ARTIST COMMISSIONS FOR COLLIDE WM 2005

01. Dark Matters
Sakab Bashir - Multi-Art Form - Installation / Website

Biography
Sakab was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan but came to the UK aged 5 months. His artistic practice has been driven by his personal experience as a first generation British Asian.

In recent years Sakab has produced a number of pieces of award winning, screen based interactive art: including www.britpaki.com and www.alleph.net (Winner, 2004 BAFTA Interactive Award for Interactive Arts. Selected to feature in: European New Media Art Festival, Osnabruck, 2004: Split Film and New Media Festival, 2004: Festival International Nouveau cinÈma Nouveaux Medias Montreal, 2004: Artronica, Bogota, 2004.)

As well as creating stand-alone works of digital media art Sakab Bashir is a partner in Emote, a Birmingham based design and new media development company.

Project Summary
A site specific digital media installation and companion web-site. An interactive portrait of my father. Part painting, part sound environment, part animation, part movie and part game. An intimate and unfolding narrative of one man and his memories of events past.

Biography
After graduating from a HND course in Documentary Photography from Stockport College 10 years ago Anand has his heart set on working in the photography industry. He was worked in a variety of settings to express this type of photography such as portraiture, community photographer and wedding photojournalism.

Project Summary
He is currently working on a project in conjunction with Collide and Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service. This project deals with a commitment to producing a significant photographic document that in this case has a double identity to explore cultural heritage and the relationship with England. This will be documented in such a way that it will promote understanding and awareness between the different ethnic groups.

The theme of the project will be co-ordinated to show how each group deals with the significant life events that all of us share and to acknowledge our similar basic needs and our differing ways of satisfying those needs. This will include cultural contributions from people as part of Collide 05 to work alongside Bantock House through workshops etc.

This will be entwined with the Channel 4 online project with Collide '05 to enable the production of websites that in some cases uncover and some cases communicate individuals or group's own identity and England. This will enable participants to add their own stories and objects to those provided by Bantock House. For example different ethnic groupings could try on Victorian clothes in Bantock House and share, record and document their views.

03 Silver in Places of Worship
Rajesh Gogna - Visual Art - Exhibition

Biography
My aim as an Artist/ Designer Maker is to extend my knowledge in terms of skills, techniques and technology in order to pursue creative ideas with a sense of freedom. I work as an individual Artist but also have experience of collaborating with others. My work is represented in a number of collections in the U.K including Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.

I established my practise in 1998 within Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter producing contemporary products ranging from functional products to One off pieces Silverware. My Experience as a Tutor ranges from Community Arts projects to Higher Education, all of which require writing project brief's, demonstrating techniques, workshop safety and evaluating and assessing project outcomes.

Project Summary
My objective is to design and make an elaborate contemporary Silver (Chattar) which is a symbolic shelter that is suspended above the mighty Hindu Goddess- Durga Mata. The piece will be inspired by traditional religious motifs and the Architecture of Hindu Temples in North India. The final outcome will become the focal point within a Hindu Temple in Sandwell, West Midlands. During my research for this project I will visit various shrines in India, talking to priests and looking at the traditional production methods used by craftsman who produce existing religious silverware. All of the information compiled will be put together for viewing at the launch of my exhibition as an insight to the inspirations and history behind the traditions and rituals of the Hindu Culture.

04 The Kitcha Project
Syra Miah - Multimedia Film / Video - Film, Video, CD, Exhibition

Biography
Syra Miah is an emerging Bengali British artist who works across a wide range of media in order to bring new dimensions into traditional art forms. Her work is particularly concerned with exploring the Bangladeshi aural tradition of storytelling and its impact on communities in both the UK and in Bangladesh.

'I have a strong interest in the changing nature of language through the combined expressions of tactile, narrative and aural mediums. Through these approaches I am attempting to create a snapshot of time and place to a new audience.'

Previous experience lies in the areas of set design, drama and costume design workshops. Recent work includes several short films including production and costume design work for a recently screened MTV music video. 'Earlier this year I worked with Atelier Nikolau one of the most renowned costume houses in the world. Previous to this I was commissioned by Modulate, to create a collaborative sound installation project exhibited at The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton'. Other work of note includes work with a partially blind artist which resulted in an interactive sensory sculpture trail.

Project Summary
Syra Miah's family are typical of the Sylheti experience in Birmingham, having moved here in the seventies from Bangladesh. Her own experience has shown that the migrant communities here tend to cling to an idea of a timeless age back home, reinforcing this strongly within their children. As a child of this, she chose to link her idea of Bangladeshi culture with a real experience of it.

Bangladesh is a young troubled country where the majority of its citizens are deprived of literacy. Even so, a strong oral tradition has evolved there, into a powerful means of communication. Many forms of this storytelling flourish, such as the mystic Baul singing of rural Bangladesh. A travelling vent for social comment, and a healer for spiritual uncertainty, this tradition forms an integral part of the culture there.

