YOUR STATION: The Future Station festival is well under way. We began with a film screening of ‘Victim’ (1961) on Friday evening and then joined the Liverpool Pride march with our Stephenson’s Rainbow Rocket float on Saturday. Metal staff and Future Station members contributed to the design and construction of the float and were really glad of the opportunity to show our support of the LGBT community. On Monday evening Culturepool and Philosophy in Pubs held a discussion about Equality in our Engine room – There will be a follow up to this next Monday 15th 6-8:30. Yesterday we were joined by Theatre director and activist Parnab Mukherjee who led a workshop exploring alternative theatre methods and global conflicts. Parnab will also be performing at Edge Hill Station this evening (10 Aug) at 7pm along with Ruth Dillon and Jonathan Tooze.

The visual art exhibition opens today 2-6pm and continues until Saturday 20^th August. Tue – Fri 2-6 Sat 12-4. We will be having an exhibition preview day on Saturday 13^th 12-4pm in which there will be a glass of wine and cake for each visitor.

Click here for festival programme   

Metal's 10 day arts and culture festival at Solomon Monk's Pump House has now come to an end.  An amazing array of talent from around the Globe and across the UK presented, performed and entertained for our pop-up festival venue in Chalkwell Park. For more information about what happened, who came and some comments and feedback from audiences and artists please follow the relevant links:-

For Shorelines: Literature Festival of the Sea / Salon Evenings / Pecha Kucha Night Vol. 9 / An Evening of Jazz with Snowboy / Out on Their Own classical music event / Hugh Hughes in 360 / London Snorkelling Team & Adam Sky (Adamski) / Metal Presents at Solomon Monk's Pump House / End of Term.

Here is an extract from Hoipolloi presents Hugh Hughes in.. 360:

+ You can watch our short interviews with some of the musicians from OUT ON THEIR OWN event:

In March 2011, Metal commissioned BLOO Nation to create a new work at its summer pop-up venue at Chalkwell Park, Solomon Monk's Pump House.

The installation uses hundreds of empty water cooler bottles to 'raise awareness of the concept of embedded water (the water we don't see) and how it affects the water crisis'. The bottles were built into a 'wave-like wall to demonstrate the vast journey water takes as well as the amount of water used in the production of certain products'. A selection of objects was displayed on the adjacent wall, together with an estimate of how much water was consumed in their making.

Over what turned out to be a dramatic and stormy sea weekend weatherwise in Southend on Sea, Metal's first Literature Festival of the Sea, Shorelines, in Solomon Monks Pump House in July 2011, was no less awe inspiring than the real waves pounding the shore outside.

Opening with a heart-wrenching reading from Veronique Olmi's 'Beside the Sea' on Friday evening by the actress Lisa Dwan - readings from Sjon (From the Mouth of the Whale), Roma Tearne (The Swimmer) andThomas Joshua Cooper (The Atlas Project) kept the packed house spell-bound, whilst Lara Fiegel (Modernism on Sea) and Sue Jones (Whitstable Biennial) took us on a coastal journey of visual art, poetry and design around the UK, with Southend making its own significant contribution.

Sunday saw a powerhouse panel of Iain Sinclair (Ghost Milk); Robert MacFarlane (The Wild Places) Jay Griffiths (Wild) Yang Lian (Where the Sea Stands Still) Stephen Watts (The Blue Bag) and Rachel Lichtenstein (On Brick Lane) and talking about their relationship both professionally and personally to the Sea.  As well as contributions from Syd Moore (The Drowning Pool), Tom King (The Thames Estuary Trail) Paul Gilson (Tales of a Leigh Fisherman) and Shaun Levin.

All in all a thought-provoking and inspiring weekend.

Donwload a PDF of the full programme here.

Last week Metal Liverpool hosted an exhibition by Laurence Payot which brought together some of the process and materials collected during the 'Coincidence' performance that happened from 25th May- 5th June on the streets of Picton.  The film, made by Sam Meech, followed two of the participants each day as they performed their daily action.  One of our favourites was 'Let's chalk a Hopscotch in the street for people to hop on as they walk past'!  There was also a free newspaper given away that gathered together people's thoughts, comments and images from the blog that was active throughout the fourteen day performance.  Read more here www.coincidenceproject.co.uk.

Images below by Ian Poulson.

Last week filming continued for Aqua Voltaic, a project conceived and developed by Paul Howard and David Matthews, in collaboration with Simon Poulter. To read more about paul and david work click here

Their project highlights issues around water: its value, its use as a commodity and its commercialisation. Howard and Matthews extend this in their ironic and humorous film about water smuggling which hides a more serious meaning.
 
AquaVoltaic will be shown in the upcoming exhibition, STILL: Conflict, conservation and contemplation, in Metal Culture Chalkwell Hall, July 15 – 3 September 2011 (Wednesday- Saturday 11 am- 6 pm or by appointment) .
Here there are some pictures of the latest shoot made during the last week.

Coincidence - A performance by artist Laurence Payot with Picton residents: The exhibition. Come along to the exhibition preview for the film premiere, food and drink: Tuesday 28 June, 6.30 - 9 pm.
Open Wednesday 29 June - Saturday 2 July, 2 - 6pm.

For two weeks in May artist Laurence Payot invited residents from the Picton ward area to take part in an extraordinary project encouraging social interactions through small daily coincidences by carrying out simple daily tasks integrated within their normal routine.

After consulting local schools, community groups and residents an action was decided for each day. These were then sent out to all participants by text message in the morning of that day. Actions included 'lets pass on a smile and a hello maybe', 'Let’s chalk a hopscotch or other games in the streets for people to hop on as they walk past.' and 'Lets drop flower seeds in places that need it'. We planted some sunflower seeds in the Metal Liverpool office . . . heres hoping they do well.

Pecha Kucha on 9 June was organised in association with the Leigh Art Trail, bringing together 7 artists, designers and creative individuals from this year's Trail. Lydia Hardwick, Dave Shields, Richard Baxter, Tricia North, Madelaine Murphy, Lola Swain, and Jo Hartle presented using the dynamic Japanese method of Pecha Kucha. 20 slides x 20 seconds.