Culture LABS
Metal runs a programme of Culture LABS each year that brings together groups of artists and thinkers in exploratory, week-long, intensive residencies around different themes and subjects. Artists come from a variety of disciplines, types of practice and different places around the UK and overseas.
LABS this year have included investigations into; Digital work with emphasis on new software and hardware development; Comedy in Live Art; Protest and Propaganda in relationship to the modern Olympic movement.
We host LABS from both our spaces in Liverpool and Southend-on-Sea. They are designed to help artists examine and develop their practice, assist with knowledge exchange and expertise, and to provide the opportunity for time and space to develop new ideas.
Culture LAB: Protest and Propaganda was hosted in Liverpool from 6 - 10 February 2012. Artists Janie Nicoll, Nicki Mccubbing, Laurence Payot, Sam Wiehl, Penny Whitehead and Daniel Simpkins took part in a week that included a series of talks from visiting artists, development sessions around skills, group discussion, time slots for individual work and some shared meals, facilitated by the Metal team. The artists focused on the theme of protest and propaganda around the modern Olympic movement, with an eye on the 2012 London Olympics with an invitation to develop ideas for new pieces of work to be presented at Metal's Village Green festival in Southend On Sea in June.
Those ideas are currently in development. In the meantime here are some photographs and video feedback from participating artists on the process.
