The latest addition to Brighton and Hove’s creative landscape comes in the form of POST, a photography and film studio launched by two people who have been immersed in the photography world for decades.

One of POST’s co-founders is Nina Emett, a documentary photographer and social entrepreneur whose work is intertwined with the charity sector – from taking on commissions for NGOs to co-founding refugee and mental health charities and launching her own photography social enterprise, FotoDocument. Designed as an “antidote” to the negative news cycle, FotoDocument champions and commissions visual media focusing on uplifting, impact-driven narratives and solutions to pressing global issues and includes an international women’s award. Fellow POST co-founder Simon Roberts is a practising photographer who focuses on “the social construction of landscape”, and how it relates to politics, economic conditions, and the “thorny issue of British identity”. He has also been an advisor to Emett’s photography organisations and a trustee of one of the UK’s leading photography charities, Photoworks.

Having both noticed a lack of support and spaces available to lens-based artists in the Brighton and Hove area, they decided to channel their joint industry experience into creating a new space that caters to artists’ needs and, crucially, can survive in the long-term. Its services include practical offerings like photographic facilities, equipment and studios, but they’re also passionate about fostering a sense of connection and delivering creative nourishment in the form of exhibitions, workshops and talks.

The post New Photography & Film hub POST champions nature in a new weekender first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Cinemas are sacred places – most of all the independent ones, which have if not the freedom then the gumption to embrace eclecticism. Taking this spirit to the nth degree is the Rio in Dalston, which happily indulges diverse audience tastes. On its programme you might find Oscar contenders, arthouse cult classics, independent films on London life, unique music documentaries, gems lifted from queer cinema history, and rarely screened horrors. It also offers a crucial outlet for film collectives, clubs, and festivals dedicated to specific regional and national film scenes; currently on the schedule are initiatives spotlighting everywhere from the Balkans to Iran to Japan. The melting pot that courses outside the cinema’s doors is well and truly reflected on the screen, too.

The variety of its programming stems from the cinema’s operational structure. The Rio has been running for nearly 120 years – making it the UK’s longest running independent cinema – and has been a community-led charity for the last 50. To celebrate the half-centenary, the cinema is celebrating its heritage in various ways, from a new plaque honouring its pioneering founder to the launch of RIO FOREVER, a special six-month programme bringing some of that history into the present. At the heart of the programme is a series of collaborations with influential creatives from the worlds of film, music, and art – among them Jarvis Cocker, Molly Manning Walker, and Asif Kapadia – who have been invited to choose a title previously screened at the Rio in the past 50 years for a new screening. The programme will offer a glimpse into both the Rio’s archives and the filmmaking tastes of leading artists and directors, all while raising funds for the cinema to ensure that legacy continues well into the future.

The post The Rio in Hackney celebrates 50 years as a community-run cinema first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

There’s a familiar narrative around success: you leave, you outgrow the place you started, move to the city, and then further still – across oceans if you can – to build something new. For photographer Lloyd Pursall, that story once felt true. Raised in Barry, a coastal town in South Wales, his early ambitions were shaped as much by a desire to get out as they were by the creative foundations surrounding him. London offered momentum, and Los Angeles offered scale. But it’s only in returning home that the full picture has come into focus.

Pursall’s work has long centred on people and their ambitions, tracing struggle alongside the persistent pull of lost dreams, perseverance, and the Welsh notion of llwyddiant, a translation of “success” that sits quietly behind it all. After studying fashion photography at London College of Fashion, his career took him into international editorial, celebrity, and commercial spaces, leading to projects like To Live and Try in LA, a highly acclaimed photographic series capturing young creatives navigating the precarious optimism of chasing a dream next door to Hollywood. There, amongst musicians, athletes and filmmakers, he found a shared language: collaboration, persistence, and the belief that success is something built collectively as much as individually.

But beneath that global trajectory, Barry remained a constant, if complicated, point of origin. “My idea of success was getting as far away from home as possible,” he reflects. It’s a sentiment familiar to many who grow up in smaller towns, where opportunity can feel distant and identity constrained. Yet the further he travelled, the clearer it became that the foundations laid there were not limitations in the traditional sense, but acting as the very thing that made his work resonate.

The post Otrovert: Facing a Different Direction Entirely first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

For the third edition of Festival City Stories, Edinburgh Festivals and BUILDHOLLYWOOD Scotland invited artist Mark Kirkham, also known as the Edinburgh Sketcher, to attend workshops and events from across the festivals’ work with local communities, organisations, charities and schools.

Working with each group, he captured their projects through a series of sketches, which were transformed into postcards for the participants to share their own stories and experiences.

The post Championing Festival City Stories with the Edinburgh Sketcher first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A decade ago, André Anderson made a book with five of his neighbours on St. Raphaels estate in North West London. Titled Authors of the Estate it contained writing and photography about the estate along with a step-by-step guide to being an author. He printed 1,000 copies and put one through every door. He was, to use his own phrase, turning council houses into publishing houses.

“I knew that if you frame things correctly, people who don’t even consider themselves artists can come together, and learn together, and actually make something together,” he says.

“I also wanted to create a type of environment whereby artwork comes out of it, but where the people involved are just everyday people. Where the moment feels like an event itself, with all the flair so it felt like a party – a cultural memory.”

The post Authors of the Estate are Rewriting the City, From the Ground Up first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Back in 1995, War Child brought together some of the biggest names in music to record an album in one day. The result, HELP, raised over a million pounds for the charity, which had been set up to support children caught up in the Bosnian conflict. Fast forward to 2021 and a label, War Child Records, was set up to re-release four albums released by the charity between 2002 and 2009.

Each album saw artists covering beloved records, collaborating with other artists, or donating new songs. 1 Love was released in 2002 with a track list that included Sugababes and The Prodigy (the latter remaking The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’). The following year saw Hope released, in response to the Iraq War, with exclusive tracks and covers from the likes of George Michael, Spiritualized, Beth Orton and Yusuf Islam. 2005’s Help! A Day in the Life celebrated the tenth anniversary of the original and in 2009, War Child Presents Heroes had a collaboration between Lily Allen and Mick Jones from The Clash and covers from Beck, Estelle and Franz Ferdinand.

Now, HELP(2) is poised to repeat that success. Recorded over one intense week at Abbey Road Studios in November last year and executive produced by James Ford, the project was unveiled via the surprise release of a brand-new Arctic Monkeys track. Alongside original recordings, the album features a run of standout covers, including Olivia Rodrigo’s take on ‘The Book of Love’ and Fontaines D.C.’s powerful reimagining of Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’.

Additionally, there’s an all-star band pulled together by Damon Albarn. Alongside vocals from Kae Tempest and Grian Chatten, ‘Flags’ also features Johnny Marr on guitar, Adrian Utley from Portishead, Dave Okumu of The Invisible, Seye from Gorillaz and Ezra Collective drummer and bandleader Femi Koleoso.

The post Help Comes Round Again first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“Not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour, for the lack of it.” ¹

Is it getting more embarrassing to be a human being? What’s another year taught us? Unspeakable cruelty isn’t the sole province of any one race, creed or ideology. Tick!

No doubt, it has always been this way, but today there’s just no escaping reports of conflict, abuses of power, mendacity or simply plain indifference to other peoples’ plight. And yet, there are sparks of resistance — those among us who seek to bring the world together with compassion and ethical concern. Courage, thoughtfulness and care — in other words, LOVE — is the only antidote to the bleak era we’re living through.

Inspired by the passionate few who face up to great adversity, injustice, and fear — and those who simply offer everyday support and encouragement — BUILDHOLLYWOOD has partnered with UNCLE to close out the year with THIS IS A LOVE PROTEST: a UK-wide street gallery running from 15 December to the end of January in support of War Child. The showcase features work from 21 artists, each responding to the righteous, brave, and liberatory power of LOVE, with original pieces spanning illustration, painting, photography, textiles, graphic design, mixed media, and text-based art.

For more than three decades, War Child has been driven by a single goal — ensuring a safe future for every child living through war. Please consider making a charity donation here — every penny goes straight to War Child.

We are deeply grateful to the hugely talented artists who have responded to this call — you can explore all their works using the index below. Each artwork is accompanied by the artist’s quote reflecting on the project theme and the piece they have created. Wishing all our friends, collaborators, and clients heartfelt season’s greetings.

“Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.” ²

1 James Baldwin fr. Giovanni’s Room (1956)

2 James Baldwin fr. If Beale Street Could Talk (1974)

The post THIS IS A LOVE PROTEST first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

His art is as colourful as his camera roll. Having grown up in Cambridge but long since made Bristol his home, Gresham hasn’t so much carved out a career as an artist as he’s painted one — one vibrant shape, mural or installation at a time. Since picking up a spray can as a teenager, his work has pulsed with colour, movement and that unmistakable graphic rhythm rooted in skate culture and 80s-90s design. He’s been making art professionally for over a decade now, and his designs have only grown brighter while, in his eyes, the one around him has dimmed.

His latest collaboration with BUILDHOLLYWOOD, an enormous takeover at Bristol’s Lakota site, responds directly to a study that found the world is, quite literally, losing its colour. Researchers analysing thousands of consumer products from 1800 to the present day discovered a steady slide toward greys, blacks and whites. A global drift toward monochrome.

“You don’t really notice it happening” he says. “When we were younger, everyone had Burberry phone cases on their 3310s — now we’ve all just got black iPhones. No one wears brightly coloured socks anymore. It’s all white or black. You can feel it’s lacking.”

Gresham’s response isn’t political, nor ironic. It’s instinctive — a reminder of how colour makes us feel. “You made me question my whole life,” he laughs, when asked why the world needs more colour. “For me, it releases endorphins. If I walk past something and think, ‘Oh, that’s a nice colour,’ that gives me a buzz. It makes me feel good. It’s good for the soul.”

The post The world is losing its colour. Mr Penfold is painting it back. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

New work by emerging artists Leyla Hussain, Finn Millar, Cara Murray and Liv Rodgers took over a range of unique formats, each exploring themes around V&A Dundee’s exhibition Garden Futures – considering how gardens and public spaces can act as platforms for social justice, biodiversity and sustainability.

Created over several months, with professional development support from V&A Dundee and BUILDHOLLYWOOD Scotland – including tours, talks and artist crits – the resulting work explores social and class identity, the Gaelic winter tradition of Samhain, the radical potential of gardens, and presents a monument for the Palestinian journalists and media workers who have been targeted and killed in the current genocide in Gaza.

The work was launched as part of the museum’s Upstart: Creative Careers Festival, with a special bus tour exploring the artwork across the city, featuring insights from the artists alongside interactive performances.

Image above: Cara Murray

The post V&A Dundee: Commissioned by YPC first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Bristol has long been a city of movement; of ships, trade and migration, but also of protest and resistance. Memorial Dance, created by artist and former Bristol Lord Mayor Cleo Lake with Nigerian-born visual artist BÓLÁRÌNWÁ, channels that motion into an act of remembering. Drawing together artists and dancers, elders and young people through the Decolonising Memory Project, it transforms the body into an archive and the street into a site of reflection, where history and healing meet through movement.

Memorial Dance was built through community workshops that welcomed dancers and non-dancers alike, while holding an African-descent backbone at its core. Two anchor masterclasses seeded the choreography with specific diasporic lineages: Bristol teacher Norman “Rubba” Stephenson, whose practice carries threads from 1970s workshops by Steel ’n’ Skin through to the city’s own ensemble Ekome, and Latisha Cesar, whose Haitian spiritual forms locate the dance within a wider Atlantic continuum.

Bristol’s cultural infrastructure is part of the story too. The former Inkworks, now the Kuumba Centre, and organisations like Artspace Lifespace map a long arc of independent spaces where Black creativity has organised, gathered and thrived; it was at an Artspace Lifespace show that Cleo first encountered BÓLÁRÌNWÁ’s work and invited him to collaborate. The project’s original spark also came from a very Bristol kind of pragmatism: at the Regenerations conference, choreographer Kwesi Johnson urged Cleo not to wait for permission to reframe the city’s monuments; use an AR app, write your own plaque, expose another truth. That insurgent energy runs valiantly throughout Memorial Dance to this day.

The post Memorial Dance stands tall in Bristol: To move is to remember first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Created by award-winning photographer Colin Moody and writer/musician Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley, the book captures five years of Bristol nightlife through striking photography, personal reflections, and conversations with artists, promoters, and venue owners. Their collaboration grew out of real nights on Bristol’s dance floors, or as Colin puts it, “our own mini tribe,” a shared act of love and protection for the spaces that make people feel safe, creative, and connected. 

In a fitting celebration, the book’s artwork was unveiled at the iconic Lakota, one of Bristol’s most beloved and enduring nightclubs, providing the perfect backdrop for this homage to the city’s nightlife. The collaboration with JACK ARTS to exhibit the work outside Lakota was a deliberate choice, returning the images to the streets and communities that inspired them. “Displaying the book on billboards makes sense,” says Jazz. “Our story belongs out there on the night.”

We interviewed Colin Moody and Jasmine Ketibuah-Foley, the creative duo behind Up All Night: A Bristol Nightlife Story. They discuss the passion driving their “love letter” to Bristol’s club culture and the power of art to capture community spirit. From dance floors to billboards, their project celebrates the city that never stops moving. 

The post A love letter to Bristol’s nightlife: City’s creatives celebrate Bristol’s night time economy in new art book. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Max King has a knack for showing familiar objects and structures in a new light, and often in completely different proportions. Working in sculpture and installations, he toys with scale and perspective to create new encounters for his audiences, whether by collapsing buildings and other architectural structures into miniature models, or by blowing up small, everyday items such as pin badges into large-scale pieces that people can walk around. To him, presenting typical places and objects in atypical ways can be both magical and thought-provoking at the same time.

Born in Norfolk, now based in London, King studied graphic communication design at Central Saint Martins before doing an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. Different as they may seem, both courses left a profound imprint on his practice. His design education has no doubt been useful when it comes to the planning and construction of his sculptures. More importantly, it has meant that he keeps the functionality and experience of his pieces front of mind, always considering how people will interact with them. “I think a lot about the audience and how the audience will explore the objects, and I think that comes from my design background and always thinking about the user experience,” he says. “I know lots of people, especially artists, who don’t do that. But I always think about how someone seeing the work is going to move around it and how they are going to experience it, which is key.”

The post Max King turns social history into sculptural marvels first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Inside, you’ll find Foundation.fm’s dialled-up sound, Karoline Vitto flipping fashion’s script, and Sgàire Wood coming through with fierce, future-facing perspective. There’s Corbin Shaw’s statement-making banners, Hak Baker reflecting on a life lived loud, and Jukebox Collective crafting joy and connection in Wales.

We also step into the worlds of Kaye Dunnings and Massive Attack, catch Jeremy Deller doing what he does best – bringing big truths to the street – and dive into the vibrant energy of the Royal Academy’s Brasil! Brasil! show.

And the cover? That’s Suede – one of our most recent Your Space Or Mine artists, bringing her energy to the page with her photo series, Everyday People. This book is all about showing love: to our cities, our communities, and the creativity that simmers just below the surface.

The post Street Sessions: Issue 1 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s a fitting collaboration between Intoart and BUILDHOLLYWOOD, two organisations that reject the idea of art as something reserved for those who can afford white-walled gallery tickets or navigate institutional sliding doors. Making art accessible in public space is profoundly symbolic and implicitly political. It interrupts the city’s art-as-marketing landscape, challenges who is allowed to be visible, and insists that creativity belongs to everyone.

That sense of connection was first felt and found in 2024, when Intoart artist Andre Williams unveiled Let It Be Me in the pocket garden of Camberwell New Road, a bright, carmine coloured public sculpture commissioned by BUILDHOLLYWOOD a short 12 months ago. Andre’s work is invitational and vibrant, a conversational four word prompt of “let it be me” that asks passersby to reflect and ask the question; “why should it be me?”. In many ways, the artists answer the question by virtue of their work, using the billboards as a platform for artists to be seen on their own terms. “They’ll probably think about things they’ve made assumptions about when they see the work,” says artist Nick Fenn in reference to the public observing the billboards. “They might start paying attention.”

Andre’s Let It Be Me sculpture with Intoart and BUILDHOLLYWOOD has gone on to inspire this resplendent 25th anniversary series made up of 16 unique billboards, speaking to something deeper than accolades, and instead gesturing towards the urgency of access, visibility, and the right to be seen. “I hope people think, wow, that’s amazing, ‘Who are these people? Who are these artists?’” says Nancy Clayton. “In some galleries it’s always the same artists, but we are trying to break down the barriers.”

The post Intoart at 25: In the neighbourhood, across the city first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

That instinct to document, to preserve, to show the value in the communities she knows best, is where her practice begins. It’s why she talks about “building sideways, not upwards.” It’s why she brings her friends and neighbours onto runways or reconstructs her grandmother’s living room at Fashion Week. Sheffield, and the community it represents, isn’t just her background, it’s her compass.

