Visitors to Birmingham’s Cathedral Square on Colmore Row will be transported by extraordinary sounds, words and visual art as Birmingham Cathedral celebrates 300 years at the heart of the city with a weekend festival of outdoor arts.
Collaborating with artists and creative thinkers from different backgrounds and disciplines, Something Good begins this summer with artists’ residences in neighbourhoods across the city and the diocese of Birmingham. Visual and mural artist Mohammed Ali will live paint sculptures inspired by Nomadic shelters whilst poet and writer Mandy Ross explores faith traditions and writings about light and dark. Composer Dan Jones will capture sounds from the neighbourhoods as he creates the Smartphone Symphony and artist Jake Lever invites people to create and share their own Soul Boat.
During the summer, visitors, residents and workers are invited to attend a number of free workshops with the four artists as they develop their work ahead of the festival in October.
On Thursday 2nd July Mohammed Ali will be setting off on a Nomad journey to neighbourhoods across Birmingham, with a live painting session outside the Cathedral alongside Mandy Ross’s creative text activity about Light and Dark in the city.
On Thursday 23rd July award winning composer and sound designer Dan Jones, whose work previously floated over the city as part of hot air balloon spectacle Sky Orchestra, invites people to bring their phones and help him develop the first ever Smartphone Symphony, an acoustic illusion which will conjure up the sounds of Birmingham’s past, present and future.
Something Good which culminates in a two day festival on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd October forms part of Birmingham Cathedral’s year long Come & See programme, celebrating 300 years of the church which became a cathedral.
The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle, Dean of Birmingham, said: “2015 marks 300 years since the consecration of St. Philips Church which is now Birmingham Cathedral. The festival programme draws upon our city’s vast history of innovation and creative thinking. Something Good will bring together people of all faiths and backgrounds, just like the city of Birmingham. We hope that Something Good will attract and involve people of all backgrounds, allowing them to join us in celebration of this momentous occasion.”
Orit Azaz, artistic director for the cathedral’s arts programme, said: “Something Good follows the themes of light and dark, launching with the solar eclipse viewing event in March which saw over 3,000 people gathered in Cathedral Square. The response from the artists so far has been phenomenal and we cannot wait to see how the square and cathedral will be transformed through both sound and vision.”
