Proposal

Don’t Think Twice Collective, and StudioKandi
Proposal for 2009 St.Helens Festival of Contemporary Visual Art.

Festival Ethos

The Festival aims to provide a platform for the best of contemporary visual arts, including newly commissioned work by respected and established artists as well as fresh work by emerging talent, shown in grassroots spaces across the town for the first time.

Expect to see exhibitions, seminars, showcases, live graffiti, film nights, music nights artists’ talks and events that have been specifically developed for the Festival, in addition to further collaborations throughout the Town...

Festival Content

At this stage we have not established a date or length for the Festival but in collaboration with our members and other interested parties we have listed some of the events we would like to see happen. They are grouped by media and/or theme.

Exhibitions:

o Graffiti Live - Start with Blank Canvas, boards or found objects
o Graffiti - Showcase of Graffiti Talent Local and NorthWest, as well as national and international
o Graphic Design - Showcase of Up and Coming Talent
o Graphic Design - Showcase of Established Designers within the NorthWest
o Creative Writing
o Photography, and public workshops and photography walks
o Type, Motion Graphics, animation etc
o Illustration - Featured work and maybe a live show
o Future Creatives of St Helens - This could encapsulate various aspects of Creativity (solo exhibition for our homegrown winner Joshua Considine)
o An Exploration Stencil Graphics / Stickers / Street Tags (call out over the internet for submissions from artists all over the globe on set themes, stickers, posters, etc)
o An Exploration into the various Printing Techniques
o Space dedicated to legendary Film Posters/ Record Sleeves

Film Nights:

o Graffiti, documentaries (Stylewars, Barn Stormers)
o Graphic Design (Helvetica Film)
o Skateboarding

Live Speakers/Events:

o Arrange Live talks from established Artists, Designers, Musicians - These could take place in Bars or Exhibition space
o Pecha Kucha Night - The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Pecha Kucha generally follows this format: Each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. Each event usually has 14 presenters. Presenters (and much of the audience) are usually from the design, architecture, photography, art and creative fields
o Creative Networking event.

Live Bands / DJs:

o Explore various genres of music within the local area
o ‘Battle of the Bands’ within local bars or outside stages
o Live Breakdancing
o Music collaborations, taking 2 musicians of different styles and getting them to collaborate for a live show (e.g., beatbox vs. Acoustic guitar)

Competition:

o Put out a tailored creative brief to the public, this could link in with the Exhibition

Publication:

o At the end of the Festival release a book with our achievements

Issues to be resolved...

o Funding and Support – Don’t Think Twice and MediaKandi are happy to ‘front’ this event and offer our time to help develop the Festival but obviously we need other partners, public and private, to get involved to support and help, and for funders to come on board.
o Advertising and Sponsorship – We intend to offer advertising and have spoken but would want to resolve its form and restrictions.
o Planning Permissions – A major part of the Festival would be to offer exhibition space in places or buildings not associated with ‘art’ – however we are aware that permission needs to be sought to bring such buildings into use.
o Security/Health and Safety - there are clear issues around the management of the Festival that we would need to have resolved not least is the security of work offered for exhibition and the general health and Safety of such an event. We would need the help and advice of partners in this area of expertise.