Hanover Centre shows Open Art Gallery despite financial cutbacks
Lack of funds has meant The Hanover Centre cannot afford to be on the Hanover Art Trail.
For the first time in its ten year history, The Hanover Centre will not be featured on the Hanover Art Trail (which costs £255) during Brighton’s Open Houses Festival 2012.
The Hanover Centre will still be adding an eruption of colour to Hanover’s diverse neighbourhood by showing the gallery independently throughout May.
Sue Bowes, a member of the Art for Women group, taught at The Hanover Centre, said: “We want to create a vibrant environment for people who live here, a sense of belonging and identity and give people an outlet for their own creative efforts. It’s all about providing the glue that sticks the community together.”
The exhibit features work relating to Aung San Suu Kyi (guest director of last year’s Brighton Festival), photography and portraits on sale from all ages and cultures in Brighton.
Susie Courtault, Vice Chair of the Hanover Community Association, said: “We cater for all tastes, so you might not like one artist, but another piece may grab your interest. Because it’s so varied, people are going to find something they are quite taken by. ”
Sue Nunn, who teaches the Art for Women group, was unsure whether the event could continue due to the fact that The Hanover Centre is self-financed and receives no council grants. Though, she said it gave locals the confidence to try art themselves.
She said: “People might come in and think, ‘I used to like painting when I was at school. Maybe, I’ll try again.’ Instead of looking at it as a mysterious expression, you might think, ‘Actually, I could do something like this myself.’”
The Centre has also collaborated with University of Brighton students, giving them a platform to show their original work.
Student, Mary Martin, said: “It’s brilliant to be associated with other Brighton artists, especially from Hanover. In Uni, you don’t get a chance to do much for the local community, whereas Brighton Festival gives you a chance to get involved with other artists. It’s a great way to integrate.”
Mary said her art conveyed emotional attachment to places, and having moved to Hanover in September last year from Alderholt in Dorset, she was particularly proud to display her work to the community.
She said: “It’s so much more significant than if it was somewhere else in Brighton because, to me, it’s that locality that’s important.”
The Open Art Gallery is showing on the final two weekends in May at The Hanover Centre, 33 Southover Street, Brighton from 12pm to 4pm and entry is free.
For more information about this event and others at the Hanover Centre, call 01273 694873 or visit http://hanovercommunity.org.uk.
LGBT Switchboard Fights For Survival With £20000 Appeal
Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard is making its final push to raise £20000 by April to keep providing its helpline service and avoid closure.
The Switchboard has grown into a longstanding beacon of support for the city’s sizable gay community since launching in a Brighton café in 1975.
An emergency appeal to raise the money was launched in September after struggles to secure funding left the charity in financial trouble.
Grants from the local council and loyal past callers who found support from the charity’s volunteer workers caused funds to pass the £12000 mark in January. Now there’s new optimism that the Switchboard can reach its target following an expenses cutting move to the Community Base offices in central Brighton.
He added that the Switchboard aims to talk to anyone with a query or concern, regardless of their whereabouts.
Mr Elsworth said: “We’ve had people calling from rural areas who feel isolated for social reasons as well as their sexuality. We are also contacted by people that are happy in themselves, but are currently facing other problems. The fact that they are gay is in the backdrop.”
The charity is also calling runners to raise £500 on their behalf in the Brighton Marathon in March.
This event will make up the Switchboard’s final sprint towards carrying on an invaluable service that has traditionally sustained LGBT residents from Brighton and beyond.
If anyone would like to make donation, please visit the Brighton and Hove LGBT Switchboard website at http://www.switchboard.org.uk.
Or if anyone has queries regarding sexual or gender identity and are in need of information or support, phone 01273 204050 from 5pm to 11pm or email info@switchboard.org.uk.
Exhibition review – Robert Goff: An Etcher In The Wake Of Whistler
If a multi-cultural trip down memory lane takes your fancy, an exhibition of Hove-based soldier Robert Goff’s (1937-1822) etchings are showing at the Prints and Drawings Gallery at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. Compiled in intimate, soft-lit surroundings by Alexandra Loske, the 50 etchings offer a wander through the mind of an ex-corporal with a lust for travel and an eye for detail.
Through bustling Cairo markets, pyramids, olive trees and Roman monuments, Goff’s knack for bringing romance into his architectural backdrops is clear. Children On West Pier, Brighton (c1900) combines billowing smoke and two children on the stark seafront to make the architecture of the destroyed West Pier look even more majestic. In Windswept Coast Viareggio, Tuscany (c1905), a viewer could be forgiven for feeling the wind and rain on their hands as Goff moodily depicts an approaching coastal storm. The thrashing trees and the ghostly figure in the foreground add sense of mystery and make this cinematic etch a highlight of the exhibition.
