from a questionnaire response – and we felt it was a really look spectacular if it occurred on a mass-scale across the local area over the course of one summer weekend. coming together (as seen in the success of the street party) and would be an experiment in to how a creative activity can bring people together. We plan to use the street that we live on (approximately 60 houses) as documented by a professional photographer. The event will have an unusual theme: decorate your house in a surreal hopefully produce some unpredictable results.
See Awards, Birmingham Surrealists, Common, Street Party, Sweeping
Destroyers www.thedestroyers.co.uk
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happening during the Biennale.
See Commissioning, Surrealist Nights
Dogon Tribe by Laurence Douny. This essay outlines the approach of the Mali Dogon tribe towards rubbish. Unlike Western attitudes towards waste, the Dogon retain all their domestic waste, putting it to new and unexpected uses. Their This involves selling novelty items to tourists who come to see the Dogon tribe and their waste. (See centre pages). Given the litter and rubbish problems in Balsall Heath, the Dogon tribe offer an interesting framework for thinking about Balsall Heath and rubbish is an ethical one: they retain all the waste that they produce.
See Cultural Differences, Litter, Zaffs
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Eco House
This private family home on Tindal Street, Balsall Heath was own renewable energy with no use of fossil fuels, and has won six design www.zerocarbonhousebirmingham.org.uk
Engagement
Our objective was to try and do a consultation differently by creating community art. local area. We also wanted these devices to be inherently creative in themselves. There were three main engagement tools -
of Balsall Heath printed and constructed two remote control ice cream vans. Children were drawn to these, often seeing it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to pull the arial off a miniature ice cream van. These were Heath.
2. Stray cat sock puppets Balsall Heath has a rich lineage of stray cats, particularly ginger ones. We developed sock puppets, albeit stray cat sock puppets. We ran school, we ran a stray cat writing workshop exploring some of the problems of the local area. This involved generating a new language or
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3. Splat the Balsall Heath Rat Balsall Heath has a vermin problem. Local people were more than willing viciously attack a plastic rat with a baseball bat.
the Rat, Trust, Workshops
Environmental Warden
When discussing the problem of litter at residents meetings people would such measures. Balsall Heath has now appointed an Environmental Warden whose name
Essay Cats have a distinguished history in contemporary art, ranging from Marcel
The essay is currently being written by a cat called Roger (who is ginger). Roger writes in a combination of cat-speak, local youth patois and before he was brought into a house and made to read philosophy.
Experiment
Balsall Heath is something of a test-bed for experiments into community. place in the country that is a pilot for both the Neighbourhood Plan and Neighbourhood Budgeting. We also consider our interpretation of the Biennale as something of an experiment.
See Activism, Community Biennale, Neighbourhood Budget, Neighbourhood Plan
Extra Curricular Activity
Over the last six months, the consultation has expanded to include a number of activities not in the original Arts Council application.
See Awards, Cheddar Road Gardens, Community Meals, Street Party
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Faith
Balsall Heath is a strongly religious space, comprised of multiple faiths. Faith related issues came up numerous time - from the suggestion of a faith book fair by a Ladypool Road shop keeper to the owner of SMS supermarket on Edward Road saying he would welcome the opportunity to
See Faith Book Fair
Faith Book Fair
Could there also be a stand for books on contemporary art – a different type of faith?
Fast Food
Alongside the Balti houses of Balsall Heath, there are numerous fast food outlets. Many of these become permanent sites for litter, such as the kebab house on the junction of Edward and Cannon Hill Park Road.
ideal Balsall Heath. Many of the children drew or painted fast food outlets.
Festival
William McCabe of St Pauls Trust kindly emailed us a selection of (See The festival was organised by Anne Harwig, a 23-year-old Dutch student who had undertaken a survey in the area as part of her university course. The newspaper article explains that she found this a deeply sad experience:
all evening bringing up children or doing housework, and they had no
The festival included peerages, tree knitting, street-cleaning-cum-teawere involved with Yard of Ale competitions, domino contests and armwrestling bouts. The festival attracted a lot of interest within the city, as this Birmingham Mail reporter explains:
year-old who tried to take the hub-caps off my car, are taking a delighted See Carnival, Commissions, Picnics, Pubs
Fictionalising had an unlimited budget. We wanted to create an imaginary interpretation of local public space.
See Fast Food, Workshops
Fly Tipping residents or people coming from outside of the area. Balsall Heath Forum regularly go through bags of rubbish to identify their origins; we heard stories of people coming from the Black Country to dump all their fast-food restaurant business waste in Balsall Heath. One Cheddar Road resident explained to us that at night she would often see trucks coming to the road to dump rubbish.
Food (free)
The community get-togethers that Balsall Heath Forum organise every three months at the Church centre all conclude with a communal meal - a free curry. Attendance is always high.
See Awards, Common, Community Meals, Engagement, Reasons 55
Birmingham Mail,
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Forum (Balsall Heath)
from a Mosque, Anglican and Methodist churches, and a voluntary organisation. They were joined by a Trades Unionist and half a dozen residents. Together, they made progress in changing the image of the area, forming mid -summer carnival, starting & contributing to a community newspaper. They achieved a number of successes and eventually decided to become a Company Limited by Guarantee and to be called the Balsall Heath Neighbourhood Forum.
members and 600 take part in the vote. There are 12 resident elected members, 6 residents who represent voluntary and faith organisations and 4 who are co-opted.
crime reduced, more people involved and supported - that it was decided to raise the funds to recruit and manage staff. Today, the voluntary elected committee employs 20 people. The Forum now both represents the local voice to the public and private sectors and undertakes a variety of tasks with the help of its staff and an
The Forum have been enormously helpful in the consultation process, allowing us to sit in on 20 residents meetings, facilitating space for the community garden and sharing information, contacts and networks. www.balsallheathforum.org.uk
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community organisations - and the Matchbox cafe.