Her Yemeni heritage sharpened that perspective from the start. She grew up surrounded by its traditions, from the generosity and selflessness that ran through everyday life, to the visual richness of her family home. One room might be a traditional Yemeni space with patterned rugs, heavy curtains, and gold-framed mirrors. Next to it, the “British living room” as she jokingly calls it, with sofas facing the TV. At family gatherings, her aunties in abayas and hijabs would sit alongside cousins in Nike tracksuits. Breakfast might mean a full English, but always with Yemeni chai tea.

At the same time, youth clubs gave her values somewhere to grow. Spaces similar to Reach Up, where Kazna now volunteers, founded by Safiya Saeed (now Lord Mayor of Sheffield), became second homes for her and her siblings. Her parents were young when they had them, and youth clubs offered another safe, collective environment. Kazna says they instilled the importance of community from the beginning, lessons that have stayed with her even as most of those spaces have since disappeared from Sheffield.

The post Sideways not upwards: Kazna Asker on Activism, Community and ‘wearing what I believe in’ first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In a powerful, community-led collaboration between Project ZAZI, OTR, and JACK ARTS, young people were given the opportunity to showcase their artwork on billboards across Bristol. Recognising the systemic barriers faced by young people from ethnically diverse backgrounds and the LGBTQIA+ community, the project remained firmly rooted in OTR’s mission to amplify underrepresented voices and create platforms for empowerment and visibility. The collaboration stood as a bold public celebration of identity, creativity, and vision.

To mark the launch, a celebratory event was held at Old Market Lawn – bringing together contributors, supporters, and the local community. The event honoured the young artists behind the work and highlighted the power of creative expression when young people are given the space, support, and recognition they deserve.

The post Bristol’s Community Championing LGBTQIA+ and Young People of Colour first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“Magic” is a word that comes up regularly with photographer Dennis Morris. He felt it when he saw a TV for the first time as a child, when he encountered a box in the corner of a room that he thought could hear him speak. He experienced it again when he saw an image printed from a negative for the very first time. There’s a sense of wonder in those early moments in his life that still seems visceral all these decades later. But when it comes to his own achievements, it was never magic; it was tenacity. It was all Morris’s doing.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Morris moved to London as a child, where he was introduced to photography at the tender age of nine. By the time he was a teenager, he had begun to forge a career in photography, producing timeless, instantly recognisable images of 1970s musicians such as Bob Marley, the Sex Pistols, and Marianne Faithfull, as well as later music acts like Oasis and Radiohead, which appeared on magazine covers and record sleeves. He also worked as a designer and an art director at Island Records.

Many of his portraits show these musicians’ performative side: the pomp of the Pistols, the enigmatic drama of Marianne Faithfull. But his “fly on the wall” approach also uncovered their hidden depths – a pain or an uncertainty, perhaps. He has always wanted to show the three-dimensionality of people, a philosophy he also applied to his photographs of everyday people going about life, whether in his project documenting Black British life in Hackney, his intimate series made in Southall’s Sikh communities, or his poignant photographs taken when returning to Kingston.

First image: Babylon by van, London, 1973 © Dennis Morris

The post In the trenches with music and documentary photographer Dennis Morris first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The programme culminated in a compelling, multi-venue public exhibition. Highlights include a group showcase at the Martin Parr Foundation, an installation at the Royal Photographic Society, and a partnership with JACK ARTS to bring a visually striking city-wide poster takeover – featuring 51 large-format posters displayed across four streets in Bristol. The street-poster element served as our input into the project, contributing to a dynamic, accessible outdoor gallery experience.

Through diverse visual narratives – from punk and hip-hop to breaking, ballroom, carnival, and grassroots gigs – the project illuminates themes of identity, resilience, connection, and cultural memory, capturing the creative heartbeat of Bristol’s community.

The post Visual interpretation of Bristol’s dynamic music culture with Noods Levels first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Monthly wanderings through a complex array of urban environments in the vicinity of Hoxton and Spitalfields might be enriching enough but Alisa adds a further dimension by introducing prompts, themes and situations that reattuned participants’ experience of walking in the city.

Here’s a sample: ‘As you walk, try to step on as many different surfaces as you can find.’

‘On your walk, write down every word or phrase you notice around you. When you finish the walk, read all you have written out loud back in the streets.’ ‘Choose something in the far distance. Walk towards it until you reach it.’ ‘Walk as slowly as you can.’…

These and many more ostensibly simple instructions invite walkers to better notice, feel, remember, touch, smell, hear and otherwise experience unexpected nuances of moving through urban space and place.

For the climactic event the exterior panels at The Carwash were adorned with the 12 posters, a different colour way for each month, that advertised the project throughout the previous year.

The post WALK: Who walks the streets? Who owns the city? A year of walking in East London. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Sally Gilford’s bold and inquisitive works explore the intersection of STEM thinking in digital and analogue realms. Drawing from over a decade of collaboration with scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Matrix Research at the University of Manchester, Gilford continues her exploration of the invisible worlds that underpin our daily lives. From architectural artefacts, bio images to historical archives and beyond, she tells stories that nod to the past, present and future, subverting traditional ideals into dynamic provocations.

The post Unseen Worlds: Art Meets Science in new Northern Quarter installation first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The photographer known as Suede is running through the list of individuals she’s celebrating in her forthcoming billboard series. Amongst the fifteen portraits will be plastered across London, there’s stylist Valeria Chrampani; painter and actor Adébayo Bolaji, chef Abby Lee who runs Mambow in Clapton and UKG original, MC Bushkin of Heartless Crew. She is, she says, engaged in cultural documentation, catching cultural moments as they happen. Visually, it’s a super-charged, high-octane treat. ‘I’m chasing energy over perfection,’ she explains. ‘My approach is always the same: very real and never over-produced.’

Suede – real name Kay Holden – is using the spotlight offered by artist celebration programme Your Space Or Mine to celebrate others. But this is her experience: of being supported on the way up and then extending a hand back down to new artists as they’re coming through. The BUILDHOLLYWOOD  x Suede collaboration ‘Everyday People’ speaks to the same dynamics: a portrait series exploring the individuals and communities that express London culture, and shape it, too.

Growing up in Frome, a town in Somerset, Suede fell in love with US sports culture with a strong side-order of music and fashion. After moving to Cardiff for university, where she coached the basketball team, she emigrated to Australia and then the USA. ‘I’ve been in a million different scenes from surf punk in Sydney to the queer scene in New York,’ she says. ‘I’m a melting pot of inspiration’. Gradually, friends began asking her to shoot their music videos or to help with styling and creative direction.

The post Energy Energy Energy first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Moving fluidly across text, performance, installation, and image, Sodipo is a multidisciplinary force whose work interrogates and reimagines Blackness, transness, and diasporic identity. Her practice is richly layered, often drawing from archives both digital and personal, while remaining focused on what might come next for future generations. Having been shown, read, watched, and performed across countless galleries, institutions, and centres of excellence across the globe, Sodipo’s work has found a new home this summer in the UK, this time on city streets, marking a public illustration of what Pride represents in principle and practice for Sodipo and the communities she feels at home in.

Born in London and raised in Nigeria until the age of eleven, Sodipo’s sense of identity has long been shaped by migration, multiplicity, and the navigation of cultural space. More than physical place, it was the internet that served as her earliest landscape of creative re-imagining. “I was a Tumblr girly”, Sodipo laughs, “so I access a lot of archival material through the internet”. In this way, a ubiquitous household object, the flickering Wi-Fi router, becomes a kind of commonality, one that connects her to a broader constellation of Black life and thought. That little plastic box that acted as the director of many of our early millennial and Gen Z childhood antics remains a steadfast reminder of the vast chasm of knowledge we have at our fingertips; “I’m thinking about how we access history nowadays”, shares Sodipo. “I hold like 10,000 years on my computer, you know?”

The post Ebun Sodipo is building a world for those that come after first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In this new work, set on a central stone plinth – which will also be flanked by three large-scale billboards for the launch – Fishel overturns what we might expect of public sculpture. Given the toppling of the infamous Colston Statue during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, Bristol is sensitive to what gets placed on its public plinths. So often the history of sculpture in public places has tended toward the overblown, commemorating public figures – monarchs, emperors, military leaders, slave traders – deemed worthy of monumentalising. Fishel cuts through all that. Rather than a recognisable figure, aloof and standing over us, she elevates one part of an unspecified body: a single limb. Titled Praise You 2.0 (2025) her leg is an assemblage constructed from sheet metal, coloured in vibrant royal blue and lime green, with its joints and internal framework exposed, giving it an unapologetically DIY feel. Praise You 2.0 pays tribute to strength, vulnerability and fun, qualities that Fishel argues should sit side by side, rather than in opposition, in a functional society.

Here Fishel talks to Lizzie Lloyd about the unsung value of domestic workers in the NHS. She touches on the power of art to share common human experiences, the urgency of fighting political injustices, and the everyday individual actions that make all our lives a little better.

The post Sophie Fishel: Praise You 2.0 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Over the past 12 months we have brought people together to explore walking the city in a playful, critical, thoughtful and poetic way. These walks have offered alternative techniques to look and engage with the streets around us, covering themes such as following to mapping, angles to distances, listening and touching. Each walk has given participants the chance to take part in an act of collective close looking and reimagining – opening up spaces we don’t usually notice to make visible different ways of thinking about the city and being in it.

The Gathering was an opportunity for past participants and for those who were curious to come together to celebrate over walking, sharing food, map making and conversations. The BUILDHOLLYWOOD CarWash has been the starting and finishing point of each event, so it was a no brainer to host the final Gathering at this space once again.

WALK: our series of free monthly urban art walks, hosted by performance and walking artist Alisa Oleva is part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Your Space Or Mine project.

The post WALK: gathering – 20th July 2025 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The heat is rising, the clock is ticking, the feed is reloading. Our devices are an extension of our limbs now – benign digital growths, still attached by lithe, fleshy tendrils to our febrile, stubby digits. We are tethered to them, pacified by them, and beguiled by them. And yet, despite our tacit sinking into their enchanting 4G catchment, there remains hope: that these screens are also on our side – informing us, educating us, and offering access and agency to challenge more potent powers. This is the paradox that Jazz Grant’s new work confronts – a visceral, multi-part billboard series exploring what it means to witness a world in collapse, and still find a way to respond.

Known for her emotionally charged collage and stop-motion animation, Jazz Grant’s practice is grounded in instinct, texture, and storytelling. Her current billboard takeover spans London and unfolds in four acts, from eyes burning with fire to silhouettes locked in protest, it captures a narrative arc of grief, rage, and ultimately, resistance. “I was really aware of how much I’ve been observing the burning world, both metaphorically and literally burning on my phone,” she says. “Then I made the connection that the billboards themselves almost look like a phone screen”.

The post Witness this: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

From the highway to Coachella stateside, to the BBC screen on British soil, Joseph Melhuish’s work is far reaching, now finding itself in London with a physical tilt to his typically digital practice. Working in collaboration with Creative Review and BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Creative Studio, Joseph has dreamt up a striking two-part, three-dimensional billboard that experiments with form and subverts structure, delivering Listen To Your Heart, a piece of public art that invites curiosity and tests the limits of optimism.

Installed across two billboards, the upright digital screen features a blissed-out visage. Eyes shut, pursed smiley lips and fleshy tendril bangs, looking ever so serene in her oversize cans. On the adjacent billboard, a pair of hands rips apart a forty-foot-wide hoodie top to reveal pinkie-purple cardiovascular gore and a cute cartoon heart with a jack plugged into it. Somewhat freakily the headphone cable meandering between these two very special builds resembles an umbilical cord. Head and heart conjoined like a mother and child, expressing how lifesaving it is to listen to the beating music of our hearts.

Start to finish, BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Creative Studio worked closely with Creative Review and Joseph to realise this ambitious, groundbreaking work – from idea generation and concept development through to production and installation. BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Creative Studio’s operation is home to a dynamic team of artists, designers, set builders, prop makers, and carpenters based in a 4000 ft purpose built studio nestled in a leafy pocket of North West London.

The post Joseph Melhuish’s characters come to life in the beating heart of London town first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Following the success of their debut event, Drag in the Arcades, featuring local drag icons Victoria Scone and Jolene Dover, the team secured a permanent home in Cardiff’s Morgan Quarter. Since then, the Emporium has grown into a thriving hub for queer culture and connection. From standout events like Howl! in the Arcades (an LGBTQI+ comedy night) and Draglings (a platform for emerging talent), to inclusive gatherings such as Transition, which centres trans and non-binary voices, the space offers a wide range of community-focused programming. Their community series featuring free or low-cost events like craft circles, queer play readings, and speed friendshipping, underscores their mission to foster safe, joyful, and accessible spaces for all.

JACK ARTS partnered with The Queer Emporium this Pride Month to shine a light on the people behind the Emporium, those who have built a safe, vibrant space for the LGBTQI+ community in Cardiff and beyond.

The post The People Behind Queer Emporium first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In this project, Shado Magazine and Amnesty International issue a call to artists across Europe to respond to the theme: “Protect the Protest.” Artists use illustration to push back against the growing narrative that frames protest as criminal, instead reclaiming it as a powerful and positive force for advancing human rights and social justice.

This comes at a time of rising concern over the erosion of protest rights across Europe, as governments impose harsher laws and increased restrictions. In response, Shado turns to the creative community to share bold, imaginative visuals affirming protest as a democratic right. BUILDHOLLYWOOD, in collaboration with Shado Magazine and Amnesty International, brings the five winning works to the streets of London, making their messages visible to the public and reminding us that protest is not only essential, but a necessary act of resistance.

Learn More about the Artists involved, and the story behind their artwork in the bios below.

The post Protect the Protest: Thawing the Chilling Effect first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The Glasgow-born artist, Trackie McLeod, is talking about the white-walled galleries, the institutions and the funding bodies that claim to champion diversity, but can more often come across as being tokenistic.

Proudly Scottish, Queer and working class, his work dances on the intersection of all of the above, taking the shape of sculptures, print, sound and more. From Burberry-clad Micras to copper-clad tabloid homophobia, his work merges sarcasm with sincerity to challenge who gets represented and who gets the piss taken out of them.

Fruit II marks his third solo show, this time taking place at The Bomb Factory’s Holborn Gallery in London (May 22 – June 11, 2025). Rooted in early 2000s reference points and his own battles of masculine versus femme energy, it’s a personal and political act of archiving: of what was repressed, what was performed, and what’s finally being reclaimed.

“It’s about growing up queer in Glasgow, and the kind of shame that came with that,” he says. “The performances, the silence, the things you did to fit in. I’ve tried to capture those unspoken rites of passage, the uniforms, the rituals, but also to take the piss out of them, because that’s how I process it. I want people to feel the heaviness if they need to, but also to laugh and to see themselves in it.”

The post Fruit II: Trackie McLeod on Class, Queerness and ‘taking the piss’ first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Every summer, for the last decade, GALA festival has turned a south London park into a three-day celebration of independence, community and underground spirit – drawing from a deep well of dance music histories. Initially a one-dayer in Brixton’s Brockwell Park, it’s since been taking place across three days on the last weekend of May on Peckham Rye.

The GALA origin story begins, though, in Newcastle. Co-founder Jonny Edwards was running a student night business and Giles Napier took a job flyering for him. Graduating to running club night Zap, for 1,500 electronic music loving students sealed the deal. ‘I fell in love with putting on those nights,’ he says, ‘seeing them do well, seeing the dancefloor light up. That’s where it started.’

Since the beginning, their festivals – they also run Rally in Southwark Park – have done more than just provide for the music lovers on the dancefloor. Over the last ten years they’ve ensured that local residents get discounted tickets; worked with community arts partners including Peckham Platforms and South London Gallery; and have raised over £40,000 for Southwark Day Centre for Asylum Seekers. ‘We want to contribute to a better landscape,’ says Giles, ‘not just setting up shop for three days. We want to be embedded, and to have a positive impact in the place we call home.’

The post GALA’s decade of music and community first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Michelle Hunter, Director of Programmes and Operations and the Designated Safeguard Lead at AudioActive cut her teeth in the music industry by way of the world-renowned Ministry of Sound in the early noughties. Michelle’s own story began trying to sleep with the sound of next door neighbour blues parties, a bassline that soundtracked her childhood and followed her to the parties she went to put on herself later in life. “Those blues parties were my first understanding of community and music coming together,” she shares, “it was always about belonging”. That feeling of a neighbourhood coming together to shake legs on a make-do domestic dancefloor extended into a life-long love affair with music and community, two facets of Michelle’s practice that continue to travel in parallel.

The post AudioActive are running up the soundtrack to Sussex first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In this issue, we’ll take you on a journey through some of our most impactful campaigns, from Camden Market’s 50th Anniversary mural that brought together local artists to celebrate five decades of creative legacy, to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter showcased across multiple cities with projections, paper-and-paste, and creative builds. You’ll also discover how we transformed The Sandbox for MALIN+GOETZ’s milestone birthday celebration.   

This zine captures the magic of our cities, all through the lens of our creative work. 

