bristol and beyond for beauty in the city

september's proving to be a hectic month for the beauty in the city project. following hot on the heels from the gijón exhibition (of which more to follow) we have exciting news of two projects this month.

OPEN/MAKERS is a project based in Leiden, Netherlands using empty shops as a hub for visual and performative arts. 

sonja van kerkhoff, a contributor to this project and a member of the OPEN project is co-ordinating  the third leg of there is beauty in the city's exhibition programme. running from 3rd september until 10th october, this shop window will be displaying 25 of the projects images, printed at postcard size and displayed in a long line at eye-level across the window of the empty shop. each print is accompanied by its respective artist's name and text explaining the significance of the image.

contributors are: AMAE, anna hindocha, bernard charnley, brutus carniollus, chloe arrowsmith, ella klenner, emily tull, emma thackham, felicity ford, iain macleod-brudenell, jania vanderwerff, joshua daniels, juan martin, julie brixey-williams, lester kong, marianne richardson, paul hanson, siobhan tarr, sophie gibson, susana lopez fernandez, teresa leung, tony jones, victor angelo, wai kit lam, yvonne lo.
click on each name to see their images.

the second part of the exhibition will see local leiden residents responding to a call put out by sonja to come to the shop to claim a prized magnet pack. over the next 5-6 weeks, a second line of images, below the first, will be built - this time by residents of leiden who will be flagging the parts of their city they deem to be beautiful. there will also be a tv screening the looped film of all images submitted, totalling nearly 300 by over 70 contributors.

we see this as the perfect format for the project - the plethora of amazing images and contributions to the project so far are being used to inspire the people of a city to celebrate their ideas of urban beauty and encouraging people to reframe and rethink their familiar city spaces.

so watch out over the coming weeks for images celebrating the beauty of leiden.

the second beauty in the city event this month takes place closer to home in bristol on september 25th. artist cara lockley is presenting a project entitled "the stranger at the party".

cara writes..."The project’s title is appropriated from the 1972 theory of human behavior by Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman. In ‘Encounters’ Goffman considers the structure of the everyday encounter in relation to the manipulation of the individual by society as a whole. Goffman's stranger at the party anchors the gathering of multiple social groups as a mode of focused interaction or memorable experience.The project explores the ways in which artists and audiences engage with visual art and performance, by considering the exhibition as a constructed situation, the works presented respond to the social context within which they are exhibited, and in most cases in which they have been produced."


the day-long event combines a contemporary art event and curatorial intervention, which employs temporary actions and presentations in public space and features artwork by: Agnieszka Gojska, Ania Bas, Anna Francis, Dani Abulhawa, Jennifer Campbell, Cara Lockley, Miriam Todd, Tamara Marsh, and Vickie Fear.


there will be loads of opportunities to get involved if you're round and about the old market area of bristol and beauty in the city will be one of the associated projects. click here for to join the project's facebook group.


so - it's all go this month - watch out for all the amazing new images promised - should be a visual, beautiful, urban treat.