Funding
Our approach to securing funding for the Biennale is is develop a modular short of a few projects. The organisations we are making applications to are: Arts Council England, Birmingham City Council Cultural Commissioning, Birmingham City Council Neighbourhood Budgeting, Near Neighbours, the Police Proceeds from Crime Fund, Community First, Awards For All and Young Roots. We will also seek funding from businesses and through private donations.
See Peerages
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Games feature on the Balsall Heath community calendar), talked of trying to involve a police team within the contest, because it allowed the police to disrupting social hierarchies.
See Balsall Heath World Cup, Common, Police
Giant Map vinyl map of Balsall Heath. This proved extremely popular with children.
Green and Clean
Across the local area at the moment, there is a Green and Clean policy coming into place. This is co-ordinated by the Forum with the support of local Labour councillors. We hope to contribute towards this push for a greener and cleaner neighbourhood with a number of our proposals for the Biennale.
See Agricultural Show, Curating Balsall Heath in Bloom, Map, Planter Sculptures, Wastelands Twinning
Growing
A number of the projects we are developing for the Biennale have a growing impetus. As will become apparent across the publication, litter and dumping are a recurring problem in the local area and we feel the best way to combat this is by making a permanent contribution to the physical environment in Balsall Heath.
new square of Sneinton, intended for communal use and enjoyment. The artist also donated apple trees of over 100 different varieties, through his 64
apple tree adoption network to local residents, schools and community orchard spanning the east side of the city. Over the weekend launch of Sneinton Market, Neville Gabie invited Nottingham based artists and organisations to join him in creating a varied programme of events to celebrate the planting of the apple trees. This programme comprised an exhibition, a symposium, a market, and a feast alongside night-time projections and sampling of delicious local produce. The project was
Although not always obvious, and lacking any City Council allotment provision, Balsall Heath is probably greener than you think. Dotted across the area are numerous micro green initiatives. All of the local primary schools have active gardening clubs and there is a well-established local gardening competition run by Balsall Heath Forum. The Forum also run The Tree Nursery, a small oasis in the heart of Balsall Heath. Nestling behind the Church centre is a wonderful garden and auditorium, a community garden is been set up at The Old Printworks, Elliot House has a gardening club and Martineau Gardens sits right on the boundary of Balsall Heath.
See Balsall Heath in Bloom, Cheddar Road Gardens, Common, Curating Balsall Heath in Bloom, Health Statistics, Green & Clean, Martineau Gardens, Planter Sculptures, Statistics, The Tree Nursery, Wasteland Twinning
Gudwara Singh
Balsall Heath has several Sikh Temples; two on Moseley Road and one on Mary Street.
See Faith
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Harborne Factor of council provision (road repairs, street furniture) in relation to some good enough for Balsall Heath.
See Balsall Heath, Saheli Women
Health Statistics
The Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Partnership (BHWP) outline in their
This is within the context of Birmingham having the least physically active and the second highest rate of childhood obesity among children in year 6, amongst the eight core cities in the UK.
Heathan still published on a monthly basis and distributed to all homes in Balsall Heath by the Forum and volunteers. We had two Biennale related articles published in the Heathan, and it proved to be a useful way of letting people know about the project. of The Heathan as inspiration.
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The original Balsall Heathan magazine had something of a radical edge Heathan as large posters and distribute them around Balsall Heath in visible locations (i.e. shops along the Ladypool Road). But the reproduction would come with one major difference: they would be translated into a number of languages now spoken around the area, thereby giving people new ways to access their local history.
Hillac Cafe
Somalian restaurant on the Moseley Road, next to The Old Printworks. Great value food. Alongside chicken and lamb dishes, it also does pasta hand side and a large selection of private eating booths. Cavernous upstairs space for hire - includes two large ornate thrones, often used for weddings.
History Society
Balsall Heath has an active Local History Society with an incredible archive that is now available online. www.balsallheathhistory.co.uk
History Plaques
An idea to make visible the history of Balsall Heath. Like the blue plaques often seen on buildings in London, this would celebrate the people who have lived and worked in Balsall Heath
Housing Associations
About a third of the housing in Balsall Heath is run by Housing Associations for people on low incomes. Representatives from Housing Associations, particularly Midland Heart, were nearly always present at the 20 residents meetings we attended. www.midlandheart.org.uk 69
How to Talk About Contemporary Art to a Dead Rat
Hubb
The Hubb is an art space in Balsall Heath if you go through one entrance and Sparkbrook if you go through the other entrance. This is how they describe their work:
arts spaces that combines faith and creativity in a unique way, right in the activists and educationalists have performed and spoken at the intimate venue, bringing people together from all walks of life, young and old. visited and appreciated by people of all faith who have felt completely We ran a workshop at The Hubb and were also invited to present there at a meeting organised by Abid Hussain of the Arts Council. www.soulcityarts.com
See Murals, Soul City Arts, Sparkbrook Arts Agenda
Hyperlocal
When you get really excited about working in your local area after
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possible to get an ice cream in the snow. Many years ago two artists tried to convince a Balsall Heath ice cream system and give away free ice cream to children for one afternoon. The ice cream van driver was enthusiastic to this suggestion saying he would come back later - he never appeared down Eastwood Road again.
