If It Thunders on All Fool's Day

Eastside Projects

1 to 8 April 2023

Curated by Dinosaur Kilby

I have invited three collaborative artist groups to Eastside Projects for a period of thinking, gathering and connecting.

GLOAM makes cool shit happen, an artist-led beacon, a collectively-run exhibition and studio space in Sheffield. Chaos Magic are Nottingham witches who change reality through ritual practice. The Field is a co-living project and DIY space in what was previously the headquarters of the National Coal Board, located in Derbyshire.

The expanded Midlands are here in Birmingham for one week. For one week the thunder is waking the frogs!*

If It Thunders on All Fool’s Day* is an open offer to come to our city to ‘do something.’

I don’t know what is going to happen, I don’t know the outcomes, I hope this is a starting point. An open structure that allows for many outcomes, a picked mushroom that’s spreading its spores all over your hand and down your leg.

I want to see how the spores fall, how the thunder rolls, if we are going to make something part exhibition, part proclamation, part kickoff, part massive collaboration, part check-in, part carucation. What can we achieve if we synergise or fall apart? 

Join us for Digbeth First Friday and expect good crops of corn and hay!*

*old english proverb 

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Featuring the works of Leah Hickey and Ishmail De Niro.

At the start of the week Leah will be leading a writing workshop titled ‘Poem for a potential darling.’

Unravelling the artist’s own poetry to begin, artist and writer Leah Hickey will guide the groups in marrying auto-fiction and Early Modern English, to conceive thine own ‘poem for a potential darling’. An ode to audiences past, present and future, the groups will produce a fable, a script, a love letter to blossom and bloom year upon year. Where art thou now, heart’s gleam, and where dost thou wish to be?

Ishmail De Niro has installed a new banner work for April 1.

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The project will be open to the public on Digbeth First Friday 7 April 6–8pm and Saturday 8 April 12–5pm, or by appointment – email dinosaur[at]eastsideprojects.org to arrange your visit.

Dinosaur is an artist that runs Cheap Cheap and is a member of the horrible collaboration Kühle Wampe. He is also Artist Curator Trainee at Eastside Projects.  

All images by Stuart Whipps.