To all the artists, creatives, art-lovers and enthusiasts of Newport!

147 Commercial Street, Newport NP20 1LN

Firstly, thank you for your support of The Project Space in Newport over 2014 and into 2015. It has been an amazing time for all the team involved with starting up and developing this project in Newport. It has been both our pride and our honour to work with and support so many amazing and passionate people who want to see and experience even more arty goings on in our city. But the time has now come to gather feedback to feed back to our funders about what you felt the successes were of the project.

Initiated by Sally-Anne Evans, the Community Arts development officer at The Riverfront Theatre & Arts Centre, The Project Space has been funded by the Arts Council of Wales, Welsh National Government and The National Lottery to run for 1 year as a short term project. What has become clear over the last year is that space like The Project Space is both sorely needed, regularly used and highly valued in the city – and as such, we need your help.

On Tuesday 14th July, between 5:30pm and 6:30pm – we’d love it if you could pop in and give us your comments and feedback. Let us know:

How were you involved with The Project Space? Did you put on an event at the space? Did you visit one of our events?

What did having a space like this allow you to do?

What did you think we did well?

What would you like to see more of?

How well does the space connect with our community in Newport?

Did having the space increase your access or awareness to other arty goings on in the city?

Did having the space create opportunities for professional artists and creatives to create work and engage with community groups in Newport?

How do you think we could improve?

If you can’t make it on the night, feel free to email you comments to project leader Sally-Anne Evans at sally-anne.evans@newportlive.co.uk

Looking forward to seeing you there! The Project Space team x

Big Splash Portraits – Exhibition coming soon!

LIFE ART ON TOUR – A week of exhibitions and life drawing at The Project Space

FREE – 22nd June – 27th June 2015 – 10am to 4pm daily

DROP-IN Life Drawing Sessions – WEDS / THURS / FRI (tbc)

This month we welcome our resident life drawing class – CARDIFF LIFE MODELS to The Project Space with their exhibition LIFE ART ON TOUR. With partner hosts Carnegie House in Bridgend and Jacob’s Market Gallery in Cardiff, the exhibition will feature work by students who have attended the weekly life drawing sessions run by the group across South Wales, showcasing a wide variety of media and stylistic approaches to figurative work. Pieces of artwork will be on sale during the event – please contact event organiser Andy Lamb for details.

In addition, CARDIFF LIFE MODELS will be hosting a number of drop in life drawing sessions during the week for visitors to have a go at themselves. These sessions are open to all and suitable for all abilities – materials provided.

PLEASE NOTE: Nudity and the human form are key elements of this exhibition. Some adults bringing children and /or young people to this exhibition may deem parental guidance advisory.

For more information about this event or life drawing classes in your area, please contact Andy Lamb via welshlamb@me.com or visit www.cardifflifemodels.co.uk

END OF YEAR SHOW – Coleg Gwent Newport Art & Design Students at The Project Space

FREE – Opens: Friday 5th June 6pm – 8pm / Exhibitions continues: Saturday 6th June 10am – 4pm

This week at The Project Space, we welcome Coleg Gwent Art & Design students showcasing their end of year show across both floors of the unit. Opening night is Friday 5th June 6pm – 8pm, and is open again on Saturday 6th June, 10am – 4pm.

Free entry, all welcome. Bring all your friends!

For more information about Coleg Gwent and the Art & Design Course, please visit: http://www.coleggwent.ac.uk/newport

May half term at The Project Space – Big Splash, Maindee Festival and more!

FREE – Tuesday 26th – Thursday 28th May – Opening times vary

Well it’s officially that time of year again where we crack out the sun lotion and get ready for Big Splash festival in Newport. This year’s festival takes place the same weekend as Maindee Festival meaning there’ll be even more arty goings on in the city than last year! This half term we have a whole manner of arty activities to keep the whole family amused at The Project Space – your creative community centre in the heart of the Newport.