The post Annual zine issue 6: Celebrating the creativity and energy of our cities, clients and collaborators first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s a hard time for all forms of collective, communal celebration, whether that’s physical venues struggling with rising costs, issues with property developers and noise-averse neighbours or almost everyone dealing with the spiralling cost of basics. However, good times will be had, and festivals provide an annual celebration, whether that’s something free and local, or big ticket moments like Glastonbury where audiences and artists alike can switch off and tune into their favourite forms of music and culture.

“Festivals and club culture, they provide a common ground for people,” says photographer Rob Jones, who has been creating iconic images of the dancefloor since 2015. “Everyone’s there for the same reason: the music and the emotion that comes with it. It’s so positive.”

During the pandemic, the photographer and co-founder of Khroma Collective with Jake Davis, photographed over 40 of London’s most iconic nightclubs and venues whilst they were closed. Shot at night, the images provide a time capsule both of a shared moment when going out wasn’t possible and of music venues in the capital city at that time.

The post A field of vision: Rob Jones’ photographs of UK festivals go large first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Creativity and community sit happily side by side. Bobby was instrumental in the rise of hip hop and production duo Frankie Stew and Harvey Gunn (100 million+ streams) as well as 2024 rising star RUBII. He launched The New Society Radio back in 2018 and was a senior producer on Brighton’s first youth-led Breakfast Show ‘The Rising’ which ran on Platform B during the pandemic. Before that, he created his streetwear brand and YouTube channel Tésty, came up alongside Rizzle Kicks in their earliest days, and collaborated with Chase & Status and Jordan Rakei through his early work with Elli Ingram.

Back in 2017 the two aspects became explicitly interlinked when Bobby met grime’s primo public intellectual, Elijah, off the train at Brighton Station. The latter had been offered a role as Associate Artistic Director of Lighthouse, later becoming known outside UK music for his ground-breaking Yellow Squares – themselves appearing on BUILDHOLLYWOOD billboards in 2023.

The post Splashing the south coast with radical optimism first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The program kicked off with a deep dive into proposal-building techniques by James Allen, followed by focuses on various aspects of photography, including editing, color grading, lighting techniques, and practical shooting sessions. Renowned photographer Martin Parr provided invaluable feedback and shared insights from his own remarkable career, inspiring the next generation of image makers.

The post Cultivating the next wave of image makers with Noods Levels first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The street-level showcase developed in partnership with JACK ARTS offered a unique glimpse into the vibrant and ever-evolving artistic landscape of modern Wales, highlighting the diverse perspectives and talents that are shaping the country’s creative scene. The project provided a platform for six selected Welsh photographers to showcase their work in the heartland, allowing them to express how Wales has personally and creatively influenced their creative journey in “a powerful act of visibility.” – Taiye Omokore.

The outdoor exhibition followed Clwb Creatives REFRESH / RETOLD event at Shoreditch Arts Club on St David’s Day which shone a spotlight on contemporary Welsh creativity and talent.

“We want young people in Cardiff to look up at these street posters and feel inspired—to know that a career in the creative industries is possible and within reach. We want them to know their stories and perspectives are important, and there is an audience that cares about their craft. Above all, we want to encourage and give hope to the next generation to chase their creative dreams” –  Clwb Creative Cymru

The post Platforming the future of Welsh creatives first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Introducing the 2025 BUILDHOLLYWOOD Annual Film first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

To reimagine an image that doesn’t feel representative is to reimagine what already exists. Tiger Bay, home to one of the UK’s oldest Black communities, offers a deeper understanding of Welsh identity, one that isn’t always reflected in the expected mainstream representations of Wales. With their office rooted in the community centre at the heart of this pocket, Jukebox Collective’s Strategic Director Lauren Patterson highlights the significance of the project in the landscape of Welsh creative practice. “These images haven’t been created before,” she says, emphasising that these visuals shouldn’t be seen as a “challenge,” but rather as a creative interpretation of tradition: “This is Wales”.

The collaboration, inspired by the iconic Welsh hat, a 19th-century symbol of national pride, saw students from the Jukebox Academy rework this traditional piece with guidance from Welsh costume designer Ffian Jones. The result was a series of visually striking, culturally resonant interpretations brought to life through Bleak Fabulous’ lens, now displayed across Swansea and Cardiff on BUILDHOLLYWOOD billboards. Set against the muted greys and whites of Butetown, the vibrant colours found in the costumes are a reminder of the project’s impact, recognising how the past has always been present, alongside the ever evolving identities and communities found in the well-renowned Tiger Bay.

The post This is Wales: Bleak Fabulous and Jukebox Collective are reimagining Welsh traditions first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In the first year of the collaboration between Edinburgh Festivals and JACK ARTS Scotland, we commissioned emerging illustrators from Edinburgh College of Art to bring quotes of participants from the festivals’ projects to life, and presented their beautiful posters across the city. 

This year we developed the project further, inviting Edinburgh-based photographer Ellie Morag to attend events and workshops across festival projects and gather stories from people involved in these partnerships. 

The post Celebrating Edinburgh’s Communities with Festival City Stories first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

ShangrilART is led by the team behind Glastonbury’s iconic Shangri-La, where large-scale billboard art has long been used to convey powerful messages. At its heart, ShangrilART is dedicated to supporting artists by making work accessible beyond galleries and institutions—into communities, streets, and people’s homes. The belief that art is an experience and a crucial tool for public awareness drives the ongoing collaboration.  

Lost Horizon, with its deep-rooted values of community, creativity, and cultural diversity, serves as the perfect collaborator to host this evolving outdoor public gallery. 

 ‘In 2025, I had the privilege of curating a project at Glastonbury with the incredibly talented Amelia Troubridge. Her work resonated with me so deeply that I knew she had to be the one to launch our collaboration. Lost Horizon is the sister project to Shangri-La, and a cherished year-round venue in Bristol. These two spaces are more than just places—they’re movements, deeply committed to amplifying the voices of artists across every medium.’ – Kaye Dunnings, Creative Director

The post Amelia Troubridge’s Beautiful Protest series launches Bristol’s latest accessible arts site first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan”, shares Fernanda Liberti, one of the artists featured in the BUILDHOLLYWOOD collaboration, “ it has the biggest African population outside of Africa, with more Lebanese people living in Brazil than there are Lebanese people in Lebanon”. Her own Syrian and Brazilian heritage speaks to the rich cultural complexity of Brazilian migration, with artist Gustavo sharing his own anthropological understanding of the very human history of migration. “Nations are built because of people that come and go”, he says, with his project in collaboration with artist JC Candanedo exploring the diasporic identity found in the Brazilian delivery driver population in the UK. “We can’t live without these people”, JC shares, “they have completely changed the way we live”.

The post Brasil! Brasil! A street-side ode to Brazilian modernism and migration first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“My story and legacy run as a theme through the work I produce,” Faisal shares, shedding light on an industrious, diasporic South Asian family history that leads to the last 65 years in the city of Birmingham. It’s a geography that sits tight in the nexus of Faisal’s work, both artistic and academic, cited as the city that hosted both prayer and rave for him in his early years. The rich cultural heritage of the West Midlands emerges in concurrent episodes of Faisal’s work to this day, from permanent collections exhibited at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, to, ‘It Might Be Nothing but It Could Be Something..‘, a commission in collaboration with a number of academics from the University of Birmingham and Eastside Projects.

The post Faisal Hussain’s work alights in London: See It, Say It, Racist first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The last time we crossed paths IRL was at the social enterprise and charity – now sadly closed – House of Saint Barnabas in Soho. Titchner’s show there – titled PAINTINGS WITH WORDS AND PAINTINGS WITH WORDS AND NUMBERS – was an exhibition of exquisite economy. At another extreme, and just to begin to demonstrate the breadth of the artist’s production, Titchner was invited to make work for an ambitious and conscience raising partnership between Hauser & Wirth and mental health changemaking charity Hospital Rooms. LIKE THERE IS HOPE AND I CAN DREAM OF ANOTHER WORLD is a 15m long, almost 6m high mural hand painted on fifty-one plywood panels that has been shown in different venues but is destined to be permanently installed at The River Centre, a new NHS mental health hospital in Norwich. This is an artist whose creative output continually surprises, challenges and with this latest poster work conceivably nurtures passersby. Having collaborated with Mark back in 2020 to display PLEASE BELIEVE THESES DAYS WILL PASS during the pandemic, it’s a pleasure and privilege for BUILDHOLLYWOOD to share Titchner’s work once again, featuring IT’S THE HOPE THAT KEEPS US HERE throughout the UK.

An overarching subject would seem to be addressing and reflecting on the human condition. The range and depth of his work seems to offer up a kind of test laboratory, both proposing and wondering how we communicate, receive and deal with different facets of life’s complexity. In short, it’s a mission to investigate how we think, feel, behave and care for one another. The artist kindly agreed to answer a few questions to explore his creative process in a bit more depth.

The post New Year, new poster collaboration with artist Mark Titchner: IT’S THE HOPE THAT KEEPS US HERE first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It was a very difficult decision but from more than forty deeply felt, assiduously researched and for the most part diligently executed designs, ten were selected for reproduction and display as street posters. Helping give voice to the concerns of Walthamstow’s young adults is a privilege and brings to the fore important issues such as: caring for the planet and all its creatures; respecting one another; challenging injustice. But there emerged a very strong recurring theme throughout the artworks and that’s of people taking both individual and collective responsibility for their lives and communities. If there was one overarching message it was a mature and ambitious one: to be the best person you want to be.    

A whistle-stop tour of the ten selected works follows… Lili’s ‘Creativity’ poster is a riot of intricate detail. At the same time, it’s bold and eye-catching enough to work well as a street poster. Music, visual art and design, whatever your creative obsession, Lili’s advice is to immerse yourself in what you love. ‘Keep Moving Forward’ is Dillon’s positive slogan. Their artwork is literally rays of sunshine bursting through a verdant forest. It’s a bold, resonant reminder not to sweat the small stuff, but look beyond everyday stumbling blocks and keep your dreams alive. 

The post Third time’s a charm with Walthamstow’s Big Creative Academy first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The most striking and recognisable element of Sgàire’s work is her signature doll-eye make-up: a hyperreal, hyper-feminine anime-esque look that speaks to the origin of glamour as a form of magical trickery. Equally alluring and disquieting, Sgàire transforms the make-up routine from a process of enhancement to an optical illusion in an accentuated take on the (specifically trans and queer) creation of identity. In 2020, she revealed the secrets behind her look via a make-up tutorial video for Vogue. In many ways the video could be considered her ultimate artwork, and the epitome of camp magnificence; a perfectly balanced critique/celebration of image-making on arguably its most storied platform.

Sgàire’s work is often situated in nightlife spaces, and there’s something of the ‘80s club kid in the way she melds avant-garde and pop references in these environments – much like her friends and frequent collaborators PONYBOY. She’s performed at clubs, Pride events and gallery parties throughout Europe, and she co-founded the much-missed Glasgow queer club Bonjour, where she hosted the legendary karaoke night Sgàiraoke. She has continued to develop this karaoke/performance art hybrid in venues around Scotland, including at Edinburgh Art Festival and Jupiter Artland’s annual queer party JUPITER RISING – this year she hosted dressed in an XXXXXL heavy metal longsleeve t-shirt, the arms dragging behind her like a bizarre bridal veil.

The post Sgàire Wood takes her beguiling brand of image-making to the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

There’s something more to Old Spitalfields Market than the scores of people browsing table tops and shops through daylight hours; there’s a resounding echo of the East London rag trade, and a history that weaves its way through South Asian migration and localised craft. Glance up to the rafters this autumn and you might catch a glimpse of “Bidrohi”, a resplendent collection of work from three remarkably talented British Bangladeshi and Bengali artists, namely; Ace Rahman, a multi-hyphenate walking the tightrope between digital and traditional practices, Mohammed Z Rahman, visual artist and writer exploring the socio-political through dreamscapes and the domestic, and Puer Deorum, interdisciplinary artist and curator navigating radical imagination, polychronic experiences, and non-linear realities through their practices of performance, photography, and set design (to name a few).

“Bidrohi” as a collection speaks to the legacy of migration, something that Mohammed has explored throughout his catalogue of work; “I feel like stasis is not the norm – there has always been movement of people,” he shares earnestly, “I think I’m trying to normalise, or validate this kind of creolised identity of Bangladeshis in Europe, and their wider histories and interactions with other diasporas”. This feeling of liminality and difference is critically articulated through each artist’s work, with a candid mix of street photography, self-portraits, and domestic scenes caught in paint each depicting a shared but unique interpretation of South Asian migration, by way of the East end.

When asked what “Bidrohi” means and the significance of this choice for the collection, Ace shares that the title references a poem by Kazi Nazrul Islam, a well-known Bangladeshi revolutionary poet that the three artists all felt connected to. “I personally feel that the poem and what it stands for is the essence of what it means to be a contemporary queer Bangladeshi artist in the modern age”, Ace shares, “it’s about standing up for your people and your land, and for what’s right”, something that each of the artists commit to unwaveringly.

Another organisation that has found their home in the East End by way of South Asia is Oitij-jo – “they’re a foundational hub that really supports this movement of British Bangladeshi artists”, Mohammed shares, a space which Ace also occupied during their first artists residency which, coincidentally, was facilitated and curated by Puer. Despite their distinct practices, the three artists appear to share a commonality beyond their respective canvases, speaking of each other’s work with fondness and interest, and demonstrating the importance of kinship in collaboration, as well as in ancestry.

The post The three British Bangladeshi artists bringing “Bidrohi” to the historic rafters of Old Spitalfields Market first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s one-of-a-kind cultural venue is now home to an architect’s dream, a dynamic space dressed and designed to respond to Beyond the Box’s brief of “Expressions of Resilience”. The three young architects who won the design competition have dismantled the very bones of the proverbial box and rebuilt it to reflect their lofty architectural ambitions, bringing resilience head-to-head with rest in the belly of an incongruous 1 Quaker street.

The space is an ode to resilience, solidarity, and creative expression, with Taja, Lily, and Akif’s work taking inspiration from the East End roots that they find themselves creating in. All hailing from the area, the designers have worked with Beyond the Box and BUILDHOLLYWOOD to create an environment built for the vast array of people who will experience it. Informed by neurodivergence and the profound impact of protest in the face of global atrocities, the space is a lyrical ode to people-powered resilience, the importance of honouring difference, and the vital need to design beyond the automatic archetype.

The post The young architects behind Beyond the Box are bringing their expressions of resilience to 1 Quaker Street first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Framed by a stack of paintings to his left and a series of photos hung on the wall behind him, Will Butterick is the very picture of an artist. Sharing his tales of early enchantment with Louise Bourgeois’ Spider sculpture sat squarely outside the Tate Modern, Will’s love for art started young, developing into a profound and tender appreciation for immersive experiments in the glossy green pastures of digital art. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to correct the perfect sort of red to look like the shade of an apple,” says Will, and whilst his technical proficiency is not one to be criticised, his ventures into “moving paintings” takes the stasis out of physical mediums, expanding the breadth, depth, and reach of his work into something really quite remarkable. “People use terms like ‘movement’ and ‘gesture’ to describe paintings”, Will shares, “but actually, as much as you want to create that feeling, it’s still ‘still’ on the wall.”

From those still white walls of a gallery to the bustling canvas of a BUILDHOLLYWOOD billboard, Will’s work is set to be showcased across the city of Brighton this month, the sunny seaside town he has called home for the past seven years. Having worked with billboards through an alternate lens of professionally photographing advertising, this series subverts his camera’s usual gaze, instead capturing his understanding of what happens in, beyond, and between billboards. When asked about the nature of his own series, Will responds artfully, “they’re a response to the sorts of images I have of empty billboards, or of billboards filled with the remnants of the stuff before that has been left”, a nod to his interest in “void places”, and the subtle bleakness found in something noiselessly ripped down, only to be replaced with paste (and haste) in that self same place.

Will’s work remains steadfast in the face of a rapid creative turnover, a dependable digital footprint that keeps a steady pace amidst the furor found in the colourful pits of the UK’s contemporary art scene. His experimentations feel reasoned, and explorations tempered by a mature understanding of what digital art, photography, and collage can elicit in feeling and focus, within the context of our changing minds and roaming digits. These billboards set the stage for a wide reaching public gallery in the city, creating an accessible and open space for Will’s work to resonate with those equally intrigued by what can be found in the absence of something else, with the peachy promise of something new.

The post Will Butterick brings the brief temporality of billboards to Brighton’s streets first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Founded in 1991 as alternative magazine for style and culture, Dazed became a lightning rod for cultural provocation, and grew into publishing powerhouse Dazed Media. Thirty years on, amidst the turbidity and social isolation of a pandemic, Dazed Club was launched to the public – a time when connectedness was needed most. In their three years of operating, the club has continued to champion radical fashion and youth culture, as set out during their heyday in the 90s, with a vanguard of next generation writers, artists, stylists and image makers. Through exclusive events, opportunities and competitions – including this very one – Dazed Club has proved time and time again that community is the crux of culture, and that togetherness is conducive to creativity.