See Engagement, Workshops
portable set up of paste table, A-Board, Splat the Balsall Heath Rat,
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that works with disadvantaged individuals to help them overcome barriers outreach, training and employment related programmes that are funded through a combination of public sector contracts and grants from grant
www.jcp.org.uk
intended to capture the pros and cons of using a non-specialist printing agency because of wanting to invest in the local economy. Although the printing options (only digital), they bent over backwards to help us. They are also local - literally at the bottom of our road, which was important to us in terms of developing a model of working where we used local resources as much as possible.
Anniversary Prize for Further & Higher Education and an outstanding www.jcc.ac.uk
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Kabbadi license on Willows Road always has it on in his shop and told us about the Handsworth sikh temple team who put on exhibition matches. A possible Biennale event.
See Cabbadi
King Kong display in Manzoni Gardens in The Bull Ring. After the statue had been on display in Manzoni Gardens for six months, Birmingham City Council decided not to retain it and so it was sold to a local used-car dealer who changed the name of his dealership to King Kong Car Co and displayed the statue at his sales lot on the Ladypool Road / Stratford Road in Balsall Heath. While there, it was dressed up as Father Christmas in season. Wolverhampton Art Gallery have a maquette of the statue.
Khat
Not to be confused with the other types of cat (stray) prevalent in Balsall Heath. Khat is a plant native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Among communities from these areas, khat chewing has a long an amphetamine-like stimulant, which is said to cause excitement, loss of illegal, but it is still legal in the UK. Balsall Heath is home to a large Yemeni population, which means that Khat is openly sold in the local area, either unloading of boxes of the plant wrapped in banana leaves.
See Cultural Differences, Pubs
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Ladypool Road houses many of the restaurants in the Balti Triangle, Asian sweet houses, exotic supermarkets and Asian fabric and jewellery stores. Talking to shopkeepers along the Ladypool Road, a consistent theme was the failure of local authorities to promote the area effectively. As one shop owner borne out in our conversation with the chairman of the Balti Association,
See Business, Balti, Map, Sparkbrook Arts Agenda
Library
Balsall Heath Library plays an important role within the community as evidenced in the upsurge of support for the listed building when it was faced with having its opening hours drastically reduced. The library has now won its battle to stay open.
See Common, Harborne Factor
Linkages Biennale might link in with all the organisations and activities occurring here already. Balsall Heath has an extensive community infrastructure, and our job has been made easier by being able to tap into these networks. links and partnerships with people. But linkages is also about capturing and incorporating the creative activity that is already occurring within the Biennale framework and making it offers a rough audit of creative activity currently occurring in Balsall Heath.
See Common, Map 111
Litter
One of the biggest problems in Balsall Heath is litter. The area has a litter problem, and this proved one of the main complaints /feedback in the residents meetings, during workshops and through questionnaires. The campaign as part of a wider Green and Clean agenda. A few notes on litter: One way to combat litter is to improve the physical make-up of the area; curating planters as part of Balsall Heath in Bloom for example, or creating more green, communual spaces. We noticed how Asian women will often sweep the area outside of their house in the morning. One resident became so fed up with litter on her road that she set up a along the road in protest at the rubbish. The lack of restrictions upon restaurants in the local area undoubtedly increases the litter problem. The Forum noted that they had done litter campaigns before, handing out
problem; often bags of rubbish will lay out in the street for a week.
the spot for dropping litter. Behind the Ladypool Road, at the back of restaurants, the problem is particualrly severe, especially for residents whose houses back onto these restaurants.
See Balti, Common, Decorate Your House Competition, Dogon Tribe, Environmental Warden, Fast Food, Fly-Tipping, Limited Edition Bin Bags, Merchandise, Open Gardens, Planter Sculptures, Rag and Trombone Men,
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Local to our home, to cut down on travel and work literally on our doorstep within our local community. Francis Frascina recently argued in Art Monthly that the modern biennale of the recent global-traveling elite, they are opaque to the particularities
Our interpretation of what a community Biennale might be, is explicitly associated with contemporary art can have a direct and useful application
See Community Biennale, Hyperlocal
Local Artists
Across the consultancy period we met a number of local artists and collectors living in Balsall Heath. At a residents meeting we met Roy, an Ben Khunti, who had several suitcases of her aunts embroidery hidden Cleaver, fast becoming a local legend after he spent two years building an exact scale model replica of the Belgrave Middleway out of whiskey box cardboard.
See Commissioning, Local Resources, Skill Exchange
Local Leagues sustainable sport and recreational activities for children and their families provide these people from inner city areas of Birmingham with interesting, exciting, supervised, structured and sustained physical activities that take 113
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place within walking distance of their homes. To this aim, Local Leagues also pro-actively works to train coaches from the local communities to play an integral part in the delivery of this concept. We aim to create a coherent sports, leisure and recreation strategy for young people and provide constructive environments in which they can develop social and www.localleagues.com
See Balsall Heath World Cup
Local Resources
Using local services, resources and people has become an important aspect of the project, and one we hope to continue in 2013. All of Foundation for example. Another organisation we discovered when we on Ombersley Road. This is a Birmingham City Council funded organisation framing service. The use of local resources, within the context and constraints of the neighbourhood budget framework, is important to the conceptual integrity of the project (i.e. spending the funding / using resources within Balsall Heath).
