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General Public are running the Incredible Surplus Allotment in Handsworth. Working with volunteers to produce food that is distributed every Thursday through the ShareHouse in Winson Green.

General Public are running the Incredible Surplus Allotment in Londonderry Smethwick. Working with volunteers to produce food that is distributed every Thursday through the ShareHouse in Winson Green.

Outdoor exhibition installed at site of former Balsall Heath Adventure Playground site showcasing archival material & QR codes with oral histories.

Partner in the 'Let us Play' project. Oral history interviews were conduced by local children with playworkers & staff at Meriden adventure playground. Outdoor exhibition installed on site showcasing archival material & QR codes with oral histories.

Oral history training programme for school pupils & interviewing of playworkers/volunteers from Meriden adventure playground.

Oral history training programme for school pupils at Christchurch Primary School & interviewing of former playworkers from Sparkbrook adventure playground. Digitisation of Geoff Gaisfords archive. captured in the Let Us Play book, website & LoB archive.

Digitising Dave Swingle's archive of 35mm slides, photos, super 8 footage & extensive journals relating to the adventure playground movement in Birmingham including extensive material relating to Booth Street Playground Handsworth. Creation of archive for Library of Birmingham. Captured in the Let us Play book.

Oral history training programme for school pupils at Ark Tindal & interviewing of former playworkers from Balsall Heath adventure playground. Digitising Dave Swingle's extensive archive of 35mm slides, photos, super 8 footage & extensive journals relating to the adventure playground movement in Birmingham including Malvern St. Creation of archive for Library of Birmingham.

Partnering with 'Incredible Surplus' Birmingham to test out a series of 'creative takeaway' boxes that are available from their 3 food collection points in the city. Framed by the theme of ‘food’ we are working with commissioned artists to design sets of materials, tools and instructions that respond to seasonal cycles in nature. This involves firing & glazing participants clay culinary utensils.

Partnering with 'Incredible Surplus' Birmingham to test out a series of 'creative takeaway' boxes that are available from their 3 food collection points in the city. Framed by the theme of ‘food’ we are working with commissioned artists to design sets of materials, tools and instructions that respond to seasonal cycles in nature. This involves firing & glazing participants clay culinary utensils.

Partnering with 'Incredible Surplus' Birmingham to test out a series of 'creative takeaway' boxes that are available from their 3 food collection points in the city. Framed by the theme of ‘food’ we are working with commissioned artists to design sets of materials, tools and instructions that respond to seasonal cycles in nature. This involves firing & glazing participants clay culinary utensils.

Phase 2 of the Seven Street's Pocket Park project in partnership with The Active Well-Being Society. This included a Balsall Heath take on a Fairy Doors trail as public artwork (with entries from schools in close proximity to the park: Nelson Mandela, Clifton & Ark Tindal primary schools). The trail was active from August 2021 onwards.

Developing project for The Active Well-Being Society that develops a park as a social space. Developing raised beds for growing, working with local residents & an associated programme of creative activity. 

Curation of an alternative Apple Day, featuring the Apple Store, Cherry-Minder & Black Butter making. 

Wassail: Waking the Winter with a CLANG
Saturday 18th January 2020, Highbury Orchard Community / Highbury Park, Kings Heath Birmingham
New Interpretation of the Wassail featuring African drumming courtesy of the Green Man, some seasonal MC-ing, folk songs, Wassail drinking bowls made from local clay, the baby shark melody, Woga (Woodland Yoga) & two characters representing Summer & Winter.

Pre-Wassail workshop at local library where people made props to enable them to take part in the Wassail performance.. The library formed the start of a parade that went through Highbury Park to the community orchard.

Information: Playwright Liz Mytton was commissioned to write three new 'urban mummers plays' which were performed by a troupe of actors at Simmerdown Festival. 

‘Cherry minding’ is an old orchard practice that involves preventing birds from eating all the cherries before harvest time using ‘instruments’ made from recycled materials and rope fashioned into a one man band style noise-making system. The Pomology Project’s incarnation of the Cherry Minder drew upon this DIY approach to create a new pedal-powered sound sculpture. Touring around the city in 2019 visiting Simmerdown Festival, Walsall Road Allotments Open day 2019, Kharnival & Balsall Heath Carnival.

For The Pomology Project, a new Birmingham black butter recipe and cooking method was created by artist Jo Capper working with the Ashiana Community Centre.

Heathland Festival
2019 Summer Holidays
(‘A children’s festival of ideas’)
Kings Heath, Balsall Heath and Druids Heath community libraries

Heathland Festival
2019 Summer Holidays
(‘A children’s festival of ideas’)
Kings Heath, Balsall Heath and Druids Heath community libraries

Heathland Festival
2019 Summer Holidays
(‘A children’s festival of ideas’)
Kings Heath, Balsall Heath and Druids Heath community libraries

An ice cream van playing the ‘L’Internationnale’ – swap your poems for ice cream and enjoy the communism of the senses. Based on a concept by Robert Grose.
Lolly is theft! Mind that Comrade!