Round two of the Dazed Club x BUILDHOLLYWOOD competition celebrates crowds, collectives, communities and what they mean to the individual. The collaboration welcomes said connectedness and asks the ‘Clubbers’ to “Show us your scene!” Shortlisted submissions were overlooked by the following panel: Fashion Director Imruh Asher, Another Man’s Editor in chief Ellie-Grace Cumming, Photographer Sharna Osborne, BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s very own Marketing Director Khaly Nguyen, and Dazed Club’s Creative Director Jack Sunnucks.

The post Dazed Club takeover the streets for part two of their collaboration with BUILDHOLLYWOOD first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Living with his parents and four siblings in a close-knit family environment, Ilori developed a deep appreciation for togetherness, a value that continues to resonate in his projects. “Affirmation is one of the biggest things we were introduced to when we were young,” Ilori explains. This foundation of positive reinforcement, along with his parents’ emphasis on self-contentment and cultural pride, has profoundly shaped his design philosophy. His work celebrates his dual heritage and the joy of belonging, offering audiences a visual language that bridges cultural and emotional experiences. 

The post Yinka Ilori inspires the next generation of young artists first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

His music, brimming with raw honesty, has been his way of narrating life since the release of his 2017 EP Misfits. This project was a turning point for Baker, marking the first time he shared songs he’d written on the guitar—an instrument that had come into his possession after winning it in a prison raffle.

That guitar became a vessel for his evolution, helping him transition musically from a high-energy, Channel U-approved Grime MC in Bomb Squad, into the folk-inspired “G-folk” sound that Baker is now known for. His subsequent albums, Babylon (2020), Worlds End FM (2023) and more recently his latest EP Nostalgia Death (2024), have only solidified his presence as a musician who refuses to be boxed in. Each release has seen his sound become more layered, and more complex, but always anchored in storytelling—stories that only Hak can tell.

However, Baker’s most recent release with his name on isn’t music at all. It’s a film—Hakeem—an intensely personal documentary directed by James Topley and Ivo Beckett of DEADHORSES. The film was premiered at BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s event space The CarWash in the heart of Shoreditch, with an intimate screening and Q&A hosted by CassKid, during which, an emotional Hak Baker added further detail to what is already a close-up look at his life on and off stage.

The post Hak Baker on Hakeem, the revealing documentary that was five years in the making first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

On August 25th, the legendary band transformed their hometown into a large-scale canvas for climate action with Act 1.5—a pioneering, low-carbon event that aimed to set a new standard for how festivals and gigs could operate in a world facing ecological collapse. Like anything capable of creating worthwhile change, the festival—and its art installations—did not come without challenges, be they financial or logistical.

Integral to the event’s success was Kaye Dunnings, Creative Director of Glastonbury’s radical Shangri-La field, who brought her expertise in merging art and activism to the forefront. Her involvement went beyond curating a visual spectacle; she helped shape Act 1.5 into a climate rallying cry – using the streets of Bristol as a platform for celebrating activists, and a large-scale gallery of politically charged works at the event by artists like Kennard Phillipps, Darren Cullen, and Ella Baron. Working alongside Massive Attack and BUILDHOLLYWOOD, the team’s collaborative vision aimed to deliver a message as bold as it was necessary.

“There’s a history of street art in Bristol,” Kaye explains. “It’s part of the fabric of Bristol, and it’s always been political. It felt right to bring that energy into this event because that’s what Act 1.5 is—political, urgent, and deeply connected to the city.” Through installations scattered across the city and the festival grounds, the project connected Bristol’s rich history of rebellious art with the urgency of climate activism.

The post Art meets action: Kaye Dunnings on curating United Notions for Massive Attack’s climate rallying cry first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Installation of Andre Williams’ LET IT BE ME sees the permanent plinth temporarily coloured a bold carmine shade. Affixed to one side of this cuboid pedestal is a low relief portrait of the artist. This boldly rendered face painted on 3mm aluminium is truncated at the base, so it looks like it’s peeking out from the ground. The artist is wearing chunky glasses and sporting a cerulean cap, one that’s a little bit too small for the wearer by the looks of it. Electric purple strips of aluminium striate the red ground atop the plinth and topple briefly over one side, forming an odd sort of fringe above the portrait.   

The artwork’s titular text elements sprout somewhat precariously from the bulky base. Again, formed from a layered mix of 5mm and 3mm laser cut aluminium, the four hand–painted words LET IT BE ME each have their own separate panels. Vibrantly contrasting coloured grounds and painted shadowed lettering lend the work an exaggerated cartoon-like trompe l’oeil effect. These are open, conversational words on the street, addressing the public with a quirky informality. Instead of being informational or didactic, Williams’ four words prompt a smiling curiosity. Why should it be you? What are you going to do if it is you? Why can’t it be me? Williams’ unpretentious folk aesthetic draws in, intrigues rather than confronts passersby. 

The post Artist Andre Williams answers the question, ‘Who’s next up on the pocket sculpture park plinth?’ first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s something of an understatement to say that 2023 was a big year for Ezra Collective. Their unexpected win at the Mercury Prize generated not only the memorable and highly joyful image of a whole-band bundle when their name was declared but also an acceptance speech that placed their success in a community context, shouting out their youth club, Tomorrow’s Warriors, alongside friends and family. It was a very Ezra moment.

They’re topping off 2024 with the fruits of the past year’s labour – a third album written backstage and on tour buses and then recorded at the famous Abbey Road studios. Dance, No One’s Watching combines core Ezra ingredients of jazz and dub, hip hop, hi-life and salsa; worldwide dance music, Londonised. This is big welcoming dancefloor energy, with enough balm-songs to take you home afterwards – and to pick you up the next morning.

The post Dance, Dance, Dance first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We’d watch Derry Girls together and Trisha would be reminded of what it was like when she was growing up, with the presence of army officers everywhere. But they were young and kind of took the situation for granted, they’d not known any different. For the most part young people were busy focussing on their own lives. I mean, because she was living in a mainly Protestant area, she was somewhat shielded from the worst of it. But she did say there was a 9pm curfew, after which you weren’t allowed out. And huge metal gates were erected at the end of streets, they were locked at night so even if you went out you couldn’t go far.

It was when Trisha was making work later in the 1980s, after she’d left Northern Ireland to study for her Fine Art degree at Portsmouth that she began to reflect deeply on her childhood, what she and others experienced. The atmosphere of oppression, fear and constant surveillance by an occupying power.

The post An interview with curator Brenna Horrox about an affecting gem of an exhibition: ‘Each Little Scar’ at Filet Gallery is a crucible for transformative experience and thinking. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post The People are Waiting first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

JACK ARTS Scotland partnered with Ponyboy to present a takeover at Glasgow Green showcasing stunning new portraits of some of their regular performers ahead of their latest Club Kid event, featuring: Babyjaii, Miss Cabbage, Dill, Huntress, Lourdes, Maya Jaye, Pixie Chanel and Zulaa – created by photographer Kate McMahon.

The post Ponyboy’s Club Kids take over Glasgow Green first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Every so often a newer designer appears on the scene that garners a lot of attention, but sometimes the excitement is hard to sustain for a brand starting out. A few years ago designer Karoline Vitto presented her graduate collection and proved to be a name that would be glued to the lips of London’s fashion community for a long time. Four years since her brand was first launched, she is still a pioneering talent and setting a new standard for her generation. When we speak, she is kind, patient and has the sort of assertive energy you could expect from someone running a successful, tight ship.

Born in Brazil and currently based in London, Vitto’s journey into fashion was not typical of those around her in the Brazilian countryside town of Caçador. Surrounded by a family immersed in the craft –  her grandfather a cobbler and her grandmothers adept at sewing – Vitto’s early exposure to the hands-on creation of garments sparked her fascination with the art of making. Her childhood in the 90s, during a time when Brazilian fashion was dominated by unattainable beauty standards epitomized by models like those on Victoria’s Secret runways, led her to question the narrow definitions of beauty and to eventually carve out her own path in the industry.

Moving to London in 2016 to study at Central Saint Martins, Vitto sought a more creative approach to fashion education, a stark contrast to the technical focus she experienced in Brazil. Her time in London not only shaped her design philosophy but also solidified her commitment to creating garments that celebrate every body type. Vitto’s work is characterized by its focus on inclusivity and her dedication to representing real women – sampling on a size 16 or larger, and extending her sizes up to 4XL. For Vitto, designing for a variety of body types was never an afterthought; it was a fundamental aspect of her brand’s identity from the very beginning.

The post Karoline Vitto is the Brazilian designer unafraid to champion the parts of ourselves that are usually hidden first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A Continual Farewell is a classic story of romance, betrayal, tragedy and, of course, sex & drugs & rock & roll – all told through 13 years worth of beautifully crafted love letters.  At the heart of it, the man of letters himself was one of the great figures in the history of Mancunian music and British culture.  Anthony H (Tony) Wilson was a Granada TV personality, the presenter of iconic punk/post-punk music show So It Goes and one of the creators of Manchester’s most influential record label Factory – home to Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column and later Happy Mondays.  On the receiving end was “Lins”, Tony’s first wife Lindsay Reade, who he met in May 1976 just before his “epiphany” seeing the Sex Pistols at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall.

The letters tell the true story of their courtship, their stormy marriage, their divorce, their subsequent clandestine liaisons and their eventual reconciliation before Wilson’s early death at 57 in August 2007.  Along the way we’re given access to the private and romantically poetic thoughts of Anthony H as he tries to balance his television career with the rise of Joy Division, the suicide of Ian Curtis, the success of Factory Records through New Order and Factory’s culturally significant by-products, the Hacienda club and eventually Madchester.

During the course of their marriage which, by these accounts, was rocky and plagued with jealousy from the start, it becomes clear that Tony’s old-fashioned approach to their relationship fuels Lindsay’s insecurities.  All five directors of Factory Records were men even though Tony used his and Lindsay’s money to fund early releases, including Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’: “Tony and I never had children but we did give birth to Factory”.  In her commentary, Lindsay writes that “as Tony’s lover I felt like a goddess but as his wife, a doormat”.  Later in the marriage she says she’d “continued to be a household slave which was utterly unappreciated by him”.  And her jealousy takes hold when Blondie make their TV debut on Granada Reports  in November 1977 performing ‘Rip Her To Shreds’.  Lindsay writes of Debbie Harry “she was the most beautiful creature, super talented and Tony clearly worshipped her”.

The post Love couldn’t tear them apart first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

WATAWAT

WHERE ART THOU ART WHERE ART THOU
THE TRUE HERSTORY OF ART

EVENT DETAILS

BUILDHOLLYWOOD PRESENTS:

ARTIST ZOE BEDEAUX AKA T.I.P INVITES YOU TO
MEDITATE ON THIS SONIC TRANSMISSION.
A PILGRIMAGE TO THE HEART
AT THE CARWASH IN SHOREDITCH
OCT 10TH – 11TH

PART ONE

DRINKS 18.30

AUDIO POESIS – SOUND INSTALLATION:
NOTHING TO SEE HEAR – THE ULTARA VIOLET CATASTROPHE.
EXHIBIT A BARNUM’S GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1873)
ANDROMEDA THE AETHIOP 
‘THE INVISIBLE WOMAN.’
TRANSMITS HER STORY

The post Zoe Bedeaux aka T.I.P first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Displayed across billboards throughout London, Birmingham, Manchester & Bristol, the campaign juxtaposes said bias with positive portrayals of Black girlhood that highlight the innocence and vulnerability Black girls are usually not afforded and the widespread misrepresentation of Black girls within the media. The campaign enlisted Black British female photographers Aicha Thomas and Jade Reynolds-Hemmings to transform the perception of Black British girlhood through visual storytelling.

Creators Eboni Lamine and Martha Omasoro commented on the project, saying: “Adultification Bias occurs when adults perceive children from ethnic minority backgrounds as being older or more mature than they are. It is a systemic issue that is unfortunately an inherent part of the Black British and global experiences. With Let Black Girls Be Girls, our goal is to create a campaign that educates society on the deep-rooted impact of Adultification Bias on Black girls and afford every Black girl the innocence and vulnerability of childhood, not marred by race”.

The post ‘Let Black Girls Be Girls’ raises awareness of the adultification bias of Black British girls first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Deller’s work celebrates art’s life-changing powers: to spark attention, pose questions, call out malfeasance, provoke ideas and emotions, promote discovery and cock a snook at power...

“Art is a way of staying engaged and in love with the world. It is also a form of magic, its alchemical power transforming reality, if only for a moment, making the mundane profound. It does things that are not logical and can trick us. It can be deeply absurd and even stupid at times.” And, when it takes the form of a poster declaring ‘Thank God For Immigrants’, it can prick the conscience of a nation.

Produced by Deller together with his design partner Fraser Muggeridge and made specifically to be displayed in windows, this poster originally appeared in public, April 2020. During this period the UK was in an extended Covid lockdown. There was a profound feeling that NHS and other key workers, many of course immigrants, were keeping the country afloat in the direst of circumstances. More specifically Deller’s said, “The idea partially came from the people I had hung around while making (a film documenting protest in the wake of the vote for the UK to leave the EU) ‘Putin’s Happy’ (2019), people who had anti-immigrant views and whose lives because of Covid were possibly being saved by immigrant healthcare staff. Does someone’s opinion about immigration change when an immigrant saves their life?”

The post It’s here: ‘Thank God For Immigrants’ signed poster reissue first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Originating and delivering street-side messages and images that inform, inspire, intrigue, or simply put a soothing smile on the faces of passers-by is a huge thrill. It also carries with it responsibilities both to collaborators and publics alike. But we know our cities and the communities who dwell there.

Alongside our commercial work we have been curating and hosting what could be described as the country’s biggest ongoing creative project on the street, Your Space Or Mine. In this issue, we spotlight some of the most inspiring contributors and partners within the music, art, fashion and culture scene including: Bevan Agyemang, Sister Midnight, Magnus Westwell, Nabihah Iqbal, and The Welsh Ballroom Community.

We conclude with highlights of our recent work, featuring Adidas, Tate, the Scotland Women’s National Team, Broadwick Live: Drumsheds, and Books Are My Bag.

This zine takes you on a journey that shows the imagination and commitment we put into our work.

The post BH Zine Issue 5: Celebrating the People, Places and Cultures of our Cities first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

For five decades, Camden Market has represented creativity, subculture and rebellion in London. Now a complex network of interconnecting markets, Camden Market started life as a temporary, weekly arts and crafts fair behind iconic music venue Dingwalls in 1974. Today, it’s the largest market in London, open all year round and drawing in 250,000 visitors a week.

Camden Market has always been intertwined with the music culture of the area. With venues like The Electric Ballroom, The Underworld, the Roundhouse and The Dublin Castle in the vicinity, over the decades the market grew with the local music scenes. Fashion influenced music and vice versa, with the clothes on sale at the market representing the alternative spirit of Camden.

To celebrate 50 years of the iconic space, Camden Market partnered with BUILDHOLLYWOOD on a one-of-a-kind mural to showcase its vibrant past, present and future. BUILDHOLLYWOOD curated the artists and produced the project from start to finish, they also created artwork for billboards currently dotted around Camden. Inspired by the five colourful decades of the market, tracing its humble beginnings through its music-filled history to the tourist destination it is today.

The post Celebrating 50 Years of Camden Market first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Art Not Evidence is a movement working hard to redress the use of lyrics as evidence that lead to miscarriages of justice, a non-profit organisation led by a broad coalition of youth workers, academics, lawyers, journalists, musicians, and music industry professionals holding the courts, police, and prosecution to account. The prejudice and racist assimilation of rap lyrics and music videos speaks to a grossly misinformed assumption that artists are more likely to be related to criminal “gang” behaviour, an insidious trope that has made its way through the courts of justice for years, long before the advent of drill, as a historical and deep-rooted discrimination against music of Black origin.

The post From the artistry of drill music, to the poetry of rap: Art Not Evidence is pulling the plug on creative injustice first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Walthamstow FC has become a template for talented young players, attracting unrivalled coaching offering in a nurturing environment. Buildhollywood have partnered with the team in sponsorship, aiming to inspire further success.

Figurehead John Sullivan is an ardent coach with a legacy of both success and developing talent. His unwavering commitment and personal sacrifices have laid the foundation of an environment where kids flourish. Working alongside him are a team of Academy coaches at the height of their craft, including some from Premiership teams which brings professionalism to the team. The coaching team is now further complemented by the presence of Jérémie Aliadière, an ex-Arsenal player and member of the legendary 2004 Arsenal Invincibles team.

In our conversation with Sullivan, Aliadière, and a selection of the team’s players, we spoke candidly about their involvement with the team and its personal impact on their journeys. Particularly notable were the players’ accounts, offering insights into their footballing paths, from their initial steps in the sport to the deep bonds forged within the Walthamstow family. Their stories echo the ethos of unity, development and kinship that defines Walthamstow FC.

The post Grassroots team Walthamstow FC have built a brotherhood for players and coaches alike. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Election season is upon us – and the usual suspects are popping up on our poster sites across the UK first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A top ten of Jeremy Deller posters might include the rave-era benevolence of ‘Bless This Acid House’, his Brexit-era ‘Welcome To The Shitshow’ (printed on a Union Jack), and a poster showing Stonehenge as if the monoliths were actually spelling out the word ‘vote’.