Localism Act See Neighbourhood Plan
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MAC (Midlands Arts Centre)
Arts Centre based in Cannon Hill Park that has recently re-opened after
comedy. Mac retains a particularly strong reputation for work with and for children, families and young people, while continuing to welcome people of all ages and cultures to its diverse programme 363 days a year. There is also a strong emphasis on participation, with around 120 arts courses Although the Mac is located right on the border of Balsall Heath (falling
the learning programmer at Mac suggested that people will come to use Cannon Hill Park, but not the arts centre (or if they do, it will be to use the Cannon Hill Park as their favourite place in Balsall Heath, but hardly any listed Mac. www.macarts.co.uk
See Cannon Hill Park, Neutral Spaces, Picnics, Spaces
Map
Our consultation suggests there is the need to market the permanent cultural offer of Balsall Heath through a printed map and online presence. An easy to use guide to Balsall Heath could be distributed through local partners and key city centre locations such as tourist information, libraries, On one side: a map of Balsall Heath with a colour coded and numbered system of dots that indicate different categories such as, arts venues, faith centres, a green trail, historic buildings, places to eat and drink and other partner organisations. On the reverse side: the name, address, other contact information and brief description of all venues listed.
See Balsall Heath Arts Forum, Sparkbrook Arts Agenda 118
Martineau Gardens
Long established community garden located just outside Balsall Heath. www.martineau-gardens.org.uk
See Growing
Meetings
We underestimated the number of meetings we would need to make as part of the consultation but one of the great advantages of working in contacts (underpinning the community infrastructure of the local area is an emphasis on sharing). We had meetings with, among others, Balsall Heath Forum, Central Mosque, The Old Printworks, Local Police, Balsall Heath Neighbourhood Plan, The Hubb, Park-keepers, Calthorpe Park Play Centre, Saheli Women, Mac, Balsall Heath Church Centre, Balsall Heath Carnival, The Balti Ulfah Arts, Birmingham City Council.
See Linkages
Merchandise in question. We hope to produce badges and T-Shirts too.
See Badge
Naseem Akhtar, director of Saheli Women, used this phrase to describe housing provision in Balsall Heath (approximately one third rented, one third social housing, one third owned). Balsall Heath also has a mix of captures why Balsall Heath works as a space and a community.
See Saheli Women, Cultural Differences 119
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Model
The project, conceived as having a two-year life cycle (of consultation / response), offers a different take on the concept of the Biennale. Working closely with established community groups and networks, it hopefully offers an innovative model of working that is transferable beyond its locality.
See Commissioning, Community Biennale, Housing Associations, Networks, Linkages
Murals
Mohammad Ali has a number of large outdoor murals in Sparkbrook, and we have discussed the possibility of extending these into Balsall Heath. cheaply and effectively if all the restaurant and shop shutters had murals.
See Hubb, Soul City Arts
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Neighbourhood Plan (2011), is allowing local communities the opportunity to develop their own neighbourhood plans:
employees and business, to come together through a local parish council or neighbourhood forum and say where they think new houses, businesses
country to develop a neighbourhood plan. Parish and town councils or, where they exist, neighbourhood forums will lead the creation of neighbourhood plans, supported by the local planning authority. Neighbourhood planning will allow communities, both residents, employees and business, to come together through a local parish council or neighbourhood forum and say where they think new houses, businesses and shops should go – and what they should look like. Once written the plan will be independently examined and put to a referendum of local people for approval. The consultation was designed to act as a parallel line of enquiry to this process. Counterpointing issues of housing and building, the consultation asked what issues the Biennale project should respond to. www.planningbalsallheath.info
See Common, Neighbourhood Budgeting
Neighbourhood Budgeting
Birmingham has been selected by the Government to be one of ten neighbourhood-level community budget pilots. The Birmingham pilot Small scale community budgets aim to give residents a greater say over the services they want and use, with the local community playing a perspective, testing how local places can make best use of the money that is spent in their area to solve local problems.
See Common, Neighbourhood Plan 124
Nelson Mandela Primary School workshop at the primary school as part of our chilli growing project.
See Chilli Farm, Workshops
Networks
The modern history of Balsall Heath, of its transformation and regeneration, is built upon a dense network of community groups and pre-existing networks. the Sparkbrook Resource Centre to advertise our workshops. These were then distributed to every house on the Kinver Croft estate by local residents we had met at the Kinver Croft Residents Association meeting.
See Balsall Heath, Balsall Heath Forum, Heathan, Linkages, Local Resources
Neutral Spaces
This was a term introduced by Foster Derby, co-ordinator of the Calthorpe Park Play Centre. He explained to us that to engage young people he space such as the neighbouring park.
See Mac, Spaces
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Old Moseley Arms Yemini restaurant, The George has closed to become a restaurant and in the last month The Clifton has announced that it is closing. focuses on real ale, serves curry seven days a week and has a weekly
See Chaos Acoustic Night, Pubs
Open Gardens Balsall Heath will be invited to take part in a day of Open Gardens.
See Agricultural Festival, Balsall Heath in Bloom, Growing
Ort Cafe & Gallery
New community cafe opened in 2011 based at The Old Printworks, on Moseley Road. Serves great value food and hosts a packed schedule of talks, events and live music. Now features a licensed bar and a gallery upstairs. www.ortcafe.co.uk
Ownership
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Parking
One of the major complaints at residents meetings regarded parking in Balsall Heath. This veered from the congestion on Ladypool Road to the ongoing saga faced by residents of the Strensham Road group where a resident abused his disability bay by parking elsewhere and allowing his non-disabled family to park in his bay (now resolved). We pondered over this scenario, wondering if contemporary art could actively play a constructive role in the parking problems of Balsall Heath. We decided it probably could - the best way being to purchase a Hummer
Biennale. (See image on previous page).
