Something Good

Fri Oct 2 and Sat Oct 3. Dawn 6.30am, Solar noon 12.45pm, Dusk 6.30pm An outdoor event and sound performance commissioned by Birmingham Cathedral Cathedral Square, Colmore Row, Birmingham B3 2QB

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'Soul boats' is both a large-scale community arts project, and an art installation. The 2,000 golden boats have been decorated inside by individuals from diverse backgrounds. Artist Jake Lever says: 'I think of it as a cloud, a boat, a swarm; two thousand fragile souls all on a journey.' The boats will remain suspended high above the nave of Birmingham Cathedral until March 2016.

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On Friday 2 and Saturday 3 October 2015, Birmingham Cathedral played host to a unique outdoor arts event in Cathedral Square in the heart of the city.  The October event was the culmination of artistic activity for 3 of the commissioned artists, with a further installation taking place in the Cathedral from 29th November 2015 for 3 months.

Artistic Director Orit Azaz brought together this talented group of professional artists from varying faith backgrounds (and none), and from different creative disciplines, to pursue their vision for an artistic celebratory moment which reflected the history of the city in the 300 years since the cathedral was consecrated, and reflected Birmingham’s position as the country’s most diverse city.

The artists:- Dan Jones, composer (Skyline Symphony), Mohammed Ali (NOMAD), visual artist, Mandy Ross (Light and Dark), creative text artist and Jake Lever, visual artist (Soul Boats).

During the preceding six months around 30 groups of many different faith and community backgrounds took part in creative activity in neighbourhoods and public outdoor events across Birmingham leading to the Cathedral Square event ‘Something Good’.

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Skyline Symphony

Listen to Skyline Symphony by SomethingGood #np on #SoundCloud

Do Something Good and join the Skyline Symphony at Birmingham Cathedral 6.30pm, 12.45pm and 6.30pm on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd October.

Head down to Birmingham Cathedral this Friday or Saturday and play your part in Something Good, a special event to commemorate the cathedral’s 300th anniversary this weekend.

You will be able to join in with one of the main arts commissions -  Skyline Symphony by Dan Jones - click above to choose any one of the Symphony’s 7 sound tracks to play from your phone during the event. 

Then bring your phone to Cathedral Square at 6.30am, 12.45pm or 6.30pm and wait for your signal to add your soundtrack from your phone alongside the main Skyline Symphony! (Try not to sneak peak the whole of your selected track before the event). Everyone is welcome to this free event with or without your phone. 

All tracks on the playlist are also available to download during the event.

Skyline Symphony will take place at Cathedral Square, Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2QB

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Birmingham YMCA was visited by two Something Good artists in the lead up to Birmingham Cathedral’s 300th anniversary art celebrations.

Award winning writer Mandy Ross and street artist Mohammed Ali visited the young YMCA members who have all experienced homelessness. Mandy encouraged the participants to talk about their experiences and with Mandy’s guidance, the group wrote about the bright lights of the city and how hard it is to walk past the brightly lit windows of people who have warm homes and beds when you’re homeless.

They compared the city lights to an earthly star map that could be photographed from space, much like the photograph in this post.

Mohammed drew out the young people’s experiences during the discussion and painted his response the following day in Erdington High Street. Several of the young people were there on the day to witness their experiences come to life in one of Mohammed’s nomadic sculptures.

Bright Lights                                Mandy Ross With inspiration from residents at YMCA, Erdington 8 September

From space, our cities’ bright lights are Earth’s own firefly star-map. Streetlights, traffic lights, headlights, the bright shock of security lights,   Google maps on shining screens, cat’s eyes, disco lights, night buses, blue flashing sirens, and looking in the windows, warm light for lucky souls with beds to sleep in, when you’re roaming the night, cold under streetlights, starlight.

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Award winning writer and Something Good artist Mandy Ross has travelled across Birmingham and its surrounding areas to discuss the themes of light and dark in religious and faith texts.

At her recent community collaboration at Grace Communication Church, the Christian group discussed the moving poem Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats.