The 2024 General Election campaign sees two new Deller artworks hitting the streets, in collaboration with BUILDHOLLYWOOD. One states quite accurately ‘We Have Been Swimming In Shit’ with the other bearing the legend ‘14 Years Of Hurt’ (designed by Fraser Muggeridge). Posted up around the UK, they are he says, ‘self-explanatory’. ‘When you’re making a poster in the street you have to make it attention-grabbing, something easily and quickly legible, ’he says, adding that these two additions to the political poster archives are ‘insanely legible’.

The Euros influenced one of the posters. ‘Because the football’s on, I thought I’d wrestle it in. The design looks like the back of a football shirt, not that I’m a football fan. It’s obvious, maybe it’s too obvious, but everyone knows what it means, and what the 14 years refers to. It doesn’t need explaining’.

The post 14 Years of Hurt first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Monumental and expressive, the painterly portrait by Case Maclaim (aka Andreas Chrzanowski); Cbloxx (aka Jay Gilleard) created their signature aerosol magic and mystery; HERA (Jasmin Siddiqui) delivered a truly towering artwork that nevertheless communicates care and tenderness; KMG’s bold, beautifully pared-down characters at the airport transformed non-descript buildings into visual clarions; Mahn Kloix introduced another of his ‘contre-feux’ figures that seek to give a voice to whistle-blowers, refugees, activists and the like; Millo (Francesco Camillo Giorgino) combined breath-taking detail, urban energy and subtle allusions to myriad hidden stories; Neil “Shoe” Meulman brought his distinctive ‘calligraffiti’ to the festival; Wasted Rita’s faux street signage seeded the city with poetic, wistfully critical comments and artist and muralist Molly Hankinson had the singular honour of marshalling Aberdonian ‘kids’ (aged 9 to 99) in making the mother of all chalk floor drawings.

Such are the new visual delights and provocations added to the ever-changing Nuart trail of public works. Weekly tours of the art continue throughout the summer months but as the curtains came down on Nuart Festival’s core weekend of films, lectures, presentations and panel discussions, it seemed a good idea to catch up with Nuart Festival founder and director Martyn Reed and Nuart Plus co-convenor and Nuart Journal editor Susan Hansen.

The post Nuart Aberdeen 2024 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Its distance covered grows for a few weeks every year or so, depending on whether or not a team bearing Three Lions upon chests is participating in the latest major football tournament. This summer, as Gareth Southgate leads another squad of players to another major finals at Euro 2024, you can safely predict an increase in expected flags – and not just because patriotism-slash-nationalism tends to get turned up a notch.

Sheffield-born artist Corbin Shaw has been using England flags as his canvas for a while now, and with the help of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Your Space Or Mine project and their billboards, his take on St George’s Cross will adorn city streets up and down the nation.

Its use is not about reclaiming the flag, but rather using it as a “Trojan Horse” to deliver messages about national identity and masculinity. “It’s quite abrasive,” he says, chatting to us during a trip to Marseilles – a city that felt the sharp end of this cross during the World Cup in 1998. “It’s got a lot of history in colonialism and right-wing nationalism and I wanted to use it, overt that and juxtapose it.”

The post GOD SAVE THE TEAM: Artist Corbin Shaw takes on Euro 2024 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

This partnership amplifies the inclusivity of the festival: by extending these projects from the gallery spaces into the streets, the art comes to the audience, rather than the other way round. Part of marginalisation is the way some groups have to work harder to reach culture, so part of successful inclusive practice is to lessen this extra labour. Delaine Le Bas’ Declaration of human rights extends her wider exhibition Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding, at Tramway, Glasgow. The artist presents a sickened Mickey Mouse alongside all 30 human rights in the UDHR, which the 2005 Conservative government wanted to take away from Romani people. Delaine wants her mixed-media approach to create ‘conversation[s] with as many people as possible’. The reiteration of this textile piece into poster form reaches across Glasgow, bringing a wider range of people into these conversations about Romani histories. The poster form, combining text and image, popular culture and law, also makes Delaine’s complex research and extensive exhibition punchy and instantly impactful: they stand alone as complete work, as a slice of the Tramway exhibition dropped into 8 sites across Glasgow.

The post When the Art Comes to the Audience – Extending the Gallery into Public Spaces first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Across the following four years anam and its network have grown, developing opportunities and projects for emerging musicians and artists – including collaborations inspired by the Scottish environment, multi-artform events presenting music, dance performances and live interactive visuals and limited-edition artist commissions for their online shop.

As striking imagery from their previous projects rolled out across our Glasgow sites, we caught up with directors Michiel Turner, Ben Deans and Brèagha Charlton to find out more about anam creative, their championing of emerging Glasgow-based artists and their advice for early-career creatives looking to explore ideas.

The post Creative collaborations where traditional meets contemporary first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The programme is split into four ‘Design Districts’ of Graphic, Digital, Product and Illustration; with an impressive roster of speakers including Jessica Hische, Annie Atkins, Louis Henry Mitchell (Sesame Workshop), PES, Aurelia Durand, Pav Grochola (Sony Pictures Imageworks) and Sue Murphy (Coca-Cola). From industry icons to emerging voices, BDF highlights the diverse array of talents and topics shaping the design landscape.

At JACK ARTS, creativity drives our every move, making our partnership with the festival all the more relevant: ‘We love working with Jack Arts – they’re true supporters of grassroots creativity and understand the importance of speaking to an audience in an engaging way. We’re stoked to have them back on board as a Main Partner this year, and love seeing our BDF branding come to life on the streets of Birmingham (& beyond) thanks to their analogue expertise.’ – Luke Tonge, BDF Director

PROCESS: a series of actions or steps taken to achieve a particular end.

The festival’s theme brings our own practises to the forefront, JACK ARTS’s process is engaged in design from the very start. From initial concept discussions with culture clients to brainstorming solutions with our Creative Studio, our team bring design-led ideas to life through paper and paste, captivating billboards, installations, and festival experiences.

We were onsite at Birmingham Design Festival with our Jack Arts our branded coffee cart enjoying the process!

The post PROCESS: Birmingham Design Festival 2024 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As part of our latest Your Space Or Mine project, we appointed performance and walking artist Alisa Oleva as Artist in Residence, commissioned to work from BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s creative space, The CarWash, in Shoreditch.

“Each month I will host a walk which will start at The CarWash venue and then venture into the surrounding neighbourhood. Every walk will have a different theme, exploring the everyday, sensorial ways of engaging with the city, sounds, textures, memories and histories, emotional map-making, and the politics of public space” – Alisa Oleva.

Where does the city take you? Where do you turn next? Who walks these streets? What’s the sound of your own footsteps? Who owns the city? What’s here, and what do we wish was still here? Where do you find yourself now? These are the questions that Alisa explored on her experimental urban walks.

Over the past 12 months, Alisa’s walks have offered an act of collective close looking and reimagining – opening up spaces we don’t usually notice to make visible different ways of being in, and thinking about, the city.

To celebrate the end of our WALK series, we hosted a final Gathering event on the 20th July, which was an opportunity for past participants and for those who are curious to come together to celebrate over walking, sharing food, map making and conversations. The BUILDHOLLYWOOD CarWash has been the starting and finishing point of each event and we were excited to host the final Gathering at this space once again. 

The post WALK – monthly urban art walks with Alisa Oleva first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post ‘Den Den the Mushi’ finds its home at BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s sculpture garden first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

With Arthur the dog sitting just out of shot beside her, Katharine Hamnett appears as if out of nowhere on the screen, captured in a bright room with a lit cigarette in one hand, periodically shifting in position to accommodate the sleeping hound to her left. “He has a dog pass, you see”, she shares, “so he can come everywhere with me, even to the Tate”. This kind of loyal company feels reminiscent of Katharine’s unwavering commitment to justice, her dogged determination for seeing things through properly, and her persistent hounding of political heavyweights to listen to the people, and to act accordingly. 

It’s clear to all that Katharine Hamnett has a remarkable number of accolades to her name; from winning the first ever British Fashion Awards to renouncing her CBE on account of the Palestine crisis, her accomplishments appear to align wholeheartedly with her strong moral compass. A recent post on her instagram shows Katharine dressed in a black T-shirt with the words “DISGUSTED TO BE BRITISH” proudly emblazoned on the front, capturing her speaking a few words to camera before swiftly binning her CBE. “I’m not the only one disgusted to be British, apparently”, she comments when we discuss it in our interview. “We sold a tonne of those T-shirts”. 

The post From billboard to ballot: Fashion’s first whistleblower is asking you to vote first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

On the edge of Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter, once an affluent neighbourhood of grand townhouses and gardens inhabited by the city’s prosperous Victorian merchants and traders, lies Concert Square – now a hedonistic playground of bars, djs, live music, karaoke, students, football fans, stags and hens… everything can be found here, and anything goes. The drinking, the dancing, and the dressing up. Some make it a weekly affair, some avoid it completely, some simply pass through on their way home; running a gauntlet of debauched revellers passing from bar to club to chippy and back again.  

There to capture scenes from this Scouse ‘bacchanalia’ is John Johnson, who has been photographing countless lost nights in Concert Square and its surrounding streets for over a decade. 

The post ‘In Concert’: capturing a decade of lost nights in Liverpool with photographer John Johnson first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Known as Bobby and Bobbie respectively, Bob Vylan are a duo renowned for their brazen lyrics and commitment to music with meaning, building an identity reminiscent of a genre yet created or credited for its hold on the ears of the masses. BUILDHOLLYWOOD spoke with guitarist and singer Bobby to learn more about the politics of being political, their 2022 MOBO Award win, and the magic of their upcoming album, Humble As The Sun.

Bob Vylan’s sound is uniquely compelling, aligning the rage of punk with the poetry of grime to generate music fuelled by both the weight of lived experience and the hook of driving guitar riffs. There’s a measure to their lyrics; an outpouring of discourse tempered by what can only be described as a pretty reasonable assessment of the political situation we find ourselves in. “It’s confrontational”, Bobby shares in our conversation, a word that captures the vim and vigour found in tracks like “I Heard You Want Your Country Back” and “England’s Ending”, and yet Bobby is anything but confrontational, instead, he’s an artist generous with his thoughts and musings; be it on fatherhood, the state of foreign policy, or the blissful warmth of the sun.

The post Bob Vylan shed new light on the politics of punk and grime first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Transforming our venue spaces at 1 Quaker Street, Shoreditch, Pirate championed their mantra of ‘showcasing the sound of tomorrow,’ by inviting guest DJs, plus residents and headliners for a one-off event that was free to those who registered.

Over the course of three days, The Sandbox hosted over 100 DJs to the event, each playing a 15-minute slot in the custom booth, covered by multi-angle cameras to capture promotional content for the participating artists. Emerging DJs from Pirate’s burgeoning music community were encouraged to apply for a slot – shining a light on the brand’s grassroots ethos. Headliners included frontrunners from the underground electronic scene, including re:ni, Scratchclart and Angel D’Lite, who offered up extended sets.  

Friday saw The CarWash transformed into an intimate gig venue, as Harleighblu, Good Health Good Wealth, Shaun Sky, BINA and, winner of the BBC’s UK Rap Game, LR Loose performed to a receptive east London crowd who were treated to more-than-music, with access to a bar and bespoke merchandise from the event.

Taking the Pirate experience outside of studio walls, the activation was completed by colouring the surrounding streets red and white with a bespoke postering campaign – driving client brand awareness in this key creative hub of the capital.

The post Pirate: Tomorrow’s Sound Here Today first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The concept behind Secret 7” is simple. 7 musicians provide a track, each of which features on a limited edition pressing of 100 7” vinyl records. Meanwhile, visual artists from all over the globe, from household names to rising stars, contribute unique sleeve designs. The record sleeves also will be shown in a free exhibition at NOW Gallery in London. The artists’ identities? That’s the secret – at least until the record is in the hands of the buyer. 

To support the auction, we’ve launched a billboard campaign across the streets of London and Brighton, spreading awareness of this unique and beloved initiative, which helps to support War Child’s goal of ensuring a safe future for every child affected by war.   

The post War Child: Secret 7″ Returns first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Beginning in the 1980s, its founding members, who go by the aliases Frida Kahlo and Käthe Kollwitz after the great women artists, have produced spectacular posters that confront the shortcomings of some of the biggest museums in the world. In 1989, their screenprint of Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get Into the Met. Museum?, which featured a painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique modified with a gorilla mask, stated with staggering clarity the state of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s modern art collection, where ‘less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female’. Other posters recounted, with the Guerrilla Girls’ trademark satirical bite, the abysmal collections of commercial galleries in New York that primarily represented white male artists.

Their influence on the contemporary art world is immeasurable, and many art enthusiasts go so far as to call them ‘art world royalty’. A term that is perhaps too antiquated for the Guerrilla Girls’ taste, whose goal has always been to democratise art, away from billionaires and museums who concertise ideas of taste and quality based on their private collections. Their anonymity, which began as a safety measure to protect their members from the vitriol of the art world, is now their superpower, shares Frida. “I think our anonymity intrigues people and draws them in. As we are artists, the masks also ensure that our message and politics aren’t obscured by what people think of our personalities and our art.”

The post The Guerrilla Girls feminist call to action is coming to a billboard near you first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A conversation with Becky Tong, the maestro behind foundation.fm Records, and Alice Vyvyan-Jones, the orchestrator of the airwaves as Station Manager, opens up the vibrant composition that is foundation.fm. Born out of necessity, this radio station is not merely a broadcaster but a built-up platform for underrepresented, non-binary, queer, and female talent in music.

Rooted in Peckham and now flourishing in the revered Young Space in Haggerston, f.fm has become a testament to the power of community – the real kind, not the buzzword. The sense of belonging is encapsulated in the unofficial motto, “When people leave foundation.fm, they never truly leave.”

The post foundation.fm cuts through the noise with its debut compilation, ‘Bodies’ first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

With a bunch of yellow daffodils sat obliquely in the corner of the screen, Dagmar Bennett’s Welsh identity extends well beyond her gentle accent and clear pride in her ancestry – she is at once an emblem of her country and a strident observer, having carefully documented her family in a recent BBC documentary aptly titled Village Style. Hailing from the very same rural village in south west Wales, Dagmar advocates for creativity borne from the Celtic nations; “an identity”, she says, “that sits a little different to a British or English identity”, as a country with its own native language, rich history, and vibrant future.

Having studied a technical arts degree funded by Madame Tussauds at UAL, Dagmar began her film career by exploring figurative sculpture and life drawing with clay, creating a physical legacy for artists and activists challenging narratives and stigmas in human difference. Dagmar’s early sculpture work led her to Adam Pearson, an actor, presenter, and campaigner with a keen interest in how we can tackle disability hate crime as someone with Neurofibromatosis Type 1, a genetic condition that causes excess body tissue to grow predominately on his face. Adam and Dagmar struck up a fond friendship, and went on to collaborate on a sculpture of Adam’s face that uses art as a medium of capturing his identity beyond disfigurement.

The post Meet Uncle Keith: Where village glamour finds city streets first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The first piece of work, created by a group known as Hiber Nature (Sihan Cai, Noam Dee, Elena Inoue, Ametx Meneses Gonzalez), pulled together photos of green spaces–scans of hands grasping ivy, a bare tree alone in the woods–along with nature-themed poetry. Designed as a way of bringing light into the dark days, the project is a powerful reminder that there is green to be found, even in East London. The poem centres on the idea that, even as the leaves disappear, green ivy remains.

Sitting alongside it is a project by Butt Srsly (April Paice, Finley Gilzene, Alfie Barnes, Jenna Rubenstein, Millie Ghey), a group that formed at LCC and now wants to proceed as a serious collective. “This was the first time we worked in a group setting creating something together, which was the coolest part of this process,” they tell us. Like Hiber Nature, Butt Srsly’s work is more than photography, combining disciplines to convey their messaging. While photography is central to their project, they are also influenced by textiles, fashion, metalwork, and other elements. For this piece, they created a wearable sculpture of balloons, making the body look hypnotic and grotesque. “We had Fin photographed wearing the sculpture, but the images itself were its own separate thing alongside the performance element. We combined elements together that created a whole piece,” they tell us.

The post London College of Communication students take their photography to the streets first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

This is the 2024 BUILDHOLLYWOOD film – soundtracked by Machine Woman’s A Grove Box Inside a Black Box – that gives a flavour of our multiple engagement with cities: the delights, craft, creativity, energy, and quirky sights – like turning a corner to see your fave musician pasting up one of their own posters – along with the attachments, fascination, spirit, and vibrancy that make our cities worth living in. Watch our annual film above to join in on the fun.

The post The BUILDHOLLYWOOD 2024 annual film has landed first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Philip had been working with Kate Taylor on a temp job with the British Council, so they decided to start the festival together. They put on a four day festival, utilising his burgeoning connections with filmmakers and accepting submissions via VHS. They put on bands and other events alongside the screenings, and after a few years, it was enough of a success to change their name to London Film Festival and expand to venues like the Soho Curzon cinema. Now in its 21st year, the festival is Philip’s full-time job.