Ongoing collaboration with the Bangladeshi Women's Association in Small Heath, including: costumes designed for the Mummers Plays as part of The Pomology Project & commissioning writer
Elizabeth Charis to work with the Bangladeshi Women’s Association as part of the Heathland Festival looking at how traditional Bangladeshi / Bengali stories can be retold within a contemporary Small Heath context (see Heathland Storybook).

Eastside Projects Exhibition (Birmingham) Summer 2018

The Endless Village was a satirical sitcom set in Kingdom#3 of an imagined future post-Brexit Britain. Investigating life, localism and trade relations, the sitcom pilot (‘Banana Day’) presented a satirical meditation on future daily life in NFKATUK – the Nation Formerly Known As The UK. Filmed in Birmingham at Moseley Bog & Highbury Community Orchard.

Series of oral history interviews with members of the Narthex Centre lunch club (elderly residents of Sparkbrook who emigrated to the UK from Ireland and West Indies in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s). The interviews were conducted by students from St Johns Primary School, Sparkhill, Birmingham & focused on the changing availability of food in the UK since WW2 & arriving in the UK from another country.

The Endless Village workshop programme occurred in Balaam's Wood, Frankley, South Birmingham during school holidays. Some of the results of this – objects, locally sourced River Rea Clay – can be seen in the film & exhibition.

Exhibition at mac Birmingham for The Hop Project. This toured Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Birmingham and the Black Country in 2016/17. Funded by Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Programme, the project used the historical migratory movements of hop pickers as the conceptual basis for a touring exhibition. Venues include The Hive (Worcester), The Courtyard Centre for the Arts (Hereford) and Midlands Arts Centre, (Birmingham).

Creation of 3 new coins for Handsworth featuring local people. 4000 coins were produced and distributed across Handsworth, allowing access to Soho House Museum.

The ‘Tails’ aspect of the Handsworth Currency Competition was co-ordinated through workshops in local schools. Three winners were selected whose designs went onto the 4000 new Handsworth coins. In May 2015, 2300 coins were distributed via school assemblies.Schools: Holyhead School, Grove Primary School, Future First School, St Theresa’s Catholic Primary School, Handsworth Girls School

Protest Parade 2016: ‘Very Civil’ Rights March

Commissioned by WERK to create a parade for the 2016 Longbridge Light Festival. Jumping on the 2016 global protest bandwagon, we decided to try and bring a touch of mild 1960s idealism to the festival with a protest orientated parade – a ‘very civil’ rights march featuring local community groups.

Working with groups across Longbridge & Northfield in the 6 months before the ‘Very Civil’ Rights March developing banners & placards (for example, CASBA users developed content campaigning against cuts to the mental health service).

Longbridge Light Festival 2014: General Public were commissioned by public art organisation WERK to develop the artistic proposition & curate the inaugural Longbridge Light Festival 2014. The Festival theme, ‘Back to the Future’, used the metaphor of science fiction to explore the process of regeneration currently occurring in Longbridge. Over 6000 people attended the event on Saturday 25th October 2014.

Science fiction cycle ride as part of Longbridge Light Festival 2014: General Public were commissioned by public art organisation WERK to develop the artistic proposition & curate the inaugural Longbridge Light Festival 2014. The Festival theme, ‘Back to the Future’, used the metaphor of science fiction to explore the process of regeneration currently occurring in Longbridge.

The public sculpture colouring in posters re-imagined the local area by digitally integrating three large public sculptures – by Juneau Projects, Andy Holden and Raqs Media Collective – into the Balsall Heath landscape.The Balsall Heath Neighbourhood Plan, developed under the 2011 Localism Act, contains a number of recommendations for public art to be sited at the seven entry points to Balsall Heath. The biennale public sculpture colouring in posters visualised what some of these pieces of public art might be and how they might look in Balsall Heath. 1000 public sculpture colouring in posters were distributed through local primary schools in Balsall Heath. Local children were invited to colour them in and put them up in their living room windows as part of an area wide competition in which over 200 houses entered.

Hub of the Balsall Heath Biennale: street parties, Cat gallery, 58 Eastwood Road, Open House.

Mobile tourist information centre offering information on an area not renowned for it’s tourism industry. Postcard range featured a series of local ‘heritage’ sites and landmarks, such as Zaffs kebab house and Apna Ghar Asian OAP home.

Talks programme across Balsall Heath as part of the Balsall Heath Biennale in unusual locations. For example, in the wedding suite above the Hillac Somalian restaurant and at Balsall Heath Church Centre.

Balsall Heath Biennale hub: Open exhibition at our home in Balsall Heath / Cat Gallery.

Balsall Heath has an unlikely history of Surrealism, with English surrealist Conroy Maddox living in the area during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The ‘Decorate Your House Competition: Surreal Theme’ was open to anyone in Balsall Heath and judged by Dr Stephen Forcer, a specialist in Surrealism from Birmingham University. The winning entries formed a surreal house trail across the local area as part of the biennale.