Parks
Given that it is an inner city area, Balsall Heath is blessed with numerous parks and backs onto Cannon Hill Park. From the Belgrave Middleway, on bike or foot, it is possible to almost walk across the whole of Balsall Heath (and up to Kings Heath) via parkland and green spaces.
See Common
Parkour
Parkour is a discipline of movement focused on overcoming obstacles. Usually occurring in urban environments, participants learn to pass diverse obstacles by combining a variety of movements like running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, leaping, and rolling. A Balsall Heath version of parkour was an idea suggested by someone parkour would involve creating courses out of the abandoned furniture that is dumped in the local area.
See Fly Tipping
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Peerages Balsall Heath peerages. The Birmingham Mail at the time explained that:
title of Archduke of Balsall Heath. People with rather less will be able to
in the build up to the Biennale.
See Awards, Festival, Funding
Picnics
This idea has three important reference points: (1) it was something that the events that Balsall Heath Forum organise that food is an effective means of bringing people together; (3) questionnaire responses often
Pigeons
A perennial favourite complaint in residents meetings, particularly in relation to Cheddar Road and Pickwick Park where people regularly feed proves excellent complimentary fodder for vermin. Some residents were pigeon feeders. The problem is that many religious groups including Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs feed pigeons for religious reasons. Many older Sikhs feed pigeons ceremoniously to honour the high priest and warrior Guru Govind Singh who was a known friend of the pigeon, whilst other Sikhs for example, feed pigeons because they believe that when they are reincarnated they will never go hungry if they have fed pigeons in their previous life.
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Planter Sculptures
We propose to design and produce planter sculptures that protect plants from being stolen or vandalised whilst being pleasing objects in their own copper cloche. However, our planters would be built of durable materials, possibly coloured concrete and installed in planters at the end of Cheddar Road (or other locations, depending upon budget).
See Runner Beans
Plonk Art
Great term to describe inappropriate and unwanted public art, especially of the sculptural kind.
See Public Art Shares
Police they were very helpful, making us aware of another funding avenue - the them personally.
See Funding, Games, Residents Meetings
Politicians Heath (including David Cameron) to see the work of Balsall Heath Forum. Currently, Sparkbrook (which Balsall Heath is a part of) has three Labour
Popular Balti
One of the original Balti houses and our personal favourite restaurant on Ladypool Road.
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Printworks, The Old
Ambitious low carbon initiative based in the factory of a former printworks
learning, using and sharing practical knowledge and making-skills, we and resilient. Unlike other venues, which have opportunities for coworking and co-existence, The Old Print Works offers since 2011 a historic, but bespoke, versatile, low-carbon and fun space in the heart of Balsall Heath that gives a vibrant community endless reasons to meet, learn, www.oldprintworks.org
See Ort Cafe & Gallery
Problems (consultation)
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Pubs
There is a pub at the top of Edward Road that like so many pubs in Balsall a second life: internally as a business centre; externally as a billboard, metres down the road, formerly The Coach & Horses, has recently become
Balsall Heath, like many working class inner city neighbourhoods, used to be full of pubs. But today, pubs in Balsall Heath are swiftly disappearing elderly, white people at residents meetings that the loss of pubs was a Heath Festival noted how pubs joined in the festival with Yard of Ale competitions and dominoes contests. This is a million miles from Balsall Heath in 2012. At the workshops we conducted at Clifton School, a fair few of the children - in response to the
See Balsall Heath Festival, Cultural Differences, Khat, Old Moseley Arms
Public Art Shares
A new proposition for the acquisition of public art, this project will invite residents of Balsall Heath to collectively buy a Franz West sculpture. (See p136) Although this is an absurd and unlikely conclusion, we believe it could make people ask questions about how their local area could be improved art market (a place, generally speaking, where rich people buy shiny, beautiful things) and gives the everyday person a point of access into this investment structure.
See Common 137
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Publicity
have been overly complicated and ironic. Our slogans, intended as daft One problem was that people really thought we were proposing these fantastical occurances. We also used the colours of Balsall Heath - green / yellow - on the consensual decision by residents to paint street furniture in these colours; in reality, we later found out, it hid a split between the use of Kashmiri Green
effect the upsurge in curry houses within the area have had on the environmental state of Balsall Heath. After an initial opening push, and believing it key to the project, our online postal addresses and 0121 numbers.
See Problems
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intake includes many young people from Balsall Heath. See Stray Cats, Workshops
At the beginning of the project, we outlined seven simple, straightforward questions. These were used in questionnaires and meetings. *What do you like about Balsall Heath? *Would you change anything about Balsall Heath? *Are you part of or do you know of any creative activity in Balsall Heath? *Would you be in interested in a Balsall Heath Biennale - a contemporary art festival in the local area? *Would you like to be involved in the Balsall Heath Biennale 2013?
managed, by hook or crook - but mainly by offering the reward of splatting
to Splat a Balsall Heath Rat. One problem we found with the questionnaire process, particularly with for them.
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Rag & Bone Men
Although Balsall Heath has a visible litter problem, it also has an inherent recycling process. The area is still visited daily by the modern day version of the rag and bone man - the Scrap Metal man. Within the area there is a custom of leaving out unwanted metal goods on the street. This expands to people in the area leaving unwanted, but usable goods, outside unorganised take on free-cycle.
See Common, Dogon Tribe, Fly Tipping, Green and Clean, Rag & Trombone Men
Rag & Trombone Men
All of the scrap iron vehicles have recordings of a cacophony of sounds related to the trumpet family that announce their arrival in to the area (so if a jazz trombonist stand on the back of one of these scrap metal vans and deliver an impromptu performance around Balsall Heath.