Some of Loske’s inclusions aren’t as striking, though. Goff’s watercolour impression of Brighton beach looks like a generic postcard with its humdrum portrayal of seaside holidaymakers. Despite its historical value as a snapshot into British leisure, the painting is less vivid than his colourless etchings. While Goff’s illustrations of industrial London boast a photographic attention to detail, his talent for capturing a fleeting moment and engaging the viewer is missing. It’s the only moment in the exhibition where his etchings compare unfavourably to the more revolutionary and versatile James McNeill Whistler (whom he was influenced by and compared to), who captured grim 19th Century London with more charisma and dark romanticism.
The inclusion of Goff’s painting of the red entrance to a Japanese temple makes up for these missteps. Like most of his pictures of Egypt and Italy, his fascination with exotic territories created his most eye-catching work and gives an insight into Britain’s past relations with other countries. Despite his peripatetic life, which included travelling the world as a soldier, moving to Italy with his second wife, Clarissa, and eventually settling in Holland Road, London, Goff kept a house in Hove for 20 years. This loyalty to the area is apparent in his blissful etches of Sussex Downs. Looking like they were sketched on the spot, it suggests a man who needed to draw to keep himself going rather than someone who simply wanted to record and recapture moments.
Overall, Loske has displayed a well-rounded variety of Goff’s work, albeit with too much emphasis on historically important, but unremarkable pieces. While some etchings haven’t been displayed since the 1920s, the exhibition offers more than a snapshot into a forgotten, innocent time – it provides a Technicolor trip through Goff’s ever-changing life. Beyond the modest, neat presentation, there is a complex and emotionally moving journey to discover.
The exhibition will be showing until April 29th and entry is free.
Gig review: We Have Band
For BrightonNoise.co.uk 01/03/2012
Words & pictures: James Evans
The last thing you’d expect from a support act that look like geeky veteran rockers is jubilant,Wham!-aping 80s soul-pop. Though, as:Kinema: blister through their ecstatic set (with lead singer, Dominic Ashford sighing like a lovesick boyband member), it belies the crowd of hippie-ish couples and skinny-jeaned indie-types arriving at the low-lit basement of Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar. The lack of versatility in their crystal-clear songs and static stage presence suggests a band still developing an identity. However, an impassioned closing cover of Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy”, shows how much of a moody pop force they could be with stronger hooks to back them up.
In contrast, We Have Band, come across at first like the hipster-ish art project that their name suggests. Equipped with weird instruments, scary eye make-up and dull green lighting, the former EMI colleagues kick into action with a full-blooded version of jerky new song, “Steel In The Groove.” This is followed by the Bat For Lashes meets The XX tribal-disco of “Visionary” (the standout track on their new album, Ternion), where lead-singer Dede WP’s petite frame and possessed dancing make her look like an eerie child from a horror movie.
It’s when percussionist, Darren Bancroft, dares the crowd to “come a little closer” though (before launching into the depressive, yet danceable 2010 single, “Love, What You Doing?”), that a euphoric rush of DIY electro-punk gets even the moodiest musos dancing. Getting the biggest cheer of the night, it shows that behind We Have Band’s arch, conceptual demeanour, their quirky pop sensibility turns them into a thrilling live act.
New songs from the band’s second album receive a more muted reaction in the latter half of the show. Despite intensely personal gloom-pop numbers like “Tired Of Running” seeming like a bold step forward on record, they lack the immediate rush of their better-known singles and sound formulaic live. Not even the chemistry between Dede WP’s Blondie-esque vampishness and Bancroft’s hyperactive head-thrashing (coming across like a drunken crowd member who’s somehow found himself onstage) can resurrect the indie-disco party.
A formal encore followed by the cult-like call to the dancefloor of “Honeytrap” (“line up/clap hands/let’s go/here we stand”) restores some of the group’s initial breakneck energy. When a final rendition of their 2008 hit, “Oh!” kicks in, it feels like a nostalgic trip through the glowstick-brandishing days of nu rave. It proves that despite gaining recent acclaim for their genre-bending risks, We Have Band have a long way to go before eclipsing the singles that originally made them so exhilarating.
Gig Preview: We Have Band
For BrightonNoise.co.uk.
By James Evans
If one group seemed destined to get lost in the Day-Glo haze of nu-rave, it was We Have Band. The enjoyable, frenetic rush of their 2008 singles “Divisive” and “Oh!” recalled most indie-disco bands (such as The Rapture and Klaxons) at the time who endured glowstick waving gig-goers. Now four years on and with an acclaimed second album, Ternion (released in January), under their belt, they’re proving to be no flash-in-the-pan and bringing their dark disco infused mood-pop to Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar in Middle Street on February 25th.
