We recently announced our foray into the Midlands, and have since then published a number of smashing reviews for shows in Birmingham, Nottingham and Northamptonshire. However, we have been keeping quiet about a very exciting aspect of our Midlands expansion project that we are now able to announce. Barkle and Tranklements: Art Writing from the Midlands is a 192-page collection of essays, fictions, surveys and rituals from nine writers from across the Midlands, edited by Ben Barra and Lesley Guy. Yes, it’s an actual book that you can hold in your hand, and if we say so ourselves, it’s rather gorgeous. (We thank our amazing designer Ashleigh Armitage for that of course!)
We are hugely grateful to the Innovate Fund for investing in this project. Not only have we been able to establish networks of organisations, artists and writers in the East and West Midlands, but we were able to find and train our two new Regional Editors, Rachel Graves and Kevin Hunt, who are now important members of the Corridor8 team. Alongside this expansion we wanted to produce a publication that would showcase the breadth of art writing talent from the region and share the stories, the voices and the array of cultural history that, we are sorry to confess, we knew little about. It was a slightly scary undertaking, neither of us (Ben and Lesley) having commissioned or edited anything of this size, but in true Corridor8 style we got on with it and figured it out!
Most importantly, we got to work with amazing writers: Amrit Doll, Anneka French, Jessica Piette, Joanne Masding, Polly Brant, Ruth Charnock with Lena Sass Hughes, Vivien Chan, Wayne Burrows and Wingshan. Wingshan’s piece is a spell you can perform; Joanne’s is a direct line to an artist’s brain, as ideas get turned into things; Amrit discusses the centrality of Leicester to British Computer Art; Jessica’s piece tells you about the loss of an important art school building in Wolverhampton; Anneka guides you through arts publishing in the Midlands; Wayne rounds up twenty years of artist led projects in Nottingham; Polly provides a really personal journey through art education, Midlands style; Ruth and Lena talk about grief and the Lincolnshire art scene; and Vivien revisits an important exhibition about diasporic art practices.
So! We want you to read this book and tell all your friends about it!
With love and solidarity, Lesley, Ben and the Corridor8 team.