Listen up Middlesbrough!
Listen up Middlesbrough!
THIS SATURDAY 18th MAY 2024 | 2B Creative, Hillstreet Shopping Centre, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom
Sonic Bus Stories
Artist duo ATOM (Alisa Oleva and Timothy Maxymenko) are looking for stories from people who have moved to Middlesbrough from abroad. Whether you arrived in recent times or you have called Middlesbrough home for many years now, we want to hear from you. By sharing a story, you will contribute to co-creating a new experiential performance called Sonic Bus Stories. The event will happen during Sonic Arts Week June 22nd - 29th.
Can you tell us about a memorable bus journey you used to take in your home country?
We invite you to recollect that bus journey with all the tiny details of sights, sounds, voices, smells, sensations that you still remember. Can you still hear the hum of the engine, the chatter of fellow passengers or the voice that announces the next stop? Take us back to that moment with the sounds and impressions that linger in your memory.
ATOM is an art duo formed by Alisa Oleva and Timothy Maxymenko. They offer situations and experiences within urban spaces of portals, spaces in between, shared encounters, meeting places, scores for movement and contacts.
Alisa Oleva is a walking artist who works with themes of urban choreography, traces and surfaces, borders and inventories, intervals and silences, passages and cracks. She makes performances, movement scores, personal and intimate encounters, parkour sessions, walkshops, audio and soundwalks.
Timothy Maxymenko is an Ukrainian new media artist, currently based in London. He works with audio, video, installation, movement and performance. In his art practise the city becomes an organism for research and interaction.
Instrument Amnesty
We Need Your Instruments!
Sonic Arts Week is collecting musical instruments of all kinds from all corners of Boro and beyond! Have you got an old guitar gathering dust…or an unused keyboard in the corner? Bring them to our drop-off points which will be open throughout the festival. We will repair them and donate them to local community and youth groups who desperately need them. Bring your old instruments and bring some joy to budding Boro musicians!!!
Sonic Arts Week 2024
22 - 29 June
SAW offers a packed programme of free, accessible and (mostly) family friendly entertainment throughout the town.
Liam Slevin, Festival Director Sonic Arts Week
“We’re excited to be back in 2024 bringing you more marvels for SAW. A highlight from this year’s programme for me is ATOM which is our Sonic Arts Week bus and Jayne Dent is sewing up an innovative touch-responsive artwork which you won’t want to miss!”
He went on to say…
“There is so much to get involved in; spoken words, projected illusions, dense drones, soundscapes from a voyage to Norway & live music from left of field artists, so let your ears lead the way and #comejointheracket! “
Highlights include:
The Organ: an installation by Jayne Dente AKA Me Lost Me. Utilising conductive thread and technology to make the textile touch-responsive. Look out for this interactive installation where the more hands playing the more layered the sound will become; promising a collaborative and interactive musical experience for everyone.
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ATOM: A sonic journey on the ATOM bus, touring round town exploring experiences within urban spaces of portals, spaces in between, shared encounters and meeting places.
SAW Creative Hub : Inspiring creative sessions at the SAW Creative Hub with Summat for the Bairns over at Unit 7, Navigator North the Hillstreet Shopping Centre. Construct a musical gismo, join with friends, family and fellow makers to form a DIY band and rock-out to your own tune! These sessions are family friendly, open to everyone, fun and free!
Encounters: Expect curious happenings, strange sounds, costumed wonders, bearded bards and other oddities. The return of Encounters will bring the weird and wonderful to the streets of Middlesbrough.
The Junkoactive Wasteman & The Tin Can Twins: A Trio of self-proclaimed junkophillic, electro tin can playing, robo dancing ex freelance bin men.
James Watts: Layered visceral soundscapes from James Watts, an artist and musician based in Newcastle upon Tyne, with his bolted together, scrappy and creaking instrument bodies.
The Doom Orchestra: will be transforming Middlesbrough into a post-apocalyptic landscape of strange, noisy sounds, with bodged instruments crafted from remnants of the apocalypse, join us for this captivating and unconventional musical journey like no other.
Jayne Dent:Enjoy roaming conduction and touch responsive soundscapes from Jayne Dent as she takes to the streets with materials and ideas from her installation.
The Organ: Embark on an hour-long odyssey of spoken word poetry from Bob Beagrie in collaboration with composer Stewart Forth, joined by musicians from their collective Project Lono who’ll be creating a sonic landscape on the line of poetry and music.
Tees Women Poets: Enjoy performances from this performance poetry club for women
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Industrial Coast : Look out for gigs from Teesside born and bred Industrial Coast; they’ll be inviting world renowned musicians and sound artists to come and play in the town.
The Auxiliary Project Space
The Auxiliary Project Space is an artist-led National Portfolio Organisation. Based in a 11,000 sq ft warehouse including artist studios, exhibition and workshop space, it emphasises artistic development, large scale exhibitions and community participation. The Auxiliary will undergo a major refurbishment in July 2024, thanks to the DCMS Cultural Development Fund and Tees Valley Combined Authority 2021.
Middlesbrough Art Week
Now presenting its 7th festival edition MAW takes place across the town from Thursday 26th September to Saturday 4th October, 2024.
The title for this year’s festival, IN THE NOW AND THE FAR, seeks to negotiate the overlap and differences between cultural production and political action. Who has the right to take action? What does art & social practice look like? When is the moment and who is in the room? We are thinking about the attitudes, frameworks and timescales that inform the way that we make and share work, and in turn, how this helps us reimagine the communities we live in. We are also considering how uneven distribution (of power, time, resource, capacity) has shaped social movement of the past, and how this in turn might act as the imaginative scaffold for the future.