Workshops start on Tuesday 26th May, and run until Thursday 28th May between 11.00am – 2.00pm. Come along and help make a giant house for the “Right Up Your Street” carnival procession for Maindee festival.

The Procession takes place on Saturday 31st May and is part of the Big Splash weekend celebrations!

In addition, there will also be a Samba Drumming Workshop on Tuesday 26th May with Upbeat Music between 2.00pm – 3.30pm.

For more information about these workshops and who to take part in the parade, please contact sally-anne.evans@newportlive.co.uk

To find out more information on all events during Big Splash and Maindee Festival, please visit www.maindee.org or www.newportlive.co.uk/theriverfront, or download the programme: http://media.wix.com/ugd/7be6dd_1361ef9d08a2453d80090bbc2c0bf569.pd

Gelynion – Enemies Newport – Poetry in collaboration

FREE – TUESDAY 19TH MAY – 7pm – 10pm

Pairs of poets and performers from Wales, England, India and Chile present original collaborations. With Joe Dunthorne & Eurig Salisbury, Rhys Trimble & SJ Fowler, Nia Davies & Zoe Skoulding, Kate North & Katrin Selina Lloyd, Andres Anwandter & Suze MC de Lee, Cris Paul & Samantha Walton, Rhian Edwards & Ranjit Hoskote, Josh Robinson & Mr&Mrs Clark, Tishani Doshi & Jonathan Edwards. With music from Patrick Rimes.

Gelynion is a groundbreaking exploration of contemporary poetry from Wales through the potential of collaboration. The project tours Wales 19-29th May with over 50 poets collaborating at events in Newport (19-May), Cardiff (20-May), Swansea (22-May), Aberystwyth (25-May), Bangor (26-May), Hay Festival (29-May) & London (5-June).

For more information, please visit: www.weareenemies.com/gelynion or follow @enemiesproject on Twitter.

Gelynion Newport is an Enemies and Poetry Wales project supported by Arts Council Wales Big Lottery, in partnership with the Project Space Newport.

Inviting the Neighbours around to Paint

FREE – MONDAY 20th April – FRIDAY 24th April 2015 – 10am to 5pm daily

Based on Pavel Althamer’s project ‘The Neighbours’ created for The New Museum, New York, ‘Inviting the Neighbours around to Paint‘ invites members of the public and different community groups to work, play and express themselves through the medium of paint, colour, drawing and words.

Over the course of this week, The Project Space shop front will become an open studio and street level gallery, that will be hosted each day by a different invited artist. As the week progresses, the space will transform with the gradual accumulation of drawings and paintings.

Artist Timetable:

Monday 20th April – Marega Palser

Tuesday 21st April – ArtRaT

Wednesday 22nd April – Stephanie Roberts

Thursday 23rd April – Barrie Morgan

Friday 24th – Steven George Jones

This is a Free event and all materials will be supplied, and is open to all ages and abilities. If you are interested in reserving the space for a Group you are involved with, please get in touch with The Project Space at theprojectspacenpt@gmail.com or Marega Palsar at maregapalser@yahoo.co.uk to book on.

EXHIBITION – CIRKLO – Thursday 23rd April – Saturday 2nd May 2015

CIRKLO – Exhibition of work by MA students at University of South Wales

Meet The Residents #3: Justin Cliffe & Peter Farago – “Hidden Cities”

Between Monday 11^th May and Friday 15^th May, Justin Cliffe and Peter Farago will be collecting memories of Newport, as part of their residency project, Hidden Cities at The Project Space.

Hidden Cities is a community inspired digital installation project, where real peoples’ voices enter a seemingly white space. Stepping into a bold white light your shadow reveals a once hidden city that now exists in a silhouette of you. A beautiful, digital Newport begins to come to life.

Based on a series of interviews, the artists will collect memories, stories and recordings of people’s memories in Newport. Whether they’re fond or heart-rending, they will then re-trace people’s steps and route their stories to a location of significance. Capturing that place on film, they will then create short pieces of video – animation to correspond with the stories they’re told.