The discussion inspired the group to bring their own creativity together to create their own community poem.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven William Butler Yeats

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Gifts of Darkness, Gifts of Light After discussion at Grace Communion Church Mandy Ross

The gifts of darkness shine at night; rest, and quiet, and dreams, and love, and help to bring forth new life. Darkness absorbs, equalises. We can’t discern differences. Night ripens other senses. We hear more, feel more. When a child is afraid, we open the curtains to reveal the moon and stars, the blue and the dim and the dark beauty of the sky. The night is alive with animals who love the dark, the cat, the owl, the fox, and dreaming fish in the dark sea. The night sky brings humility for we see we are specks in the vast cosmic ocean.

The gifts of light are bright. Light gives, reflects, is generous, accentuating variety. Light is colour, life. Light grows our food, brings knowledge, consciousness, inspiration and clear sight. ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’ We are rich with darkness and light, sky-embroidered and spread beneath our feet.

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Something Good artists Mandy Ross and Mohammed Ali brought painting and poetry together at St. John’s Church in Sparkhill.

During the two visits, Mandy Ross discussed the significance of light and dark in religious and faith texts with the Chinese Womens’ Group whereas Mohammed spent the day creating a nomadic sculpture in response to the community collaboration called “Paddy Fields of China” from high rise Birmingham.

While working with an interpreter, Mandy Ross and the Chinese Womens’ Group discussed a traditional Tang dynasty poem called “The Distant Evening View When The Weather Has Cleared” in both English and Chinese.

The women were then given the opportunity to express their own responses on the ‘Light’ and ‘Dark cardboard cutouts which are now displayed in the church.

Mandy was so moved by the discussions, she wrote a poem inspired by “The Distant Evening...” based on some of the participants’ experiences and childhood memories.

　　

The distant evening view when the weather has cleared

Wang Wei (Wang Youcheng) born c.699, died c761

The sky has cleared and there is the vast plain And so far as the eye can see no dust in the air There is the outer gate facing the ford And the village trees going down to the mouth of the stream The white water shining beyond the field The blue peaks jutting behind the hills This is no time for leisure on the land – All hands at work in the fields to the south.

The distant evening view here and far away

Chinese women’s group, St John’s Sparkhill, with Mandy Ross

From my window I see the sky red gold over the city

And so far as the eye can see, rooftops, and birds flying over

People running for the bus, home to the suburbs

Trees cast long shadows over streets and gardens

Sunset shining on towers and spires, the library and the hospital on the hill

Silver canals reaching beyond the city’s fringes

This is the time to be still, after the evening cooking is done

And think of evening in the green rice fields, the hills and rivers of childhood.

旁晚进看和远眺

金红的彩霞笼罩着

窗外的城市，

远方的屋顶和飞鸟。

下班的人们匆匆赶车回家，

树的长长的荫影落在街道和花园。

夕阳照着高楼, 教堂,

图书馆和山上的医院。

银色的运河伸展越过城市的边缘。

晚饭煮好, 这是歇一歇的时刻，

思念起童年时的稻田，

青山与绿水。

Translated by Mimi Webster

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Watch the Soul Boat video here! 

Something Good artist, Jake Lever has been inviting communities to put their individual mark on a large-scale art project for Birmingham Cathedral’s 300th anniversary.

At Jake’s sessions participants will be able to create their very own soul boats. Each boat will represent its creator’s life, journey and faith. Once all of the soul boats have been created, they will hang in the Cathedral from December 2015 to March 2016.

In the run up to the Something Good celebrations, Jake has visited a number of faith and community groups around the city. This film was shot on one of the first workshops that took place in the Cathedral grounds.

People of all ages, races, backgrounds and religious beliefs are invited to take part.

Jake Lever will be at the Something Good celebrations on October 2nd – 3rd encouraging visitors to create their own unique soul boat.

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Cathedral launches creative residences as part of Something Good

Neighbourhoods of Birmingham will be seen through poetry and painting this month as visual and mural artist Mohammed Ali takes up residency across various areas of Birmingham thanks to funding from Birmingham City Council.

Forming part of Birmingham Anglican Cathedral’s ‘Something Good’ festival - a 2-day arts event celebrating 300 years of Birmingham Cathedral – Mohammed will lead a series of 1-day open air residences in public spaces in Erdington, Sparkhill and Handsworth with support from Birmingham City Council and also in Bournville and King’s Heath, where he will live paint sculptures inspired by his Nomadic journey across the city. Poet and writer Mandy Ross will work alongside Mohammed, exploring faith traditions and writings about light and dark through a series of community collaborations.