Within The Kitcha project, Syra has explored aspects of this dynamic tradition in rural Bangladesh and storytelling within communities here. Her aim is to investigate if there are lessons to be learnt through an insight into the evolving nature of stories, as they travel geographically, and from one culture to another and pick up new frameworks.

The Kitcha project culminates in a collection of text, imagery and sound through which a parallel snapshot in time is offered.

'Kitcha' means 'story' in colloquial Sylheti, the language spoken in Sylhet , northern Bangladesh. The majority of Bangladeshi immigrants in Britain are of Sylheti origin.

05 Colour, Space and Dimension
Amarjeet Mahey - Visual Art - Exhibition

Biography
In September 2003 I graduated from the University Of Central England with a BA (Hons) in printed textiles design for interiors and fashion application, which has been the basis for all the work I have ever designed and produced over the last five years. I possess a natural ability to assimilate new designs, colours and evaluate them in a practical way within a specific design brief whether it be fashion or interior design. As far as I am concerned the cross over between these two designs subjects is one of natural progression. Also I have achieved a Highly Commended Award from the Royal Society of Arts.

Project Summary
I have always been fascinated by our Universe; the abstract mass of entwining colours, orbital ring patterns that have been discovered by astronomers and deep space telescopes; unique textures of our many planets and the void that separates the planets that creates the mystical dimensions within our Universe.

My aim is to capture these images in a form of textile art which would be more of a mix media as apposed to traditional painting, varying from wall hangings to stretched canvases.

What will make my work unique is to incorporate the skills I gained from the degree course such as the art of dying various fabrics, silk screen printing, discharge printing and heat transfer printing. Combining them with colours, textures, patterns and embroidery that I draw upon from everyday life which I will then mix to create an aura of fine art for my audience to feel enveloped in the colours and textures within the design.

06 Pouring
Jiva Partipan - Live Art / Performance Ritual

Biography
Project Summary
I am interested in pouring, dabbing, smearing and dripping various substances from water, eggs, honey, milk, vermillion, ash and other organic and non-organic substances on a few seated or standing performers/people.

07 Thread
Rita Patel - Crafts - Exhibition

Biography
Rita began making jewellery fifteen years ago, after completing a teaching degree in 1993, she went onto undertake a jewellery fellowship scheme based in the jewellery quarter in Birmingham and hence was able pursue her passion for creating jewellery.

Rita designs and makes silver and gold contemporary jewellery pieces developed from her interest in rituals relating to her cultural and life experiences. The jewellery pieces are handmade and often encompass a playful and tactile quality. She enjoys creating work that the wearer can interact with by making jewellery with moving parts. She now combines her jewellery making with teaching at the Midlands Art Centre and working on community arts projects with organisations such as Craftspace Touring and the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter.

Project Summary
The project will develop and explore new work incorporating the theme of threads. Combining materials such as silk, 22ct gold,9ct gold, silver and rice to produce a beautiful range of contemporary jewellery which will be exhibited in a relaxing restaurant environment. The work also explores the question/nature of what is 'asian jewellery'.

Biography
Manveer Singh has been based in Birmingham since 1999 and has recently completed a B.Mus (Hons) in Rag Sangeet at Birmingham Conservatoire, focusing on North Indian tabla performance. He is continuing his studies there as a postgraduate student, this time focusing on composition. Over the last few years, Manveer has worked in a vast array of ensembles from traditional North Indian groups to work with Gospel choirs, jazz musicians as well as musicians from the Middle East and West Africa.

The Singh Quintet represents a new direction in which Manveer has brought together musicians from the North Indian and western classical traditions. The fusing of two musical traditions is not something which can be done by simply bringing different musicians together. In the case of Indian classical music, it is too often assumed that the quality of performance is similar to the kind of improvisation found in jazz and so the Singh Quintet explores the compositional side of these two musical traditions.

Project Summary
The project which has received support from Collide is entitled, 'My Journey' and this refers to a journey Manveer have made many times through the heart of Birmingham from New Street Station to the conservatoire. As his eyesight has deteriorated, this ten minute walk has become more and more an aural adventure in which he is aware of an almost bewildering variety of sounds, accents and languages. Through the use of ragas and their relationships with emotions as well as the work of a video artist using projectors and lighting, the audience will be given an insight into the relationship between music, sounds and visual impairment.

13. Leap Off The Page! New Voices In Film
Script - Film

Project Summary
Script in association with Light House Media Centre introduces three new powerful and emotive short films to the region.

Tessa written by Tabasam Haseen & directed by Joseph Potts. A Better Place written by Ashok Patel & directed by Ekta Walia, and Parallel Lines written by James Pogson & directed by Harmage Singh Kalirai.

Tessa is a story about Brian who is tortured by the memory of a loved one. His thought processes are fractured and the line between fantasy and reality are completely blurred which results in a fatal act.

A Better Place tells the story of an Asian pensioner suffering from dementia, the effect on those around her and the breakdown of a traditional Asian family in modern Britain.

Parallel Lines is a ten minute symbolic melodrama about letting go of the past and dealing with the here and now.

LEAP OFF THE PAGE is a new and dynamic initiative for culturally diverse writers and directors within the West Midlands region.