One of the artists, Justin Cliffe, said of Newport, “Having worked and lived in the city for over five years, Peter and I have become quite attached to it. In love with it’s discombobulated urban landscape, enamoured by it’s roguish personality, and inspired by it’s people, we want to document the city’s stories”.

The artists want to talk to people and hear as many stories as possible. Whether you’d like to talk to them at one of their scheduled drop-ins, tweet, mail or post pictures, accessing the public’s stories is a fundamental part of this process. Drop in sessions run from Monday 11^th May to Friday 15^th May 2015.

Can’t make these sessions? To get involved with this project, you can get in touch with Justin and Peter by:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/hiddencity.newport

Email: mejustincliffe@hotmail.co.uk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=@jusedcliffe

Or you can post your stories and memories to:

Hidden Cities, c/o Community Arts Development, The Riverfront Theatre and Arts Centre, Kingsway, Newport, NP20 1HG

The final outcomes will be exhibited at The Project Space between Monday 25^th May to Tuesday 2^nd June. For more information, please contact the artists via their Facebook page (above).

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MEET THE RESIDENTS #2: Sara Rees – “DEMOCRACY”

Still of DEMOCRACY from Arcade Cardiff courtesy of Sara Rees

On Saturday 18th April and Saturday 2nd May, artist Sara Rees will engage shoppers and passersby in conversations about democracy at The Project Space on Newport’s Commercial Street in her performance of DEMOCRACY.

Sited in one of the now ubiquitous empty shops symptomatic of the Global Financial Crisis, DEMOCRACY explores the ideological basis to the current crisis and the threat to democracy posed by global corporate capitalism. The placing of this installation draws upon the history of democracy, which originated in the agoras of Ancient Greece. Agoras were open public spaces in the centre of the city that were both marketplace and the place of assembly, the site of both commerce and politics.

Based in a vacant retail unit shop in the centre of Newport, and appropriating the visual aesthetic and conventions of consumerism, DEMOCRACY, to all intents and purposes, is a shop. There are bright lights, piped music, and helpful sales staff on hand. There’s even a sale on. But there is nothing for sale. The consumer space has been supplanted with a discursive space, where unsuspecting shoppers are invited to reflect, engage and talk about their experience and understanding of democracy.

DEMOCRACY is made in response to the growing ferment of disillusionment that many people feel with democracy, both nationally and internationally, being increasingly compromised by the insidious influence yielded by powerful corporate elites. To remain democratic, democracy relies on participation of the people. In making this work I want to stimulate discussion about the nature of democracy and engage people with these ideas in the approach to the general election on 7^th May.

The two performances of DEMOCRACY at The Project Space will run between 10 am and 5 pm on both days. For further information, please contact the artist at reessara@hotmail.com or visit www.sararees.com

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About the artist:

Sara Rees is a practising artist from the Gower Peninsula, currently based in Cardiff. Awarded First Class Honours in Visual Performance at Dartington College of Arts, she later gained Masters in Fine Art at Cardiff School of Art & Design with Distinction. For the past fifteen years Rees has created artworks for residencies, commissions, and exhibitions; her work is exhibited both nationally and internationally, including in The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Latvia, Belgium, Montreal, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Barcelona, Glasgow, Athens, Moscow, London, Sao Paolo and Berlin. She has been the recipient of a number of awards and prizes, including First Prize for the Oriel Davies Open, a Creative Wales Award and the prestigious Leverhulme Trust Award. 

Conceptually driven, Rees works across mediums, including video, photography, performance, installation, intervention, writing, and relational art. She works both within the gallery and beyond, creating site-specific installations and interventions for a diverse range of sites, from bucolic woodlands to a derelict ex-Soviet power station. Her practice is an on-going exploration of the interface between nature and civilization, of the conditions of global capitalism in relation to the environment and the human condition. While political and provocative, Rees’ work is also playful. Often blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, her work is both uncanny and enchanting.

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