Raja Brothers the Ladypool Road. Stocks pretty much everything. Why go on holiday?
Reasons
One thing we leant through attending community events in Balsall Heath and the experience of the consultation more widely, is that people will come together if you give them a reason and a shared purpose. Participation can be further increased when you add in games, awards, hoping to initiate a number of projects that set up a structure in which people can participate around a shared common agenda. All, one way or
See Balsall Heath World Cup, Common, Communal Meals, Decorate Your House Competition, Open Gardens, Bin Bags (Limited Edition), Street Party 146
Residents Group
Having attended 20 residents meetings, and helped to organise a street our street.
See Street Party, Residents Meetings
Residents Meetings
The Balsall Heath Forum organise residents groups across the area; at the on the number of active residents there are and the concerns of each area. six roads for example. The current groups that we attended are:
Kinver Croft; Tindal Street, Homer St, George St, Edgbaston Rd and Cromer Road; Clifton, Roshven, Taunton, Kensington Avenue; Seven Streets Meetings are held every two months with a Forum representative, local councillors, the police, housing association representatives as well as active residents. Although in the original application we said we would only go to one round of these we ended up going to two rounds (a total of 20 meetings). At these we presented our ideas for the Balsall Heath Biennale and gathered feedback, ideas and questionnaires. Street meeting often descended into a fairly heated discussion around Croft Residents Association was fairly passionate and had a touch of the left about it. The residents meetings opened up a range and variety of spaces across a residents living room.
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Plans for the River Rea, taken from the Neighbourhood 148
We would like to work with a group of key residents to write a script for working of the residents minutes (perhaps along an absurd and radical agenda). This would form a video work and also be performed at the
See Balsall Heath Forum, Space
River Rea
The River Rea runs through Balsall Heath, although it is largely excluded to open up the River Rea and possibly create a lake in Calthorpe Park. (See image opposite).
Runner Bean Consultation
As part of the consultation we developed a community garden on Cheddar Road and put some runner beans in planters at the end of the street. We ended up replacing the bamboo canes holding the beans up three times as they kept being stolen. At this point we stopped replacing the canes, and let the beans grow as they pleased. One way or another, the runner beans were an effective and different means of consultation: we are now developing ideas around street planter sculptures that protect the contents of planters.
See Planter Sculptures
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Saheli Women women and girls, engaging them through sports and empowerment community. www.saheli.co.uk
Samba Band
Christina Pinero Maese, a resident we met at the Tindal Street Residents Group, became so fed up with litter on her street that she set up a
(image, pg 126). See Litter, Street Musicians
host screenings, workshops and events as well as bringing the Flatpack Film Festival to Birmingham. The director lives in Balsall Heath.
See Cinema, Raja Brothers
Share Space
Otherwise known as Balsall Heath Enterprise Hub. This is an ambitious project currently at the planning stage. Situated on the Moseley Road at site in Balsall Heath into an arts, training and enterprise centre that serves the local and wider community.
Skill Exchange
This idea emerged from our experiences with the community garden and a meeting with a representative from the Somalian Foundation - namely
artists (e.g. application writing, knowledge of funding avenues) are offered the notions of exchange and sharing which underpin the Biennale project, artwork, but their skills and role within a given context.
See Common, Community Biennale
Soul City Arts interventions throughout the UK and around the globe. Founder of the organisation, Mohammed Ali – an artist and producer – has delivered programs working with the likes of British Council in Malaysia, Australia, Canada as well as city authorities such as City of Melbourne as part of the
www.soulcityarts.com
See Hubb, Murals
Soul Ful - Lebanese Bakery
Soul Ful, otherwise known as the Lebanese bakery, has been in Balsall Heath for two years now. Situated on the corner of Mary Street and this year.
Spaces
Balsall Heath is often spoken of as a coherent, collective space, yet guidelines and modes of behavior (What is the etiquette for a mosque? How do you behave in an art gallery? Should you sit in a booth in Hillac Cafe?). Once, at a residents meeting, an elderly person who had lived in Balsall Heath for over 20 years voiced her concerns that although many of her neighbours were Asian she had never been into an Asian persons house 153
Street Party and Cheddar Road Gardens). We want the Biennale to
See Adoption Agency, Common, Confused Spaces, Mac, Neutral Spaces, Tour Guides
Sparkbrook Arts Agenda
We attended a meeting at The Hubb that was initiated by Abid Hussain from the Arts Council. The meeting involved key organisations in the local area meeting to discuss how Sparkbrook should move forward culturally. One of the things that really came out of the meeting was the need to link up arts activity in the local area and showcase it to a wider audience.
See Arts Council, Balsall Heath Arts, Forum, Birmingham City Council Cultural Commissioning, Businesses, Carnival, Linkages, Mac, Map, Old Printworks, Ort Cafe, The Hubb, Ulfur Arts
Sparkbrook Ward
Balsall Heath is part of Sparkbrook. Sparkbrook is an inner-city area in Hall Green formal district within Birmingham City Council.
Splat the Balsall Heath Rat
Balsall Heath has a vermin problem. Splat the Balsall Heath Rat was a a questionnaire, people were given the opportunity to take their revenge on the despised Balsall Heath rat. The larger version of Splat the Balsall Heath Rat (that also required a
living room for six months. Currently upcycled into a deluxe runner bean support.