The post The curators of London Short Film Festival talk us through its 21st year first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

From giving instant support on the ground to providing long-term educational programmes, their work and its impact can be seen and felt in the likes of Gaza, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Bosnia, and anywhere in the world where conflict breaks out. Free from states and governments, they are driven by a single goal – a safe future for every child living through war.

Those familiar with their work, or perhaps their name at least, might not recall where they heard first the name ‘War Child.’ For the Head of War Child Records Rich Clarke, it was as a teenager, listening to his beloved Radiohead – one of many household names to donate music and more to the War Child cause via the historic compilation album Help.

‘Music has always been ingrained in the DNA of the organisation,’ says Rich, whose job description sits on the unique cross-section of the music industry and humanitariansim. From the big stage of Royal Albert Hall to the use of music as psycho-social support for children dealing with trauma, the remit of War Child and it’s record label is almost as big as its impact.

A collaboration with BUILDHOLLYWOOD will see War Child continue to effectively spread their important message across posters and billboards across the country – a message that has always been shared by whatever means necessary.

The post The humanitarian legacy of War Child Records is still being written first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We’re always keen to showcase artists’ voices and spread important messages, so we were excited to get the chance to collaborate with Tate Britain on a mural to celebrate their new exhibition. The exhibition, Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990, will be on display from November 2023 until April 2024. Featuring over 100 women artists, the exhibition is the first of its kind, bringing together a wide variety of mediums including painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, film and photography. 

According to Tate, the exhibition “explores and reflects on issues and events such as: the British Women’s Liberation movement, the fight for legal changes impacting women, maternal and domestic experiences, Punk and independent music, Greenham Common and the peace movement, the visibility of Black and South Asian Women Artists, Section 28 and the AIDs pandemic.” There is a diverse range of artists featured, many of whom have been left out of the traditional art world and have never been shown in this setting before. 

To celebrate this landmark exhibition, we partnered with Tate on a public mural in the heart of Camden. We sourced the space and commissioned the artists including Hannah Dickins, also known as Disco Dickins, to design the Camden mural, working with five emerging London-based artists to develop a collection of protest placards painted under the arches. The works, by Anka Dabrowska, Alice Hartley, Esme Lower, Zhou Ning and Olivia Twist join protest slogans supporting women’s rights taken from archival material in the exhibition. Responding to themes like protest, power, LGBTQ+ activism and women’s rights, the mural is a powerful distillation of the exhibition.

The post In the Camden arches, Tate Britain’s Women in Revolt! comes to life first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In an interview for Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour Tish Murtha’s daughter Ella explained her mother’s first camera – found dumped and broken – was a weapon. A way of deterring creepy posh, middleclass kerb crawlers from stalking the girls and women of Elswick.

Catching up with Paul Sng director of ‘Tish’, a documentary about Murtha’s marvellously evocative, socially enmeshed and engaged work, he used the same word, “Her camera was a weapon, she used it to combat what she saw as the effects of Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberalism, government policies that left a generation behind and that continue to have an impact on subsequent generations.”

Sng became aware of Murtha’s black and white photography around 2013, “One of the first images that really captivated me was a picture of Tish’s brother Glenn jumping from the first floor of a derelict house onto a pile of mattresses. I remember doing that in my childhood in the 80s in southeast London. It’s just a great photograph. Everybody at the scene is looking at Glenn captured mid-air, and you’ve got one of Tish’s other brothers, Mark, who’s holding this dummy, and everyone, including Mark, is looking at Glenn except the dummy, who’s looking at Tish. I don’t know whether this was deliberate or not but it’s just amazing.”

The post Tish Murtha, an impassioned photographer unable to escape the poverty she exposed first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

2023 marks the third edition of The Photographers’ Gallery New Talent (TNT) programme, where six photographers are awarded with an online exhibition platform for their project, a mentor each and a grant to support their artistic pursuits. JACK ARTS have partnered with TPG to provide further support and exposure for these artists by displaying work from their projects on a series of billboards across London.

This year’s winners are Igor Chekachkov, Weiyi (Margaret) Liang, Cynthia MaiWa Sitei, Cian Oba-Smith, Robbie Spotswood and Ruudu Ulas. Following an open call, they were chosen by artist Hoda Afshar and Karen McQuaid, senior curator of The Photographers’ Gallery.

What unites their work is subject conviction; sharing a strong visual language, coherent concepts and powerful themes. The notion of identity and experience – whether it be the individual’s own, reflecting on the identities of others, or a shared identity – is showcased brilliantly throughout the projects.

The post Celebrating the 6 winners of The Photographers’ Gallery’s New Talent awards first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“I texted a mate when I saw them and said – and this sounds ridiculous – it feels like being a pop star. Something you’ve done has been plastered all over the walls. I never thought I’d experience that,” says Turner, who has worked for the band as a writer and press officer on and off for the last 30 years. “I’m always one step removed. I see posters for bands I work with. I see a Chemical Brother’s poster and I feel proud because I’m part of it, but the book – it’s weird. It’s a very warm feeling.”

Paused in Cosmic Reflection positions the band as the centre of a hyper-visual world. Turner went into the Chemical Brothers’ archive in their south coast studio to select iconic images, flyers and posters, and there’s a bespoke cover designed by their long-term artist Kate Gibb. Design duties went to filmmaker and visual artist Paul Kelly (Finisterre and This Is Tomorrow). It had been out for less than a fortnight when Rough Trade Books named it #3 in their top books of the year after Jeremy Deller’s Art Is Magic and Thurston Moore’s Sonic Life memoir.

The post The Chemical Brothers are reflecting on their histories, cosmically first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s an invitation to find out more about a new community-generated cultural space. And beneath the artwork is a powerful story of making space and dreaming big, which led earlier this year to not-for-profit co-operative Sister Midnight acquiring a ten-year rent-free lease on The Brookdale Club, a disused Working Mens Club in Catford, in the London borough of Lewisham. It will be the first community-owned music venue in the area and it is led by three women under 30 years old: co-founders Lenny Watson and Sophie Farrell, and musician Lottie Pendlebury of Goat Girl.

The plan is to turn the currently derelict building and private yard into a 300-capacity venue, a community lab, a bar, workspace and kitchen with upstairs studios. Whilst all of the above is dependent on planning permission, one aspect is already in the world – Sister Midnight FM broadcasting under the tagline ‘from Catford to the world’.

The post Sister Midnight are making space in South East London first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s a difficult time to be a recent graduate, particularly in the fashion industry. Along with all of the other financial and social challenges, students have had to deal with the effects of the pandemic on their studies. Many lost a full year of socialising and face-to-face education, and are having to find innovative ways to make up for lost time. Even without that extra hurdle, finding support and work opportunities in an industry so often reliant on contacts and clout can be tough for artists and designers. Curtain Road Collective is one group’s answer to those problems. Formed of nine recent graduates who met on their fashion course, Curtain Road Collective gives those emerging designers room to play without the structures of a traditional fashion house.

The designers all have different skills that they bring to the collective, and the way it works allows them all to have different jobs and come and go as they please. It offers a way for them to get support from one another while still being able to work independently. In their final year, when they had to present their collections, they knew that they wanted to do something unusual that reflected their avant garde pieces. BUILDHOLLYWOOD wanted to help, so they stepped in to offer their brand new event space,The CarWash in Shoreditch, giving Curtain Road Collective full access to the space, letting them exercise their creativity and showcase their unique, imperfect pieces. As part of this exciting partnership, BUILDHOLLYWOOD also provided posters that wrapped around the space to promote the show.

We chatted to Benjamin Ingham, Rosie Chesters, and Mariam Parra of Curtain Road Collective about their history, the show, and what’s next for such a talented group of young designers at the start of their careers.

The post Curtain Road Collective: the next generation of fashion designers first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s been a busy few years for the artist and director. As well as performances at dance mecca Sadler’s Wells and London’s experimental hub Cafe OTO, Magnus has scored the soundtrack for Paolo Carzana’s runway at London Fashion Week and performed for Louis Vuitton.

Right now, Magnus Westwell is inside, awaiting the start of the performance. Their Company, Bright Storm Group, is made up of trained and untrained dancers and tonight they’ll premier this 20-minute piece which takes clubs and raves as its inspiration. It twists, deconstructs and amplifies the kind of moves you might see under dancefloor strobe lights into something wholly new.

“It feels powerful, in the individual rhythms of each person’s performance,” says Westwell. “It’s very musical and rhythmical. Repetition, loops, and what that can do. It feels like a deconstruction of music and dance. The artists never really face the audience.”

The post Artist and choreographer Magnus Westwell lights up the CarWash first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Mollie Balshaw and Rebekah Beasley established Short Supply shortly after graduating in 2019, aiming to support artists who feel a lack of support and community after leaving art school. Since then, the organisation has gone from strength to strength, collaborating with Islington Mill, SOUP, Manchester Pride, Manchester Art Gallery, the Institute of International Visual Arts and the Whitworth Gallery among others, all while battling a global pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis, and the ongoing precarity around arts funding in the UK.

The post Creativity, collaboration and a celebration of emerging art: MADE IT lands in Liverpool first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The Royal Academy of Artists is undoubtedly at the heart of the arts and culture scene within London and further afield. For over 250 years, they’ve been championing artists of all ages and nurturing a platform for the next generation of talent to grow from. The Young Artists’ Summer Show, having just turned five, is an open submission exhibition or UK students from 4-19.  

The post Royal Academy Young Artists’ Summer Show first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

JACK ARTS Scotland teamed up with some of Edinburgh’s leading festivals to create Festival City Stories, a series of posters platforming stories from their year-round work with local communities, designed by emerging illustrators from Edinburgh College of Art.

Our accompanying film, ‘Backdrop to the Festival City,’ captures Edinburgh’s ever vibrant streets, following a day to night in August – filmed and edited by Tao-Anas Le Thanh accompanied by Edinburgh Makar Hannah Lavery’s poem ‘Dawn Chorus’ , with a soundtrack by Sarya Wu.

The post Illustrating Edinburgh with Festival City Stories first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Heart of Glass, the Merseyside based community arts organisation put socially engaged practice at the forefront of their many and varied commissions. Whilst the charity works to promote their – “participatory, interactive and collaborative by its very nature and informed by accessibility, inclusion, diversity and difference” – activities nationally, internationally and online, the Strong Women programme brings them back to a place that’s part of their origin story, namely St. Helens. 

Running from March 1st 2023 to Dec. 31st 2025 Strong Women launches in Parr, to the East of St. Helens. After initial research trips in 2022, 2023 saw months of consultations and workshops with residents’ groups – including Parr Children’s Centre, The Connie Club, St. Mary’s Care Home and local Holy Spirit Catholic Primary school – whereby artist, activist and mosaic craftivist Carrie Reichardt navigated the wariness towards public art with aplomb. When we met at the unveiling, she recalled an early confab with a Parr local, “So what do you think the work should be? What do you want to say on this wall?” asked Reichardt. Quick came the reply, “’You Can Kiss My Fat Arse’, that’s what it should say.”  

The post Carrie Reichardt – Strong Women – parr, St. Helens first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Through the sheer amount of ways to interact with Blind at The Age of Four – the album, the paintings, the performances, the exhibition, the billboards – you can learn a lot about the beauty of life’s abstraction, the importance of making art and culture accessible, the artist in question’s childhood and, maybe even your own experiences. 

Growing up in an area of Cambridgeshire he describes as ‘the middle of nowhere,’ Jack Warne’s childhood is timestamped by spells of blindness. Caused by a rare, hereditary disease called Thiel–Behnke dystrophy, his experience of the condition, and the way he interprets the world as a result of it, is as integral to the all-encompassing project as the name would suggest. 

Blind at The Age of Four is the debut album from the producer and fine artist, but it’s more so a world that he’s been building since he moved to London. GAUNT not only creates crunchy, electronic textures in music, he also puts them into a painted, full collection of warping, physical and digital art that will be exhibited at 39 Gransden Avenue in Hackney throughout September and October.

Header video by Jack Warne

The post How going ‘Blind at The Age of Four’ inspired musician and fine artist GAUNT’s debut album and exhibition. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“We’ve been at We Out Here since the start and what really stands out is the community feel and the family values says Don’t Be A Creep (DBAC) co-conspirator Maude Churchill. “We used that as a way of diving into the issues.” 

The issues are ones that relate to safer spaces – concepts which were front and centre of this year’s festival season and which are flowing into club culture more generally as the nights draw in and evenings out becomes more venue-centred.  

“It’s house rules!” says DJ, art director and DBAC founder Ruby Savage. “Like at home when there was a pen and pad in the kitchen with your mum’s notes on it – do this, do that, do the dishes by the time I’m home. It’s that idea. We run a household together, we run this space together, we’re a family.”

Header photo by Hannah Burton

The post The artists and DJs de-creeping festivals first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In the early 1990s Slowdive reigned supreme. Their sonic trademark of glow-drenched, reverb-soaked guitars created huge emotional worlds, inhabited by fans worldwide. The five-piece split in 1995 after three critically-acclaimed albums on the iconic Creation Records – and reformed in 2017 with the epic Slowdive.

Their fifth album, everything is alive, began with vocalist and guitarist Neil Halstead playing around with modular synths in his Cornish home. “That was the direction he started in,” says bassist Nick Chaplin, “but unfortunately for him, when everyone else gets in the room it all tends to go back to the more regular Slowdive Sounds. There’s a bit of an influence of both. I think it’s turned out pretty well.”

It’s an understated perspective on the big sounds that Slowdive deal in. It’s evocative music, full of late night tenderness and strung-out early morning atmospherics. The sound, says Chaplin, goes right back to their earliest recordings. “Back in 1989 we were influenced by people like The Primitives and Jesus and the Mary Chain: short pop songs and noisy guitars. Rachel and I were goths when we were teenagers, so we had that atmospheric side to the music we liked to listen to. When we came up with ‘Avalyn’ – the almost instrumental track on the first EP – we all looked at each other in the studio and said ‘OK, this is not The Primitives anymore’.”

The post Going DIY Deep with Slowdive first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The theme of artist and furniture designer Rio Kobayashi’s upcoming show is Conviviality: ‘the art of living together’. While it’s his first “solo” show, it’s actually a big, unique collaboration with some of his closest friends and greatest inspirations – among them, Flavia Brändle, Peter Pilotto, Walde Seife, James Hague, Keita Takemura, Åbäke and more. The show will be part of this year’s Brompton Design District at Cromwell Place, and Kobayashi will be showing some of his fun designs, including new work. He’s known for pieces that play with the possibilities and boundaries of furniture – a table shaped like a fish, shelving with a face, and Japanese-inspired screens among them.

The post Rio Kobayashi’s first solo show explores the ‘art of living together’ first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid CBE has been inspiring conversations around the country with her touring Arts Council Collections exhibition centred around women’s experiences of the urban environment. JACK ARTS worked with the organisation and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery to translate the exhibition’s message onto the street while it was showing in the city by showcasing a trio of artworks Himid selected from an open call; they teamed up with the Arts Council Collection again for a new phase of the project as Found Cities, Lost Objects opened at Bristol’s Royal West of England Academy.

The post After celebrating the exhibition in Birmingham, JACK ARTS supports Lubaina Himid’s Found Cities, Lost Objects for Arts Council Collections on the street in Bristol first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Inspired by the work ethic of his grandfather, the wit of his mother and, above all, the migrant experience of growing up in the United Kingdom, the project harnesses South Asian drums, Dancehall rhythms and a collaborative spirit that can be found in Balraj Samrai’s work across all of the above.

Thanks to our Your Space Or Mine series, the name of the project will be up on billboards all over the city that was so important to its creation.

The post Samrai drops debut album Work & Roti inspired by his heritage first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The illustrated introductory talk about ways to approach the design brief touched on all the obvious advantages of a poster campaign: in general, its potential for immediacy and relative ease of production. In terms of visual features that help a poster ‘pop’ there were, of course, considerations as to bold, surprising imagery and lettering; inventive and meaningful juxtapositions; mimicry and/or subversion of classic ad. campaigns or extant street signage; experimenting with scale; breaking expected design conventions – sometimes doing the opposite of ‘good’ design can produce a really great design. Also there were discussions regarding the attitude or spirit of a cut-through street poster. Thinking about what ‘tone’ is best to address passers-by, whether that be through shock, humour, inducements to feel compassion, empathy, concern… Participating students keenly addressed all the above and much more.

The post Sheffield Hallam BA (Hons) Illustration students share vibrant, heartfelt work across the city first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s no secret that Saffron’s work is needed. With ‘less than 5% of the music tech industry… comprised of women, non-binary or trans people’, and as ‘less than 1% of these are people of colour’, the organisation has been on a mission to ‘change those stats through meaningful, long-term, and far-reaching projects’.

Both in-person and online, Saffron’s courses, workshops, and mentorships have seen over one thousand participants get involved and are consistently oversubscribed. One of their most popular offerings is Mix Nights, a DJing course which has enabled 41% of graduates to go onto paid gig bookings; 34% of their radio course graduates have secured their own residencies. Saffron has created safe spaces in the hope of nurturing underrepresented talent in the industry – by giving people the essential room to learn and build confidence.

