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Upcoming >> 7-9 August 2015

Wish you’d been here team up with our Bradford friends Bare Plume to create a hospitable space for cocktails, energy-fuelling vegan treats and good times at Supernormal festival.

Come and visit us!

The Pub

Wish you’d been here is joining with Ross Jardine to think about opening a pub in London. Over the following year we'll lead an open research project, to investigate and discuss what it means to establish this type of space in London; how we deal with labour, wages and profit; how organizational structures inform a space for others to occupy; the politics and practice of hosting; and making visible the idea of nurturing. Our aim is to develop radical new practices of hosting, nurturing and administration. A central part of this research will be a programme of regular open social evenings to provide opportunities to discuss the themes of our research and for friends to contribute to the formation of the pub.

Follow the development of this research via our Facebook page The Pub blog.

Mike Berlin: The Partisan Coffee House, Cultural Politics and the early Left.

"In its short existence the Partisan staged debates, film screenings, art exhibitions and music nights which drew in some of the leading intellectuals and artists of the late 1950s including John Berger, Doris Lessing, Lindsey Anderson, and Karel Reisz. This talk, based on a series of interviews with surviving participants, recounts the fascinating story of this short lived but highly influential cultural institution."

Bishopsgate Institute, February 2012

Images from Domestic Festival | Sunday 19 October | Open School East

Check the "Women and the Bauhaus:Anni Albers" amazing descriptions of the parties that the women at Bauhaus use to organise. It's really incredible to hear about all the effort and work that went into the hosting and socialising at the school and how it has been forgotten.

Domestic Festival | Sunday 19 October 2014 | Open School East An all day music festival on a Sunday afternoon in the Tin Tin room at Open School East, the closest thing we had there to our own living room and kitchen area. We hosted a line-up with bands and musicians that rarely play in public or have a side project not yet aired- to provide a space amongst friends to try new things. With music from: The Maracas, Jo Waterhouse, Alex Barty King, John Byers and his Special Brew, Vanity Ward, Professor Karmadillo, Jessica Leach and Richard Harding, Dr Dance Myth and His Support Staff, John Daker, Now Owl, David Craigie, Fell, Jenny Moore, Circuit Breaker.

What’s at play when the community of a building and their visitors consent to a situation where those visitors host that community in their own building?

Read more of Jonathan Hoskin's account of the Sundowner week at CAST, Helston in Cornwall (July 2014) here.

"The best way I can think to articulate this dynamic is by comparison with Albert Camus’ novella L'Hôte, or rather, the ambiguity of its title. The French word translates into English as both ‘guest’ and ‘host’; it’s only from the context that you know which is intended in any instance. Camus’ story is of an Algerian ‘guest’ in the home of his French ‘host’ in an Algeria that is still occupied by the French. In sum, one can’t be sure whether the title, with no syntactical context, refers to the Algerian or the Frenchman. Is the Algerian a guest in another’s home, or is the Frenchman a guest in a country that isn’t his home? The quirk of language is the perfect expression of the shifting and ambiguous roles of the two men in the novella.

This is the parallel we all enjoyed at Sundowner. What’s at play when the community of a building and their visitors consent to a situation where those visitors host that community in their own building? For one, it doesn’t collapse the distance between them; it’s not an arrangement of horizontality. However the two distinct groups are referred to, two groups they nonetheless are."

Shared with Dropbox

And the catalogue of the FOOD exhibitions at White Columns by Catherine Morris.

Which in my opinion (Andrea), is the only one that really addresses the issues of authorship and collaboration.

Following on our experience with the Sundowners at CAST earlier this year we had a reading group session combining Wish you'd been here and Future of the Left at the May Day rooms.

The Banquet Years was our main text.

Shared with Dropbox

Extra reading for the "FOOD" reading group with The Future of the Left at May Day rooms to discuss the Sundowners week at CAST.

Read more here of our interview for Uncompromising Tang with Rosalie Schweiker, Mario D'Agostino, Jo Waterhouse and Hannah Clayden who run The Pizza, a monthly pizza dinner hosted for an artist they admire - and the invited guest gets to choose the toppings.

