BlankPages
Wednesday 1st Sep 2010
September sees several special treats in blankpages – we're presenting the work of not one, but two poets this month. Alicia Stubbersfield shares some supremely crafted and entertaining works alongside her thoughts on the state of modern poetry, technique and how she got to where she is. Lauren Bolger's short internship with blankpages culminates this month with her thoughts on the relationship between poetry and music, and a piece of her own poetry.
As if that double-sided treat wasn't enough, we have the pleasure of sharing Fran Giffard's One of Every Species of Vulture in its entirety. This collection of images is fascinating not only in its subject matter, but also in its meticulous detail and obsessive completeness.
Returning once again to the 'pages are two of our favourite contributors – Kevin Bradshaw does the honours once again on illustration, and Elaine Wilson interviews, reviews and presents this month's mp3 from Stealing Sheep
blankpicks this month covers Spencer Tunick's Big Chill installation through the naked eyes of one of its participants, and don't forget to check out Recommends... Your monthly toe-dipping into what's hot in the world of emerging arts events...
READ THIS MONTH'S ISSUE ONLINE NOW...
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Sunday 1st Aug 2010
blankpages is half way to 50! All you mental arithmetic skillsters will know that means we're on issue 25. Quite amazing really. And we keep growing and changing. Keep your eyes peeled for new opportunities within the blankpages team to be announced soon.
Returning to our fold this month is Kevin Bradshaw, after his excellent cover feature last month, he's our guest illustrator for August!
This month we have an excellent how-to feature from Stuart Douglas of Obverse Books, about starting your own small press, and we're featuring the music of Deaf To Van Gogh's Ear, who will be performing at Kro Bar for BlankSounds, Blank Media Collective's new quarterly live music night.
Alongside this, we're pleased to be publishing work created at the first Imploding Acoustic Inevitable Festival in the Lake District back in June. It's an Exquisite Corpse-style piece straight from the minds of the festival's audience... Make of it what you will...
This is of course on top of the usual high quality poetry, fiction and visual art spotlight we tirelessly present for your digestion.
So take a minute out and relax among the clouds with blankpages...
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Thursday 1st Jul 2010
This month we're showcasing the work of a new collective on the block – Centrepoint. They show the work of emerging photographers on their blog, so we thought we'd share it with you. blankpages caught up with one of the members to find out what it's all about.
The fiction this month is by Sam Byers – a clever argument where content marries form. And he's about to have his novel published. One to watch!
Our poetry (by Tom Harding) and music this month have been illustrated by the artists (or in the case of Black Jack Barnet, by the shipmate of the artist – Jimmy Blakeley!)
Our cover artist and spotlight share a sense of the psychedelic. Both Kevin Bradshaw's esoteric animal compositions and Monica Metsers' fantastical manifestations yield more and more as you look closer and closer...
And take a look at our new extended Recommends... section – morphing into an emerging arts events listings page – if you have an event you'd like to promote, then get in touch!
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Tuesday 1st Jun 2010
blankpages is getting in the mood for summer with our feature on Imploding Acoustic Inevitable Festival in Fell Food Wood near Windermere in the Lake District. Folk and Experimental music sit next to spoken word on the bill – it promises to be an intimate showcase of what the North West underground scene has to offer.
We're also visiting Affleck's Palace in Manchester this month to talk to illustrator David Bailey, who runs Good Grief! An independent eclectic little shop specialising in books and various artists' merchandise.
This month's poetry originates in Iran. Ali Abdolrezaei now lives in London, and his poetry reflects this sense of detachment. His interesting phrasing has been translated here by Abol Froushan. Kasey Szavai's fiction deals with detachment of a different kind, and the popular theme of transformation through artistic practise.
This month's mp3 comes with a fascinating interview with The Ruby Electric, having just completed their debut release 'The Future Sessions EP'. The selected track from that recording is called 'Lucid'; it's a funky, upbeat electronic affair.
In contrast, our cover artist this month, Chris Leyland, has taken found objects to a gruesome extreme. His arranged animal remains are beautifully photographed and stir up many questions; not least of the fate of these beasts, but also of the artist and the viewer of the work. Very powerful, and controversial.
READ BLANKPAGES ISSUE 23 ONLINE NOW...
Saturday 1st May 2010
It's another exciting month for blankpages – this one's extra special.
We're extremely pleased to present an exclusive interview with Naomi Alderman, on her second book 'The Lessons', published last month by Penguin, and indeed the lessons she has learned through her experience of success and attention as a novelist. She's dished out frank advice on publishing, creativity and form, coupled with a piece of her own short fiction.
This month's cover art – from Brazilian artist Erica Ferrari – combines striking acid geometrics with functional imagery, and our spotlight falls on Nicholas Dedics; a Manchester based artist exploring the impact of information saturation on our modern lives through his paintings.
To co-incide with the blankpages Liverpool Showcase (at Leaf Tea Shop & Bar, Parliament Street, Liverpool, on 12th May – part of the Writing on the Wall Festival's 10th anniversary celebrations), blankverse this month is highlighting the work of Liverpool poet Cate Jacobs, who will be reading at the event in Liverpool (alongside Curtis Watt, Black Jack Barnet, Darren Adcock, Jack Welsh and plenty more besides!). Be sure to come along if you can.
This month's mp3 is provided by the sensational Plank! Recently featured live in session on BBC6 Music, their fusion of dark, rhythmic, experimental, instrumental sprawlings and electronic soundscapes is one to watch. And listen to.
READ THIS MONTH'S ISSUE ONLINE NOW...