The post Affecting industry change, Saffron makes the case for equality in music first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Introducing London’s smallest sculpture garden (…we think): Dancing in the Shadow of Henry first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“We’ve always said that we just want to help bring new momentum to the Edinburgh creatives. All we’re trying to do is make some fun things happen and bring in the local community with different artists to have a good time. That’s what life’s all about really”, he explains. Collaboration and support is at the heart of this creative network. “When I introduce people to The Edinburgh Collective, I just say ‘Yo, The Edinburgh Collective, all we do is just make cool shit happen.’ And very often, that gets the message across quite quickly.” 

For the partnership the collective have made their mark on a mural in the poster space led by their Art Director, Lauren Browne, presenting what they do best – creative collaboration. The mural will promote their summer Garden Party at the Pavillion Cafe, involving an artists’ market and live music. Over the course of the week, five local artists will each work on a panel on the mural, showcasing not only their annual Garden Party event, but exactly what the network is about. “It’s definitely something that Fraser has taken the lead in here. But I think setting new standards on all fronts of professionalism is important. Asking ourselves how can we help artists as an organisation and encouraging them to do what they love, providing them with opportunities to be the best artists they could possibly be.”

The post Through collaboration and conversation, The Edinburgh Collective have built a network for the capital’s creative community to thrive first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

He started training in Bristol and then when the pandemic hit decided to bring ballroom to Wales. He and co-director Tayo Sanwo have built a thriving collective with support from The Impeccable Haus of Tisci, who have appeared on HBO’s Legendary TV show. “It’s amazing how something can be birthed during such a crazy time,” he says as we celebrate WBC as part of Pride Month. “Now we’re really thriving. There’s a beautiful Welsh scene and we’re doing so much already.”

The post Walking the walk: the Welsh Ballroom Community first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As we’re partnering with Art Night to support them on the streets of Scotland (alongside Dundee’s Street Advertising Services), we chatted to Artistic Director Helen Nisbet about the changes this has brought about for the festival, and teamed up with the curatorial team – Elizabeth Ann Day, Becca Clark and Jamie Donald – for a shoot in the city.  

Since starting in 2016, Art Night helped to develop arts engagement in the English capital with new commissions and works being shown in unusual, unexpected, and carefully curated locations with major cultural partners. From Westminster, Whitechapel Gallery and Walthamstow to the South Bank and Battersea Power Station, 2021’s mid-pandemic iteration of the festival saw them take first steps outside of the city, to UK-wide locations like Eastbourne, Birmingham, Cardiff, Skye, Derry, ‘and crucially… Dundee’ (including a partnership with BUILDHOLLYWOOD that manifested Guerrilla Girls’ The Male Graze as a national series of billboards).  

Now in its sixth year, 2023 will see the festival breaking new ground with its first programme to be held completely outside of London. Travelling to eastern Scotland, Dundee will host Art Night when it occupies the city on the 24th June 2023. With ten commissions by local and internationally celebrated artists occupying both civic and public spaces in the city, the festival will run alongside Inwith – showcasing a cross-section of Dundee’s impressive and varied arts and community programming. Now, Art Night ‘champions the possibilities of decentralisation.’  

With this year’s festival including work by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Emma Hart, Inefficient Solutions, our own previous collaborator Nabihah Iqbal, Tai Shani, Saoirse Amira Anis, Richy Carey, Lucy Mckenzie, Heather Phillipson, and Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon, they will occupy locations like the Arthurstone Community Library, Greenmarket Car Park, V&A Dundee, RRS Discovery, Baxter Park Pavilion and more. With a curatorial effort like this, Art Night enables people to interact, explore, and engage with their city in a way they normally wouldn’t. Buildings take on new purposes, locations earn new utilisations, and the area feels cast anew.  

To find out more about the developments for the festival and the promise this brings for its future, we spoke to Artistic Director Helen Nisbet ahead of 2023’s edition. 

The post Art Night heads north to Dundee for its debut edition outside of the UK capital first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Since 2016, Spencer has used Twitter as a platform to share surreal, witty, brilliantly inventive visual reactions to the absurdities of modern life and lambast the rich, powerful egomaniacs who create and/or manipulate mayhem, perpetuating misery to their advantage. In short, the artist’s hugely popular practice affords both searing critique and gratifying consolation.    

The post Cold War Steve at the Car Wash first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As one of the music industry’s calendar highlights, each year brings a raucous programme of fresh talent to The Great Escape in Brighton – something certainly worth celebrating. The festival has become the go-to for fans and industry wanting to spot the next big thing, with the variety of intimate, independent, and just plain fun venues in the city providing the perfect setting to catch artists in before they really hit the big time. 

The post The Great Escape: fresh talent served up by the seaside first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Effie Ioannou has travelled across the world and lived in various places, but none have felt more like home than Scotland. The fashion and wedding photographer grew up in Cyprus, ultimately moving to Edinburgh to study and hasn’t left since. Recently engaged to a Scottish man, Ioannou tells me it’s not the only reason she’s lived here for more than 11 years, “I’ve always felt welcome. As much as I complain about the weather, I do love it.” Ioannou’s work celebrates the city she calls home through a cinematic lens, heightening the human senses and bringing fantasy to the everyday. 

Now part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Your Space Or Mine series, Ioannou’s work will be featured across Edinburgh’s historical streets such as Leith Walk. The images will strut along with the people and visitors of Edinburgh – inviting them to step into the world of Effie Ioannou. Although she has been working in this field for only a short time, the photographer has already seen her work published in Vogue Greece but what’s next? The cover. Whether gathering a group of horses, sourcing a retro ball pit or using the local Wetherspoons, Ioannou’s visions often stem from the locations. “…I just scout for fun places and then I say to myself, ‘Okay what would be the most absurd thing to do here?’” 

Although the photographer has no professional training, it’s clear Ioannou has the dedication to learn the craft or rather, learn her own craft. She is self-deprecating and humble, but her work treads across new ground lead by a clear vision. “I just dove right into it and that’s just what came out of it. It was a lot of work when I first started – I was literally just working, every waking moment on it, but it was because I was having fun.” Fun is a word Ioannou carries through her creative language. We catch glimpses of this in her free-hand brushes of colour and mysterious narratives. 

And what should people take away from these Hollywood scenes? “I would like to think that these photographs are for everyone who would like to do photography, and I feel I’m a good proof of that because I haven’t done it for a long time.” Communication is how Ioannou explains we grow and learn from one another, and that’s what these photographs display – the journey behind creating something and the importance of trying. The billboards will feature epic scenes from Ioannou’s mind that live beyond realism, evoking a fun narrative. Below we speak to Effie Ioannou about the importance of collaboration, community, and having the confidence to step outside creative barriers – because that’s where the magic happens.

The post Finding the magic: Effie Ioannou brings cinematic visions to the streets of Edinburgh through her own lens first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The building has an eccentric and colourful history that matches the new musical histories being generated seven days a week since it opened in January 2011. Tucked underneath Brighton train station, it was previously used as a horse hospital and formed part of the taxi rank when such transport took place in horse and carriage. “I think it’s GDS’s eccentric history that gives it such a unique vibe and feel,” says Megan Thompson, programming and productions manager at Green Door Store. “It’s whole sort of secret, hidden away under the railway station vibe.” 

The venue, which fits in 170 music lovers for live shows and 300 people for club nights, is explicitly welcoming. The bar is always free entry and each week there are regularly free gigs and cheap club nights. In the week of The Great Escape, Megan takes us through the front door and into the heart of this locally beloved DIY space.

The post Celebrating Brighton’s rootsiest venue, Green Door Store, during The Great Escape first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s ongoing Your Space Or Mine project, the album and its reflective imagery is taking over poster sites across London – the artist’s very own stomping ground. 

Musician, DJ, broadcaster, curator, and producer Iqbal’s openness to converging people and places is perhaps what enables her to turn her hand to so many disciplines and find the flow of where they can take her. Having studied Ethnomusicology with History for her undergraduate degree at SOAS, an MA in History, law conversion and the bar followed – but, as she notes, ‘I felt like there was something in the universe pulling me’. This put her always-nurtured passion for music front and centre. Now, she’s toured the world (with live shows and as a DJ), holds a regular slot on NTS (for a decade and counting), has composed music for the Turner Prize, is a fixture on BBC Radio, and has collaborated with Wolfgang Tillmans. This year, she’s a guest director for Brighton Festival. 

Talking to Iqbal, you can see how she’s carefully connected the dots between a love of music, discovery, and sharing – three passions that work so well together – to succeed in making her own music alongside everything else. ‘I never want to be boxed in, and I never want to feel like I should only do one thing,’ she says. ‘Whether it’s me playing a DJ gig for a dancefloor, or doing a radio show, or talking about my new album, or putting on a Glory to Sound event where I invite different artists to come and perform, it’s all about sharing and exchange of ideas and feelings.’

The post On her second album, Nabihah Iqbal assembles her experiences into an upbeat and hopeful dreamscape first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Based upon the book of the same name by cultural critic, feminist theorist and author bell hooks, the project will see artists creating works inspired by its radical new ways to think about love in politics, religion, the workplace and domestic households, as much as intimate relationships. ‘All About Love’ is curated by Zarina Rossheart. 

Taking over our billboard and poster sites for weekends across five months, ‘All About Love’ is travelling to Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Brighton and Bristol. On 28-30 April, Birmingham-born Kenyan artist Grace Ndiritu opened the project with Grief: A Love Letter, 2023, alongside a performative reading event at Digbeth Art Space where a programme of artists and writers joined her in reading on grief and love. 

The next commission saw Glaswegian artist Jasleen Kaur taking over poster sites in her home city from 9-11 June, alongside her solo show, Alter Altar, at Tramway. Following this, ‘All About Love’ travelled to Manchester on 7-9 July, with Eve Stainton’s work displayed focusing on the adage, ‘You can take the girl out of Manchester, but you can’t take Manchester out of the girl.’ Next, the project landed on the south coast in Brighton and Hove, on 3-6 August with Turner Prize winner Helen Cammock, and then with Asmaa Jama in Bristol on 7-10 September, the closing weekend of their solo exhibition, Except this time nothing comes back from the ashes, at Spike Island. We were thrilled to then take the project to Edinburgh with Alberta Whittle, in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland, who’s powerful work brought ‘All About Love’ to a close. 

The post Introducing ‘All About Love’, a major new commission for Your Space Or Mine first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The Londoner – who recently joined the ranks of post-Brexit Irish citizens – knows about the subject first hand. She went through major family bereavements including the death of her sister in an accident in New York in 2011, and of both parents.  

Grief and loss of all kinds have become a powerful force in her work, including most recently, the Grief Rave. This latest project is a collaboration with The Loss Project founded by Carly Attridge, and the Street Soundsystem, creating dance spaces where bereaved people can dance it out.

Her billboard artwork for Your Space Or Mine tells a story about music and movement in bold primary colours, evoking the ways that the dancefloor can bring us together with loved ones – even those who aren’t with us any more. “I want people to feel the warmth of togetherness,” she says. “We know that can’t happen in this world – we can’t bring our living and our dead together – but we can cultivate that feeling. We can carry those we have loved and lost with us through life, with our feet and our moves and our bodies.” The accompanying words come courtesy of writer Lara Haworth. 

The post Grief powers The Fandangoe Kid in beautiful and unexpected ways, including her latest invention with Carly Attridge of The Loss Project: the Grief Rave first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Welcome to Gallery No. 32’s third annual Winter Sculpture Park. Curators Meg Stuart and Kieran Idle have, once again, pulled out all the stops. WSP 2023 sees a panoply of more than forty compelling 3D artworks situated across a 4-acre expanse.

The post There’s more than one big surprise waiting for art fans visiting Bexley today first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

During the summer of 2021, London-based multi-hyphenate artist and founder of Sports Banger Jonny Banger took over the streets of London with Billboards stating ‘ILLEGAL RAVES ARE NOW ILLEGAL’. Now, two years later the London-based multi-hyphenate artist has once again partnered with BUILDHOLLYWOOD for a second offering of his UK street takeover. This time, however, the collaboration is also courtesy of photographer Gareth McConnell and features imagery from the two artists’ latest project – a dreamy, psychedelic-style zine.

The post “Making noise when everyone is quiet”: Jonny Banger and Gareth McConnell present ‘The People Deserve Beauty’, their anti-establishment fashion zine first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Our common, everyday cohabitation of urban space and place was poleaxed: by the sight of formerly busy streets emptied; the enhanced social wariness bought on by fear of contagion; mask wearing; spaced queues; the second guessing as to attitudes of passers-by… London life was made uncanny by the disparity between our expectations of a place we thought we knew so well and the strange, pandemic affected existence bluntly visited on us.

The post Vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch: Aristotle’s five sensory modalities are just the beginning when it comes to our experience of urban environments… first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Bonjour is a Queer-run workers’ co-operative in Glasgow’s Saltmarket with the intention of prioritising underrepresented groups in the local LGBTQ+ community. The bar, club, and space is one meant for celebration and safety – hoping to centre the Queer euphoria everyone deserves to feel, while encouraging mutual support among its members. 

In the current climate, it’s not easy to sustain an independent venue – the cost-of-living crisis has already caused plenty of DIY ventures to close or take undefined hiatuses. Bonjour has weathered a multitude of storms thanks to the pandemic, local infrastructure issues, and hugely increased running costs – but is determined to keep being the invaluable space that it is.

The post ‘Yes, I can see the stars’: Shooting for the moon in Glasgow with LGBTQ+ workers’ co-op Bonjour first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post The Sound Of The City: our 2023 film and zine have landed first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The Londoner had begun his creative endeavours DJing and running a blog inspired by the grime he was hearing at club nights like FWD>> at Plastic People. The blog turned into a popular and influential club night, initially at Cable in London, and then into a label of the same name, issuing proper big tunes like S-X’s ‘Wooo Riddim’ and managing artists including Flava D, Swindle, Royal T and DJ Q. Along the way, he’s also worked with youth projects including a stint with Brighton’s Lighthouse and helping Youth Music set up their NextGen fund.

The Yellow Squares started as scribbled post-it notes which the Walthamstow resident gradually began posting here and there, initially on Twitter and then on Instagram. He posted daily in the summer of 2021 and rebooted the following January, posting the now-consistent design hundreds of times in 2022. It was a way of sharing his ideas and instigating conversation with the communities he connected with online, using comments as a kind of R&D lab. They created a powerful place for exploring ideas and generating ways in which people can navigate their way through the interlocking complications of money, art and creativity.

The post Elijah’s Yellow Squares began life on Instagram. Now we’re collaborating with him as part of Your Space Or Mine, with a series of new billboards first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Founded in 2003, the London Short Film Festival has now spent two decades platforming both British and international short film, existing ‘to spotlight a multiplicity of filmmakers, visual artists and creatives, across intersections and with a commitment to peripheral voices’.

For grassroots arts organisations, times haven’t exactly been easy in recent years – what with the combination of cuts to funding, spiralling costs, and lost earnings through the pandemic – but LSFF persists, with its city-wide January 2023 festival bringing together ten days of short films, live events, workshops, panels, Q&As, and multidisciplinary curation. 

Ahead of its opening, we brought London Short Film Festival’s expectedly artful posters onto the streets, taking over sites in the north, south, east, and west of the city. Pulling together evocative stills from filmmaker Andrew Kötting’s festival trailer, and Edward Sogunro’s vibrant but soft-edged graphic design, in 4-sheet and takeover form, the campaign brought the essence of the festival directly into London’s landscapes. 

The post London Short Film Festival’s 20th year celebrates new talent and archival treasures in equal measures first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Emerging from Brisbane in 2016, Confidence Man was formed by a group of four mates messing about with music at the weekends. This casual project, initially conceived with the “basic goal” of having fun and getting high, gathered momentum rapidly. By the time they’d recorded their debut album Confident Music for Confident People in 2018, it became clear that this side hustle was something with the potential to go stratospheric.

Taking the best of 90s and 00s UK rave and pop and dragging it through honey, their irresistible tunes married the hedonism and euphoria of the dance floor with their irresistible if not slightly leftfield pop sensibilities. Combined with their arresting choreography, audacious lyrics and outlandish costumes (Planet apparently designs her own outfits, many of which possess a kind of eccentric theatricality reminiscent of BodyMap), the band set light to that summer’s festivals, making a name for themselves as a charismatic stylish foursome with a sound that captured the mood of the moment.

The post “Fresh, loud, in your face, OTT, fancy, and a bit trashy”: Confidence Man’s Sugar Bones on their new album and their wild times on tour first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The recently published Home Is Not A Place collaboration between Johny Pitts and T.S. Elliot Prize winner Roger Robinson is a richly layered, heartrendingly poignant odyssey exploring Black communities in Britain through a tour of towns and cities around the U.K.’s coastline.

As Booker prize winner, author and inclusivity advocate Bernardine Evaristo has suggested, repeat visits, dipping curiously into this beautifully produced book bears – literally at times – untold bounty. But it’s also worth engaging with patiently, cover to cover, encountering texts and imagery as they appear in this extraordinary travelogue.