On Saturday 12th September Mohammed and Mandy will visit Handsworth Library which is also hosting a number of events as part of European Week of Sport. The day will see special guest appearances from soccer freestyle pioneer Rob Walters and four times World Kick Boxing champion Kash ‘The Flash’ Gill, who was born and raised in Handsworth. There will be a festival atmosphere through the day outside the library.

Mohammed’s work, alongside that of other artists from different faith and cultural backgrounds and disciplines, will create Something Good on Friday 2nd and Saturday 3rd October in Cathedral Square, Colmore Row. Accompanying Mohammed and Mandy during the event  will be award winning composer Dan Jones who will fill the Square with new horizons of sound and create illusions of different times and places, in the UK premiere of the Skyline Symphony.

Mohammed Ali, commented: “Something Good is all about celebrating the history of Birmingham Cathedral and how it has brought people together, no matter their creed. My residences have allowed me to go out into the neighbourhoods of Birmingham and explore faith and communities in the city. This will be interpreted through the live painting of nomadic sculptures. We’re delighted that Birmingham City Council has invested in this project. Without their support we would not have been able to engage with so many different communities, ensuring they are part of this incredible story.”

8th September - YMCA Erdington, 2pm - 4pm: Mandy Ross community collaboration and Mohammed Ali residency 

9th September - St Barnabas’ Church, Erdington: Mohammed Ali residency and Yasmin Ali community collaboration  

9th September - St John’s Church, Sparkhill: Mandy Ross community collaboration with Chinese Women’s Group

11th September - St John’s Church, Sparkhill: Mohammed Ali residency and Mandy Ross community collaboration  

11th September - Ravidassi Temple, 6pm: Mandy Ross community collaboration with Children’s Punjabi class 

12th September - Handsworth Library: Mohammed Ali residency and Mandy Ross community collaboration  

15th September - St Chad Church, Rubery, 2pm - 4pm: Mandy Ross community collaboration 

19th September - All Saints’ Church, Kings Heath: Mohammed residency all day, and Mandy Ross community collaboration in the afternoon 

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Writer and Something Good resident artist, Mandy Ross recently visited the Peace Hub in Birmingham city centre to discuss the religious and faith meanings of light and dark.

The Peace Hub is a place for the Quaker community to come together to support peace and justice in the local area, as well as nationally and internationally.

The day allowed visitors to be interactive and creative as Mandy asked what light and dark meant to Peace Hub members. Participants wrote their own meanings on pieces of card that spelt out ‘light’ and ‘dark’ and these were then used to create a display, which now hangs proudly in the Peace Hub.

The participants also expressed their creativity together and collaborated on a poem. The piece is an uplifting exploration of religion in Birmingham, as well as celebrating the Cathedral in the run up to its 300th anniversary.

Inward Light

Collective poem by Quakers at the Peace Hub 2nd Sept

East’s darkness is west’s light, and only in darkness does whole heaven shine. Before the cathedral was even a church, before the city was even a town, here was a meeting place, a gathering for seekers, for those outside the regular round of religion, of custom, for those who loved silence and inward light, who saw that the Light was the light of all – though only in darkness does the seed germinate. Then darkness moved in the firmament over Birmingham, and light emerged in the darkness. God’s light shone through the industrial furnaces seven days a week, not just on Sundays, when the furnaces were stilled. Take heed, dear friends, without silence in music, without that moment of stillness, how would we recognise the activity around it? Darkness is not just the absence of light; how can we perceive light without dark? And in how many places of worship, and in how many homes in the city are candles lit as a sign of God’s light, the same light though so many names. West’s darkness is east’s light. The night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you.

SHALOM, SALAAM, PEACE of the city to you and everybody.

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Soul Boats workshop at FEAST in Sparkhill, Wednesday 26th August

Jake Lever, supported by Intern Beant Singh, led a Soul Boats workshop with young people from Muslim and Christian faith backgrounds at FEAST’s base in Sparkhill.