Formed by three ex-EMI colleagues Darren Bancroft, Dede WP and Thomas WP after being made redundant, their eclectic nature comes across like a band defying music industry pigeonholing. The dark, wandering synths and unexpected sonic U-turns of their debut, WHB (2010) showed they had substance beyond their laconic gazes and trendy buzz cuts. Their recent follow up album is better still, bending Animal Collective-style swathes of noise, shimmering tears-on-the-dancefloor anthems and DIY electro-punk into a unique genre of their own.
The band’s inventive videos add more stylish, yet scary elements into their hypercolour world, including burning wax effigies of themselves, cloaked shamans and a horror film-like face paint. Their live shows don’t disappoint either, with Dede WP’s onstage dancing and Blondie-esque poise belying the distant archness of their records. Increasing praise (they won the Emerging Talent award at Glastonbury) has shown that We Have Band have the strong pop hooks to overshadow their hipster-ish image and their first gig in Brighton since 2010 promises to show how far they’ve come.
Oh Land Interview
Interview for Attitude Issue 206
Rebellious ballerina to electropop chameleon isn’t a common career transition. However, as the svelte and wide-eyed Nanna Oland Fabricius (AKA Oh Land) talks about her long-term ambition to perform in an aquarium, it becomes clear that she isn’t an everyday pop songstress.
Brought up in Denmark on classical music by her opera singing mother and organist father, her need to “do whatever I wanted to” and not “listen to any grown up” prompted her to move to Sweden at only 16 to study ballet. A serious back injury ended that dream but inspired her to create the fantasy-driven “Alice In Wonderland” world of Oh Land.
“My whole world just fell apart,” recalls the strikingly beautiful Nanna, her green eyes glazing over. “I felt like I was restricted in the state that my body was in. So, I started to dream away and make this world where I felt like everything could happen.” It’s this sense of unpredictability that makes her self-titled international debut album so infectious. From the Bjork-esque twinklings of opener, “Perfection” to the Bat For Lashes-goes-dubstep balladry of “Wolf And I” , it’s a spellbinding mix of alt-pop electro-dreamscapes and coming of age fairytales.
Nanna’s interactive, “Mary Poppins on acid” themed stage shows haven’t gone unnoticed in America, either. A slot at SXSW festival in 2009 (after releasing an underground album, Fauna, in Denmark) led to major-label interest and now, with Epic, her whimsical world of rainbows, sirens and lovelorn wolves is in danger of reaching a wider audience.
Nanna is rightfully optimistic. “I hope my music will inspire people to feel like everything is possible and like they can do whatever they want and that nothing is too crazy to at least try out.”
Oh Land is released on July 10th in the UK.
Sia Interview
Interview for Attitude magazine Issue 192.
Forget the haunting voice behind Breathe Me that gave the Six Feet Under finale an added emotional poignancy. In person, Sia comes across more like an animated kindergarten teacher. The Adelaide born singer has a reason to be chirpy. Having recently signed to a major label, her new record, We Are Born, sees her ditching somber soundtrack musings in favour of joyous future-pop ditties that brim with enough restless eclecticism to match her world of unicorns, Crayola-inspired cover art and charming, childlike videos.
“I’m not really a miserable person all the time, ” she laughs, suggesting it’s a transformation that’s been a long time coming. “There’s 3 songs on this album that I actually wrote 5 years ago with Greg Kurstin and we delivered a whole album of 10 songs to Universal right after Colour The Small One. And they said, ‘You can’t do this – you’re a downtempo artist.’” Dropped by the label, it was the success of the mid-tempo jazz-pop sophistication of Some People Have Real Problems in 2008 that provided a leg-up towards making the album that she “really wanted to put out for a long time”.
This new feeling of liberation is clear in opener, The Fight, where a rapturous new-wave chorus that brings to mind Parallel Lines-era Blondie being produced by Xenomania marches towards the empowering refrain, “We’ve made it through the dark into the light”. Explaining that the song is about her “projecting into the future” about “equal rights”, Sia describes anti-gay laws across the pond as “crazy”, especially now that she’s hoping to marry her partner, JD Samson of feminist punk-trio Le Tigre. “Right now, I’m mad about the fact that I can’t get married and that my other gay friends can’t get married. It just seems gross and unfair.”
Crossover success beckons at a time when genre-morphing female solo artists like Florence are dominating the charts. “There’s room for everybody,” Sia opines. “Nobody’s the same anyway, you know.” In her case, it’s true.
Sia’s new album We Are Born comes out on June 7th.
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