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Speakers Corner
On the digital Balsall Heath website, there is a wonderful image of labour
One residents meeting became a favourite of ours on account of one particular resident who appeared to be on a one man mission to bring down the council and restore the Left on the Kinver Croft estate. This Heath, as money apparently spent on it, simply disappears. relation to local councilors and the police. Our response to this would be Corner Trust offer excellent guidance on how to set up a Speakers Corner. www.speakerscornertrust.org
See History Society, Residents Meetings
as a series of groups that were established to work with the community of Balsall Heath, an inner city area in Birmingham. With a diverse and ever changing community the population of Balsall Heath has come or came if you are speaking literally from all over the world. people in Balsall Heath to make a better future for their children, getting together to start a nursery, adventure playground and small school. The these small beginnings in voluntary endeavour it has grown to be a thriving organisation. The Trust aims to work with and alongside the people of Balsall Heath in Birmingham and the wider neighbourhood to promote education,
Trust. www.stpaulstrust.org.uk 157
Statistics (Balsall Heath)
The index of Deprivation 2010 (an analysis of Birmingham local statistics)
* (A Super Output Area (SOA) is a geographical area designed for the collection and publication of small area statistics).
Statistics (consultation) information stands and had 24 meetings with various organisations and people. During this time we ate seven curries at Popular Balti and accumulated two stray cats.
Steering Group made up of local residents as well as arts professionals.
Stray Cats
Balsall Heath has a stray cat problem. At the end of our garden their used to be an old mattress. Legend has the mattress would regularly host up to 10 sunbathing cats. The garden was somewhat of a magnet for stray cats, and became more so after we began feeding them. Word went about, and we soon had a garden full of straggly, hungry looking cats. We took two kittens in, as many people do around here. One of these cats – Roger - has given us something to spend our money on. Blessed with herpes and a nosy inquisitive nature that ensures he can climb in holes but
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Roger comes from a rich lineage of ginger Balsall Heath cats. His mother
to walking around with a large and unwieldy cardboard appendage. people have put their rubbish out for the Wednesday collection, you can spot a motley collection of ginger Rogers breaking into bin bags, on the hunt for chicken bones and cat-food cans with their rims holding stale meat. One time we saw a ginger kitten and its mum eating a box of chips in an empty skip. romanticise them as they are very funny. They are synonymous with the local area. Because of this we used the ever present Balsall Heath stray cat as an engagement tool, creating a stray cat sock puppets writing workshop that combined cat language with local youth patois. Below are examples
PLZ = Please; M8 = Mate; Wag1 = Hello; Bro = Brother; KK = Okay; Gona Cuz = Cousin; Nah - No; Fam = Family; Yo = Hello; Mans = myself; Ting = Thing; Blood = family / friends; Dodgy = Weird; 2. Stray Cat Language What would a Balsall Heath stray cat call the following? (think cat comparisons - i.e. radiator = hot stone) House = brick thing, litter box; Car = ball; Litter = dinner; Litter dropper = waiter; Dog = devil; Rubbish night = dinner night; Abandoned sofa = home; Rat = exercise machine 3.Script / Performance Using the two sets of language produced so far, write a short script for a conversation between two or three Balsall Heath stray cats that discusses the litter problem in Balsall Heath (in particular any ideas you may have for solutions to this problem). 161
2. Turn this description into a short script between two - three cats. Aim for produced earlier.
Sup Meoawing sugar? Found a Kitty Kat wrapper WW2? Alright Stinky, found any soap? Er, Er, maybe. Alright, alright, look the waiter just been by One more bite we all gunna die 2 Many devils coming See Essay
Street Furniture
Street furniture generally refers to objects and pieces of equipment installed on streets and roads for various purposes, such as benches, bus stops and post boxes. But Balsall Heath literally has street furniture chairs. Whilst this can provide an eyesore, there is also an implicit recycling agenda with people leaving things out that other people then take and reuse.
See Dogon Tribe, Fly Tipping, Litter, Parkour, Rag & Bone Men
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Street Musicians
Wandering street musicians were in the original Balsall Heath Festival in
See Commissioning, Rag & Trombone Man, Samba Band
Street Procession
A staple of the Balsall Heath Carnival, this has now been challenged and cancelled by the council for being too dangerous.
See Carnival, Common
Street Party
on our road. We designed a poster that took the idea of the Balsall Heath Carnival colouring in poster to produce a design that combined distributed to all the houses on our road to be coloured in and displayed in windows. The street party was a huge success; it was interesting how people came together for a shared purpose, where it was sanctioned as OK to talk to your neighbour.
Street Watch
On the corner of Balsall Heath Road and Longmore Street, there is an old
residents Association expressed their concern that the building is now becoming run down and an eye-sore.
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superspace
superspace is the name of the organisation looking to organise the public realm in a way which is responsive and useful to people in a given space or context.
See Artists, Community Biennale, Contemporary Art
Surrealist Nights
A set of open submission commissions. Applicants will be invited to develop proposals that draw on the history of the Surrealist group led by Conroy happenings and activities.
See Birmingham Surrealists
Sweeping
People in Balsall Heath, often Asian women, will often sweep the area outside of their homes in the morning.
See Decorate Your House Competition, Litter
Swimming Baths operating in Britain. Remarkably for a building now into its second century, it survives almost intact, still used for its primary purpose and with very few alterations to the original layout.
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This was an idea suggested by the head of a Housing Association who had previously tried to put this on in Balsall Heath, only to have funding withdrawn.
Talk Series
We would like to programme a series of talks that respond to the wider thematics of the projects (e.g. the ethics of waste; the common & public space).