After a discussion around what a three dimensional prayer might look, feel and smell like, the young people aged 11 to 17 each worked on a Soul Boat to add to the growing flotilla.

Samad, one of the participants, said “My boat is about my life journey and what is precious to me”. Haneefa said that her boat was “about my emotions during prayer”. Adam’s boat contained the message “stop the violence, start the peace”. He wrote this, he said, “because we all believe in the same stuff and we are all brothers and sisters”.

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Jake Lever’s soul boat workshop at Birmingham Cathedral in the run up to Something Good which takes place October 2 - 3.

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Jake Lever visited the children of OSCAR Sandwell in West Bromwich and Shri Guru Ravidass Temple in Handsworth, Birmingham to conduct a special soul boat workshop.

As a part of Birmingham Cathedral’s Something Good celebrations, Jake will be visiting various faith and community groups in and around the city to compile a collection of soul boats, which will then hang from the ceiling of the newly resorted Cathedral from the end of November to March 2016.

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Dan Jones - Sound Artist

This is "Dan Jones - Sound Artist" by Joseph Potts

In the lead up to Birmingham Cathedral’s 300th anniversary, Something Good is travelling around the city to conduct various art workshops and experiments while engaging with various faith groups.

Film composer and sound designer Dan Jones, who will capture sounds from neighbourhoods at the celebrations in October, conducted his own sound experiment in Birmingham Cathedral grounds on Thursday 23rd July.

The day saw three sets of speakers installed on top of buildings on Temple Row and Colmore Row that surround the Cathedral. The speakers were used to create an immersive sonic landscape, transporting visitors to another world.

Participants also downloaded sound files to their mobile phones to create a symphony that produced twinkling chime sounds when all played together to accompany the mesmerising sounds coming from the speakers.

Dan Jones will be scoring the square with the help of seven speakers and more than 200 smartphones during the two-day Something Good celebrations from 2 – 3 October. Make sure you follow @bhamcomeandsee on Twitter and use the hashtag #SomethingGood300 to stay up to date with the latest news.

Click here to watch the full interview.

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The lead up to Birmingham Cathedral’s 300th anniversary celebrations, Something Good Festival, kicked off last month with an ladies’ coffee morning run by Isra UK, a Muslim charity that aims to relieve poverty, sickness and the advancement of education.

The workshop was led by Mandy Ross, artistic co-director of Secret City Arts and one of the four artists collaborating on Something Good that runs from 2nd – 3rd October. During the workshop Mandy invited participants to discuss their thoughts on the themes of Light and Dark; it’s meaning to communities and faith groups and subsequently explore the theme creatively.

The female contributors, who were from Muslim, Jewish and Christian backgrounds, gathered to share poems and prayers from different faith traditions, exploring light and dark. They wrote a collective poem in response to At the Time of the Night Prayer, a poem by Rumi – here is a snippet of what they wrote:

At the time of the night prayer, waswas, whisperings, worries and doubts can assail us. The unseen, the unknown loom…

From the time of the night prayer, through the dead of the night, we can rest, we can sleep. In a few short hours the sky will grow lighter.

From the darkness we are thankful for the light. From the light we are thankful for the darkness.

The workshop participants also spent some time writing on LIGHT and DARK cutouts in order to creatively express what light and dark means to them personally in their faith/culture. The initiative organisers celebrated the work by displaying the pieces in the community room for everyone to see.

Here are some examples of their work:

LIGHT: In our culture we light a candle and sing songs to celebrate the birth of our prophet. The light of dawn brings hopes. In the light you can see the path and make your choices. The light helps us to flourish, grow stronger, and ripen.

DARK: As a child my mother and I would kneel by my bed and pray for the safety of family. The nighttime prayer marked the start of the night. As an adult, I sometimes wanted to sleep with the light on and with the sound of the radio blocking out the night, the dark and thoughts crowding the mind.

DARK: Time to rest in your bed, reflect on the day past, weigh the outcomes of the day, plan to change and improve. Time to be thankful and worship.

The next Something Good workshop will be held in Cathedral Square on Colmore Row on Thursday 23rd July. Award winning composer and sound designer Dan Jones invites participants to bring their smartphones 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.