Roster of events taking place throughout the summer months.
The makers of Brum Spirit, Professional Incredibles, have been delivering authentic Brazilian inspired events and celebrations in Birmingham since 2010. After taking time out last year to foster new projects and develop Brum Spirit 2016 they are back with their best lineup to date.
The city’s well loved arts collective, Brum Spirit, have teamed up with a plethora of local and international talent, to bring fun for all the family from July through to September.
Activity as part of Brum Spirit celebrations will include a weekend of music, theatre and visual art, taking place July 23rd to 24th in Moseley School of Art. However a public art mural titled; We’re in this Together taking place in Balsall Heath, will mark the beginning of this year’s celebrations.
The mural will call on the expertise of the team behind the well-known Welcome to Kings Heath mural, created back in 2013 by local talent Hoakser, who at the time teamed up with visiting Brazilian artist Ficore. The mural is still the centre piece of Kings Heath and can be enjoyed in pride of place on the side of Mariano’s Cafe, welcoming commuters and residents to the area.
This year’s public art commission will see an over-looked wall on the banks of the river Rea transformed in to a vibrant mural, on the week beginning July 4th. The mural will see Hoakser team up with Lebanese duo AshekMan. These artists all focus on character based pieces and typography, and are well respected in their field.
Hoakser’s work ranges from public artworks to private commissions, which are currently held in collections in 13 countries across five continents. Most recently he was called on by Ebay to feature in a short film about his work.
Birmingham graffiti legend Zooki grew up in Balsall Heath, the site of this year’s Brum Spirit mural. He has been painting for well over 20 years, and his style is very distinctive. For those who know their graff culture, Zooki is in FKS, NHS and INS crews to name a few. His sharp style contrasts smooth graphic lines with old school references to graffiti’s roots, with characters straight out of a Bronx block party transposed into brightly contrasting everyday settings. Collectors can currently get a hold of his prints, T shirts and canvases at Graffiti Artist, in the heart of Digbeth’s Custard Factory.
Ashekman will travel to Birmingham from Lebanon, to bring their well know Arabic Calligraffiti style of work to the mural. AshekMan are identical twins and are most known for commissions for the likes of Nike, Coca Cola, MTV, and even celebrities such as Snoop Dogg have purchased pieces.
This year’s mural theme is We’re in This Together from the Brazilian slang “tamojunto”, which has been a mantra for Brum Spirit since it first began to connect artists and communities from Birmingham with those from Brazil, back in 2011. The phrase will be incorporated into the design of the piece. AshekMan will look to work in one of their characters – Grendizer ,a Japanese manga super hero character who became a cult figure to children across Lebanon, when the series was released across the Middle East in 1975, the year the Lebanese civil war began. Local artists will work to bring out the theme of the city and develop a piece which will have meaning to the local community.
Professional Incredibles Director, Tessa Burwood, says: “We’re really excited to launch this year’s Brum Spirit with such a dynamic intervention. Whilst Hoakser and Zooki are synonymous with Birmingham’s graff scene, they also work regularly with the city’s young people, and are switched on to Birmingham’s tradition of tolerance and sanctuary for people from all over the world, as well as to the divisive tensions that threaten to fracture our pluricultural communities.
“By inviting AshekMan from Beirut to collaborate on a public artwork in the midst of Balsall Heath, along the river on which the city was founded, we want to create a visual legacy that reminds passers by of just how strong our neighbourhoods can be, when we focus on teamwork, dialogue and a celebration of our common humanity.”
In addition, Brum Spirit also helps to incubate, facilitate, and grow community projects, and this year Brum Spirit has already supported and launched two new projects in Birmingham – Made Welcome and Gaia’s Garden.
Brum Spirit are working on a number of initiatives in the city, to find out more informations please visit www.brumspirit.org.