Thursday 1st Apr 2010
Spring has sprung [or has it?!]! Welcome once again to this month's issue of blankpages, as we continue our mission to provide a platform for emerging artists. This month's cover art is by Jenny Core, a graduate of Huddersfield University, now based in Manchester, whose irreverent drawings really caught our attention from the Blank Media Collective artists' portfolios.
This month's mp3 is from Emphemetry; a fuzzy, folky post-hardcore experimenter from Derby. Lois Entwisle and Simon Barron provide the poetry and fiction respectively, and this month's artist's spotlight falls on Peter Day. blankpages are proud to be showcasing a selection of works from his Garden Manifesto publication. Finally, Liverpool-based independent reviewer, Elaine Wilson visits Blank Media Collective's, Neck of the Woods exhibition which is coming to a close this month.
READ BLANKPAGES ISSUE 21 ONLINE NOW...
Monday 1st Mar 2010
Ladies and Gentlemen, blankpages is 20! Can you believe it? We've emerged from our teens with bright, hungry eyes, and yours should be too – the treats we have in store for you this month!
Our cover art, from Adam Booth, is an image from Blank Media Collective's second exhibition of the year (and it's only March!) - 'Seeing and Being Seen' at the greenroom in Manchester - showing until 10th April.
Showcased poetry this month is from Adam Hyde, an artist based in Dudley, whose poetry is natural and beguiling, with a wonderful shade of e.e. cummings. Anna Percy chooses the English legend of the Selkie in this month's fiction, an intriguing vehicle for transformational metaphor, and Lisa Denyer shares her utopian magical landscapes in this month's artist's spotlight.
Our roving reporter, Elaine Wilson returns this month reviewing Nine Doors by Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra, who also supply this month's psychotically aching mp3 'Starved Dog'.
On top of all this, blankpages catches up with the brains behind Sixty_six_events, a 24-hour global participatory art happening that challenged the very notions of performance, to share some of their inspirations and footage they have so far received from the event.
Compelling stuff, I'm sure you'll agree!
CLICK BELOW TO READ FLASH MAGAZINE ONLINE...
Monday 1st Feb 2010
Productofboy / Vicky Miller / Cristina Nualart / Andrew Gilmore / TAPE / Javier Muñoz / Elaine Wilson
Brrrrrrrr! Come in! Leave your umbrella and wellies at the door! Welcome to February's blankpages – your digital blanket of creative warmth.
Our cover art this month is by Productofboy, one of the exhibitors at Blank Media Collective's Neck of the Woods exhibition at Nexus Art Cafe in Manchester. They are a group of artists from Newcastle and Manchester, exploring perceptions of environment and urban space utilising text, video, photography, sound, electronics, installation composition and performance
Andrew Gilmore returns to our pages this month with a short story – a strange journey through a paranoid imaginative landscape, coupled with bespoke illustration from Michael Thorp.
'iFear' by TAPE is this month's mp3 – an up-tempo, hook driven beast of a track that should get your heart racing.
Poetry this month is singularly female - Vicky Miller and Cristina Nualart unabashedly discuss loneliness and PMT, and our spotlight this month features Javier Muñoz, a joyfully eclectic illustrator and artist based in Spain. Alongside his work, he talks to us about inspiration and his creative process.
Blank Media Presents... is previewed by Elaine Wilson, a writer and music blogger based in Liverpool, coupled with an interview with one of the featured bands at February's gig, Klaus Kinski.
All this and more in your monthly cultural companion, blankpages. Check it out!
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Friday 1st Jan 2010
Welcome to a new decade! It's the first blankpages of 2010! Our guest visual designer this month is Michael Thorp, who did some sterling illustration for the last issue, and is back this month to show us his vision for an entire issue. He recently graduated from Coventry University with a degree in Fine Art and Illustration.
Andy Glinka provides our cover art this month – polaroid shots from his series 'This Boy's Life', exploring the effects of adults' choices on a child's life through this most evocative and nostalgic of photographic media.
Salford rock group Samuel Sharp provide this month's mp3 sound companion, and poetry this month comes from John Maher and Karen Lavin, coupled with yet more beautiful illustration.
Our visual art spotlight this month returns with experiments in reflection and landscape by Peter Hiett, and our showcased fiction comes in the form of simple and effective short shorts from Luke Kenyon, who studied Creative Writing at The Bolton Institute, and now resides in Kurume, Southern Japan.
On top of all this, Blank Media Collective's Special Projects Co-ordinator, Petra Hoschtitzky, gives us her account of the Turner Prize exhibition and the recent announcement of the prize's winner. So come on in and start 2010 with a cultural and creative bonanza for you eyes, ears and mind!
Tuesday 1st Dec 2009
This month our magazine is re-imagined by the exemplary Henry Roberts, a Manchester-based graphic designer who we're very lucky to be working with. Our cover artist this month is Mario Sughi, an Italian illustrator, cartoonist and historian, living and working in Dublin. His featured images are just the striking surface of his wide portfolio and experience.
This month's mp3 comes from deep in the woods of Northern Sweden. Oskar Hallbert's minimal melodic music should be a soothing backdrop to your page turning experience. Our showcased poets are JEA Wallace, Nick Iles and Bethan Townsend. Each has an original, different voice and chosen subject matter, but each displays an element of escapism; much needed in this season's plummeting temperatures and supermarket saturated festivities. This month's fiction is a rambling reminiscence from Robert Monroe, his first piece of published fiction, looking at the uncontrollable, unchanging urges of passion through generations' gaps.
The Blank Media Collective Exhibitions team took a day trip to AirSpace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent in October – you can read about this contemporary art space in this month's feature. All this as well as our usual blankpicks of cultural happenings, and monthly review of Blank Media Presents... at Fuel Café Bar in Manchester.
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