On Tuesday evening Metal and the Digital Exploration Centre (DEC) welcomed guests to the opening on Small World Fair, and exhibition of ideas, artworks, curiosities and questions around how the world is shaped by technology.  Gerfried Stocker, artistic director or Ars Electronica in Linz gave a keynote speech to introduce the DEC - a new organisation for Southend - and the work on show by artists, Rod Maclachlan, Peter Cusack, Mary Flanaghan, Hans Verhaegen, Jean Delouvroy and Harminder Singh Judge who will show a film documentary of the live performance in Chalkwell Park of his stunning Modes of Al-Ikseer. The exhibition is presented by the DEC and is sited in Metal's Chalkwell Hall and runs until 23 October (open 11am - 6pm - Thurs / Fri / Sat).  For more information about the DEC project at Metal click here.

Metal's Village Green festival on Saturday 25 was fantastic!  28,000 people came to see a wide range of international, national and local artists perform in music, dance, visual arts, comedy, sports and much more.  The sun shone, the rain stayed away and everyone had a really great day.  We have uploaded a selection of our images above - if you have any great shots of the day you'd like to share, go to the Village Green Flickr Page and upload them there.  It would be great to see them.

On the 180th Anniversary of the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway Edge Hill Station once again hosted a celebration of creativity and innovation for the opening of our next exhibition 'Dream Machine'.  Featuring artists Nicola Dale and composer Ailis Ni Riain, Gareth Brew, Phil Lockhart, Tom Palin, and Richard Proffitt the work repsonds to the idea of the first journey by rail and the sparks of imagination that can happen during rail journeys.  The exhibition is open 2-6pm Tues-Fri and Sat 12-4pm.

Photos by Mark McNulty.

On Friday 27th August, visual artist Hayley Louise Goodsell held a workshop at Metal Liverpool 'Online life drawing - how to draw strangers'. Participants were given materials and a drawing board and used the random strangers that came up on a Chatroulette style website as models.