#the pizza #rosalie schweiker #mario d'agostino #hannah clayden #jo waterhouse #ourshop

What friends have is common property

The Politics of Friendship Discussion with Andy Holden and Wish you'd been here Thursday 7 August 7.30-9.30pm AT Open School East, 43 De Beauvoir Road, N1 5SQ

An informal discussion on the politics of friendship in art practice.

The reading pack for the group, compiled by Andy Holden, can be downloaded from here.

Saturday 2 August 7pm - late AT the Total Refreshment Centre, Dalston, London, N16 7UR With support from Benedict Drew, The Fucks and more. This summer, artist Andy Holden and his band The Grubby Mitts will tour UK artist-led spaces, using the form of the rock tour to curate a series of events exploring the concept of friendship. Alongside invited friends, Benedict Drew and The Fucks, they will perform live a body of music they have been writing and recording for the last seven years. Expect short loops, repeated phrases, post-everything, and non-hierarchical; a delicate balance of pessimism and optimism, irony and sincerity, electronics and melody, art and pop. Holden's video projections will be combined with new films and performances made by a selection of artists linked to the host spaces on the tour. Tickets: £5 or with pre-order of the album £7. Tickets can be purchased online and will also be available on the door. To celebrate the announcement of the tour, The Grubby Mitts are giving away a free MP3, a re-mastered version of their debut single, 'To a Friend's House the Way is Never Long'. A new single and album will be released to coincide with the tour and can be downloaded here.

Sundowner at CAST, Cornwall

In July 2014, Open School East associates were invited to spend a week at CAST studios in Helston, Cornwall. We organised a week-long programme of events together under the title 'Sundowner' - to mark the week as a new chapter beyond Open School East.

We hosted an event each day, including a matchmaking evening, a Bad Vibes Club talk by Philosopher Robin Mackay, and a local history night, around an evening cafe in the building, creating and serving a different menu of drinks and food each night. Invited as guests to inhabit the building for a week, the cafe was a way of establishing a regular base to invite people in Helston to come in and meet us.

The week was an incredibly special experience in being invited as guests but welcomed with a trust and generosity that allowed us to also be the hosts. By the end of the week, the studio holders and their friends were working with us to organise the cafe, bringing food they'd made and mixing cocktails.

Read Jonathan Hoskin's account of the week here.

Photos from Super Fumes | Saturday 21 June 2014 | Open School East With Coova // Ravioli Me Away // Nope // Medusae // Sleepy Night Burger Party DJs // Radio Anti DJs

Super Fumes! Saturday 21 June 7pm til late AT Open School East, N1 5SQ The final Super Fumes at OSE moves down to the basement for a late night blow-out blast. Live music from: Leeds/Bradford psychedelic repeat-rock quartet NOPE who return to OSE for their UK tour of their second album 'Walker'. Welcoming for the first time London locals the all-girl jazzy, post-pop-punk, hip-funk outfit RAVIOLI ME AWAY. AND bringing the punchy grooves, COOVA come to start the party with their xylophone, organ tones, Washburn strings and squeeze box beats. Early and late-night tunes from Sleepy Night Burger Party DJs // RADIO ANTI // and others. Upstairs: Food and cocktails with all-night playlist suggestions from previous Super Fumes bands. £5 on the door CAPACITY IS LIMITED. Get there early to bag your spot on the dance floor.

#Nope #ravioli me away #Coova #jenny moore #Open School East #Sleep Night Burger Party #radio anti

In April 2014 we were interviewed by artist Andy Abbott for the Uncompromising Tang art blog about Wish You'd Been Here. This video is the result.

Andy is an artist, writer and musician based in Yorkshire. He is a member of the artist collective Black Dogs, makes music as That Fucking Tank, Nope and Elizabeth, and is the director of the arts and music festivals Bradford Threadfest and Recon.

Andy also runs the DIY club night Bare Plume organised with Yvonne Carmichael and Rose Borthwick, that celebrates the luxuriant on a shoestring with bands, cocktails and signature vegan food.

#Bare Plume #Andy Abbott #Rose Borthwick #Yvonne Carmichael #Uncompromising Tang #Nope #That Fucking Tank

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