See Art School
The Drum
The Drum is the national centre for Black British arts and culture, based in Aston, Birmingham. The Drum is the Hall Green Wards Arts Champion (a new scheme by Birmingham City Council that links up large arts Ward. www.the-drum.org.uk
Tour Guides conjunction with a map and website this would enable structured yet idiosyncratic tours through the local area.
See Map, Spaces
Trainers
We learnt many unusual facts at the residents meetings. For example, trainers hanging on telephone wires is often a marker used to convey a drug dealing space.
Translation
Given the ethnic make-up of the area, language and translation were potential pitfalls. Many people would be willing to take part in the 168
occur. Translation issues were also a problem when we were consulting over the community garden as many people on the road were unable to speak English and we required an interpreter. Subsequently we had a letter translated into Arabic to distribute along the road. Another translation problem is making the language used in contemporary art accessible to a non-specialist audience.
The Tree Nursery pyramid home are two commercially sized polytunnels, a vegetable patch and a series of green areas. They also grow plants to sell, specialising in exotic vegetables.
See Balsall Heath Forum, Buckminstaer Fuller, Growing
A term used to describe people on the look out for hidden art-works at Biennales or other large contemporary art get-togethers.
Trust
Alongside ownership and linkages, there was a third term that kept cropping up during the consultation: trust. The project was, and continues trust.
See Linkages, Ownership
Twitter would play within the consultation. We had even developed a long list of hashtags for twitter. But as the consultation progressed, and particularly
See Engagement, Trust 169
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Ulfah Arts
Ulfah Arts is a creative social enterprise that uses arts and media as tools projects, which engage diverse social groups as artists, media producers and audience members. on the Moseley Road. This has now become Highgate Craft Centre and houses a range of other creative organisations. www.ulfaharts.co.uk
Peppered across Balsall Heath are an abundance of spaces that are Runcorn Road) or they can be areas of land in more modern housing areas such as the Kinver Croft estate. These spaces have now become sites for We have discussed setting up an adoption agency for unadopted spaces.
See Adoption Agency, Confused Spaces, Green and Clean
See Balsall Heath World Cup
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Over the course of the consultation period, more and more spaces and potential venues came to the fore. The below include faith centres, parks, restaurants and arts organisations. The Hubb; The Old Printworks; Ort CafĂŠ; Le Hillac Cafe; Midlands Arts Popular Balti; Soul Ful Lebanese Restaurant; Moseley Road Swimming College; Calthorpe Park Play Centre; Balsall Heath Church Centre; St Rd Square; Cheddar Road Gardens, Buddist Centre; The Tree Nursery. To name but a few.
One of the themes of the residents meetings was the persistence of vermin across the area. Talking to the owner of SMS supermarket on the Edward Road walkabout, he revealed that one of their biggest selling products is mice killer. The council will deal with cockroaches and rats but not mice. Although vermin was often referred to in relation to residential on a clean-up they had been attacked by a giant rat. The typical Balsall Heath rat is bigger, quicker and faster than your average rat - it also has a penchant for fastfood and meat balti. This is why we introduced Splat the Balsall Heath Rat.
See Environmental Warden, Litter, Pigeons, Religion, Splat the Balsall Heath Rat, Wire Wool
As part of the Biennale we hope to offer a range of volunteering opportunities for people interested in the project. balsallheathbiennale@gmail.com
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Wasteland Twinning part of curating Balsall Heath in Bloom and developing a Green Trail. The following is an excerpt from their website:
it to urban Wastelands in order to generate a network for parallel research and action.By subverting the City Twinning concept that aims to wastelands, new questions of value and function are raised. Wasteland Twinning aims to develop an understanding of the potential of these sites through transdisciplinary models of practice. Wasteland Twinning is led by independent artists and researchers, that offers the potential for cultural comparison to take place on a local and international scale – going beyond the obvious to examine often invisible perspectives on power relations, land use, urban development and ecology. Through engaged and critical approaches, we hope to uncover some of the peculiarities and commonalities of the wasteland sites. The project aspires to challenge urban land use policy and bring wastelands and their users to attention – www.wasteland-twinning.net
See Clean and Green, Common
Waiter Curator fantastic artwork on the walls. One of our original ideas was to redress this balance by setting up a temporary gallery quarter based in restaurants of the contemporary artists being shown on the walls of their restaurants.
Window Gallery
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Wire Wool
Given the problems with vermin, residents meetings often involved a discussion of the various strategies for dealing with mice. Wire wool was recommended as one of the best ways of keeping mice out. You simply take a kitchen scouring pad and put it in the hole that mice are coming through. Likewise, the best method of deterring the stray cats from ripping your rubbish bags apart on a Tuesday night is shaking a bit of talcum powder over them (the bags not the cats).
Workshops sought to open up discussion about Balsall Heath.
around the edge and take it in turns to drive a remote control ice-cream van around while explaining where they are going and why. Markers of different colours are made by participants with plastic construction shapes as those they would like to change. This activity will lead onto workshop local area. We assumed that it would be easy to set up workshops with schools - the workshops were free and we thought schools would jump at the process, of chasing people up.
Worthiness
Having set out our agenda - how contemporary art might manifest in the public realm in a way that is responsive to the needs of the local community - we became concerned at the worthiness of the project. We now keep a jar of Worthers Originals next to our computers as a warning to ourselves.
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Zaffs
Legendary kebab house on the Moseley Road. Not necessarily on account of its food, but because it is always open. Many of the children in the workshops listed this as one of their favourite places in Balsall Heath.
See Craft Activities, Dogon Tribe, Fast Food, Litter
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superspace 2012 www.superspace.org.uk superspacegroup@gmail.com
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