The post Celebrating an exhibition that reflects Black Britons’ experiences beyond the capital and the companion publication of photographs together with poetry and prose first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A collaborative and immensely creative partnership between composer Bobbie-Jane Gardner, and Academy award-nominated filmmaker and photographer Brian Cross (also known as B+), Music of the Unseen is a project that set out to celebrate the far-reaching contributions composer-arrangers Charles Stepney and David Axelrod have made to the world of music, hoping to give them the credit they haven’t always received. Through studio albums, singles, and later, sampling, each artists’ unparalleled bodies of work have permeated through genres and settings to become seminal pieces. 

Stepney’s and Axelrod’s impressive influence remains often unknown or unacknowledged in cultural history – hence Gardner and B+’s decision to sensitively reimagine their works and pay tribute to them through a live show series. Performed in November 2022 at Manchester’s Stoller Hall, The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and the London Southbank Centre, Music of the Unseen saw Gardner and B+’s own artforms come together for ensemble interpretations of Stepney’s and Axelrod’s music, with live visuals; strings, percussion, and wind; experimental film; and curated DJ sets by pioneering selector Marc Mac, adding to the cohesive presentation of their back catalogues and derivative music that followed.  

The post Music of the Unseen takes the stage in Manchester, Birmingham, and London first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Mya’s poster featured a tree whose leaves were shaped like jigsaw pieces. The clusters of red, orange, yellow and green foliage dazzled but were conspicuous because despite the jigsaw motif none of the leaves were joined together. A simple and effective visual metaphor for those of us who feel displaced or out of kilter with society. The student artist talked very movingly about what it’s like to live on the autistic spectrum. And her brightly coloured text set against a swirling ultramarine background on the poster made a more general point: Not Every Disability Is Visible.

It’s always been part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s mission to work with established and emergent creatives – bringing creativity to the heart of our cities – so it makes sense that we support educational initiatives that are nurturing the next generation of people who might want to work in the field of communication. We already collaborate with Sheffield Hallam’s excellent Illustration BA so it makes sense to help mentor and offer a platform to even younger art and design students. Which is where the Big Creative Academy project comes in…

The post BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Your Space Or Mine initiative supports Walthamstow art and design students first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

For this instalment of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s collaborative Your Space Or Mine series, Caio Wheelhouse has designed a bespoke piece of artwork, with a seasonal spin on her latest release, Sound of the Morning, which is currently hitting the streets of Bristol. We sat down with Katy to discuss the album, and discover her personal highlights of living in Bristol, taking us on a guided tour of the city’s hotspots and hidden gems.

The post ‘Talk Over Town’: Katy J Pearson’s Essential Guide to Bristol first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The beautiful game unites, inspires, creates communities, changes lives, and celebrates the passion that can exist within all of us. That’s why our latest Your Space Or Mine collaboration, One Game, is in partnership with Goal Click – the global football storytelling organisation – celebrating football’s vital place in local communities across the world.

Through our street poster campaign and exhibition, in London we’ll showcase Fleur Cousens and Anastasia Kuchta from Goal Diggers FC, a team widening opportunities for women and non-binary players; Maria Romanchenko, a player originally from Enakievo in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, but who now lives in London; and Zayan, a player for Bloomsbury Football’s U15s, a London-based charity running teams to reduce the barriers to sport participation and working to provide equality of access to all.

Taking over our sites in the north-west of England, Manchester Laces’ Beth Lane and Charlotte Wilkins share words about the city’s first inclusive women’s and non-binary football club for ages 16-55 in Whalley Range, all united to fight for trans issues in the sport. The Welsh capital of Cardiff will see Iifan Auchep Venkatanathan’s documentation of his time representing Indonesia in the 2019 Homeless World Cup in the city, where 500 players from over 50 countries travelled to Wales to play in the tournament. Two of our London takeovers will also host Football Across Borders, an international collection of quotes from One Game’s teams alongside players from Iran, India, Brazil and more. Connecting the dots further across continents and oceans, we’ve also teamed up with original flyposting experts UNCLE, who are sharing Goal Click stories in New York City, Amsterdam, and Berlin – cities each with their own rich individual footballing cultures.

Photography by and of the teams and their players will occupy our street space in each of their cities with their own stories. Both the realism and beauty shown in each portrait, action shot, or quiet moment demonstrate the truth and purity of football. Captured through film photography, everyday experiences of football’s ability to bring people together are retold by people who know it first-hand.

The post One Game: Your Space Or Mine puts the spotlight on grassroots football with Goal Click first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

This year marks 75 years since the ICA’s inception, established by a disparate collective of artists in 1947. From then until today, it has continued to platform, produce, present, and commission vital new work in visual arts, film, music, performance, and digital art, working with many figures seminal to each practice. Now, to showcase its inspiring anniversary programme – and signal a new era for the institution – we’re working with them on a year-long partnership that will celebrate and put word of the series out across the city.

The ICA’s position at the centre of London’s contemporary culture has been enduring. Its reflection on that time will rightfully be ‘forward-thinking and future-focused’, marking its first programme under the leadership of new Director Bengi Ünsal. Truly multi-disciplinary, it’ll include a takeover by queer techno night club platform INFERNO, R.I.P. Germain’s first solo exhibition at a UK institution, visiting film festivals and newly curated series, long-term education partnerships with Dazed Club and the London College of Fashion, and a music series featuring gigs by Black Country New Road and Deathcrash – and that’s only a fraction of what’s planned.

Alongside the dynamic event series, a major fundraising auction in partnership with Sotheby’s, a new digital journal, a new podcast series, and a rebalancing of its programme to cover performance, music, and night-time programming as well as its thriving visual arts, film, and education programmes, our partnership will give the ICA’s new concepts a platform on the streets of London.

The post Among many good things, The ICA Is 75 – cause for a celebration first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

 Their newest release is Lap 5, bringing together their long-time underground appeal and chart-topping potential, with mega-stars on feature duties including Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy. Weighing in on the UK Album Charts at their best-ever position of number two, we worked with SoundCloud to celebrate their global success on a more local scale – taking over a street-side in their home borough with a mural spotlighting Young Adz and Dirtbike LB before the record’s release. Seeing them take over their own streets, the mural even made an appearance in the music video for single 4 The Win – check it out. 

The post D-Block Europe scale the heights of the UK Albums Chart with Lap 5 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A tone of apprehension, even foreboding is introduced by the pulsing heartbeat and faint chimes over the opening credits. The sound amplifies with the first image: a close-up of a young black girl’s face. Her expression is impassive, matter of fact, detached. Only her face is in focus in a wider shot showing the young athlete stretching out on the gym floor, the rest of the room is a distortion of colour and angular trampoline legs. It’s an arresting and disconcerting opening scene that’s further fraught with tension by the first line of the film’s spoken voice over: “Are you able to express yourself and be proud that you are part of Commonwealth and feel accepted?”

A young black male is filmed in the same spot. His expression, like the girl’s, is deadpan, stony. This is in stark contrast to what we hear while he executes his own warm-up routine. A woman’s voice recounts an horrific – if not unusual – instance of her being racially and sexually profiled as a child: “My aunt came to parents’ evening and [the class teacher] advised my aunt that I could go and get a job in a factory, and I’ve got good child-bearing hips.”

As further examples of racism are spoken of on the soundtrack both young athletes continue their floor work. Bennett mirrors our discomfort at what’s being said by extreme changes in our point of view. From above we see the young lad performing a back flip, he jumps but we catch his landing from beneath a trampoline. There’s a close-up of the girl gymnast wringing the aching tension from her fingers and palms meanwhile a child’s voice faltering declares, “I don’t really understand.”

Again, from a high vantage, we see the girl do a 360 degree twist. It’s a cute move, she’s a little unbalanced on her landing. On the soundtrack racial politics are specifically referenced for the first time. We cut to the boy performing the same 360 jump but by contrast he’s seen as a distant silhouetted, shadowy figure surrounded, hemmed in by walls and crash mats. This transition to a dark, constrained physical space underlines what’s being said about the UK government’s propensity for shadowy control, using the Commonwealth as way of keeping a hold over its former colonies.

The post Astonishing, complex and moving: Beverley Bennett’s new film berates racism and celebrates athleticism and resilience first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

After two summers of an eerie silence, courtesy of the pandemic’s social distancing rules, this year fields across the country were finally brought back to life as thousands found their way back to some of the UK’s most iconic festivals. In celebration of the summer festival revival, BUILDHOLLYWOOD partnered with Photoworks, a UK-based charity that champions photography for everyone. The collaboration saw one young creative’s work spotlighted at a series of festival exhibitions, but also on billboards across London.

Chosen to spearhead the project, Nathaniel Bailey is a 22-year-old up-and-coming photographer hailing from a Jamaican family in London. After developing an interest in photography in his early adolescence, it was towards the end of secondary school that he began considering his hobby as a career. “In year 11, my family started to see my passion for photography, and how much I enjoyed it. They loved looking through all the work I was bringing home in my big art folder. They really encouraged me to think about it as a career,” Bailey explained to us. Eventually, he began to find solace in his passion, stating that, “During this time, my Gran passed away, so photography was something positive to focus on. Later that same year, my Aunt sadly passed away too. She would have always told me to keep going with my photography, no matter what.”

Having recently graduated from UAL Camberwell College of Arts, where he honed his craft studying a BA in Fine Art Photography, Bailey explained to us that the biggest takeaway from his studies is that, “there are no limits to photography, trust your instinct”.

The post Emerging London-based photographer Nathaniel Bailey captures the revival of British festival culture first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Fire Complex was originally conceived to be seen on digital and paper billboards in the public realm. Kögelsberger wanted the work to record the catastrophic loss of a unique ecosystem and chart the aftermath of the fire. Both in terms of its effect on local communities and the post-inferno clean-up of mountainsides crowded with innumerable charred monoliths. As well as still photography between December 2020 and December 2021 the artist filmed numerous videos of strike teams felling the blackened trunks of these once glorious trees whose post-fire remains threaten roads, powerlines and the few buildings left standing.

Visual iterations of the project are complemented by restorative efforts. For every video posted on Instagram @fire_complex Kögelsberger has pledged to plant replacement trees. The first batch of 144 young sequoias arrived courtesy of the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive. To date more than 6000 seedlings have been planted by the Sequoia Crest, Alpine Village and Cedar Slope communities with the support of specialist bodies, residents and over 100 local volunteers.

The post Formidable, poignant and practical art project wins the RA summer exhibition ‘most distinguished work’ award first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Visiting concepts like power, safety, belonging and navigation, it takes inspiration from the plentiful depictions of women in urban areas – through advertisements, statues, public imagery and much more – and the subconscious messages these communicate, asking what this means for women in terms of value, safety, or being welcome in spaces and places.

Alongside the exhibition’s showing at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, we partnered with the Arts Council Collections to showcase a trio of artworks on the streets of the city, making its message more visible and accessible among local communities. Chosen by Lubaina Himid CBE, vibrant, contemplative and thought-provoking works by Leah Hickey, Helen Grundy x Round Lemon, and Haseebah Ali, took over our sites and forged new connections between the gallery and the street.

The post Lubaina Himid’s Found Cities, Lost Objects for Arts Council Collections brings a trio of artworks to Birmingham first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

He is renowned for documenting the city’s richly diverse visual arts and music scene for many years. The access he was granted by artists and bands and the inventive images arising from those opportunities vouch for the trust and respect Dimmick’s subjects have for the photographer.

Likewise, portraits featured in the current street display – Two Sisters, Woodlands (1981), Mr Wong, Woodlands (1982), Family with Baby, Woodlands (1981) – suggest a deeply humane and empathic connection. Dimmick’s depictions of Glasgow’s communities explore vivid aesthetics, cultural diversity, as well as a sociological and psychological fascination. They deftly achieve what photography and art historian John Tagg has described as ‘both the description of an individual and the inscription of social identity.’

There’s an intriguing aspect to this 2022 archival art trail across the city in that the contemporary display sites either feature in Dimmick’s original photograph or are close by to where he took the pictures. Tying together the past and the present, the displays were celebrated by art walks with the photographer, reflecting on his images and practice in-situ. By means of that comparison we’re able to witness the urban environment in a state of variously paced but constant change. The image 1 White Street, Glasgow (1996) is a subtly textural and tonal composition of an otherwise unprepossessing corner of the city. Its only ‘remarkable’ feature is the hand-painted lightning strike on a street-level dummy window. Nowadays the same building is a garish purple and orange estate agents with a lurid commercial notice where the graffiti bolt used to be.

The post Glasgow, then and now – Alan Dimmick’s compelling street display curated by Martin Gray first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

This modest material intervention threw up a whole new field of inquiry for the artist. It led her to radically question how we view these spaces and the different ways we see the people that variously inhabit them. The artist has written, ‘Ideology is at work in this sport. Gymnastics has been used as a tool of propaganda, of control, of patriarchy and of nationalism. Defining what bodies should look like, what perfection is, what the human ideal is.’

So much sport imagery focuses on moments of triumph: a sprinter’s torso nudging the finish line, the dramatic heavyweight KO, a soaring slam dunk… In Nkosi’s work, by contrast, drama is played down. Faces are anonymised and it’s this anonymity of Black and brown countenances that invites us to look harder, to inquire further. Body shapes, the kit they’re wearing, the figures’ relation to each other and their surroundings all afford a contemplative array of mutually dependent shapes, colours and gestures. Rather than an unquestioning promulgation of sporting prowess Nkosi’s imagery admits the teamwork and supportive interaction on which success (and a good society) depend, ‘At the same time as lauding Black excellence can we also allow them vulnerability? Can we allow them rest? Can we allow them to be part of a community? Can we allow them to be human?’ Her first solo show, the 2020 exhibition titled ‘Gymnasium’ at Stevenson gallery in Johannesburg was both visually beguiling and subtly thought-provoking.

In her Olympic Channel podcast Nkosi told host Ed Knowles, ‘I have all these questions about sport and also about the art world.’ She refutes the idea that racism is on the wane globally because Black athletes across numerous sports have become icons. Yes, they are celebrated and adored. Nkosi suggests, however, what this hero/heroine worship doesn’t negate, alleviate or even begin to address is casual or systemic racism. The prejudiced stereotyping and othering of Black athletes persists even while they’re feted.

The post Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi’s multifaceted artwork ‘Equations for a Body at Rest’ challenges colonial legacies of the Commonwealth Games first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

It’s not so common to see the same for women. Despite women’s integral roles in, well, every industry you can think of, society’s structure has meant that all too often those leading figures get overlooked – or worse, written out of history altogether.

In 2018, City Hall began a joint-venture project with Tate Collective called LDN WMN. Kicking off 100 years after women won the right to vote, the collaboration looked to pay tribute to some of the capital’s most influential figures via a series of free artworks and installations, all created by women or non-binary artists. It came as part of the Mayor’s #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign, and included pieces paying tribute to Mary Seacole, Noor Inayat Khan, and Olive Morris, by Heather Agyepong, Manjit Thapp, and Rene Matic respectively. Somewhat delayed by the COVID pandemic, now, the project’s final commission has been unveiled – paying tribute to Dr Beryl Gilroy.

Dr Beryl Gilroy moved to England from what was then British Guiana in 1952, and as part of the Windrush generation, battled through the overt discrimination of her time to “study Child Development, become an acclaimed author, respected broadcaster, and Camden’s first Black headteacher”. As a pioneering writer and ethno-psychotherapist, her achievements and contributions to education and development cannot be understated. Her career is often, and fairly, considered revolutionary. Dr Gilroy remains an inspiration today, while her memoir Black Teacher is somewhat of a rediscovered classic – re-released in 2021 with an introduction by Bernadine Evaristo, the book is “testament to how one woman’s dignity, ambition and spirit transcended her era.”

The post Paying tribute to education pioneer Dr Beryl Gilroy in West Hampstead for LDN WMN first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Buildings and structures in city spaces don’t have to be bound by their original purposes. There is ingenuity in looking at an empty room, seeing beyond its present state, and conceiving of ways to reinvent it with an injection of art, music, theatre, people, community, activity, or perhaps a combination of the lot. Whitechapel Gallery’s Nocturnal Creatures series does just that – with annual takeovers of its ever-changing, east-central London locality, pushing art out from its four walls to the community just beyond them.

The festival’s 2022 programme spanned immersive film, music, performance, art, DJ sets and, of course, a bouncy castle, once again accessible to all for free. Within walking distance of the Whitechapel Gallery site, new works premiered by Jennie Moran, Emma Talbot, Janette Parris, Jasleen Kaur, musician and broadcaster Nabihah Iqbal, filmmakers Baff Akoto and Patrick Goddard, and theatre company Cardboard Citizens, also joined by pieces from Henry/Bragg and An Untold Story, Assemble / House of Annetta, and London Voices, all carefully curated and placed in consideration of the landscape around. Alongside them, AGOSTINO and Touching Bass’ Errol Anderson and Alex Rita assumed DJ duties, providing perfectly paired sonics to set the scene. Sited within the House of Annetta, St Boniface Church, Toynbee Hall, the Hickman, Aldgate Square and the Bishopsgate Institute, the night successfully achieved its aims of setting imaginations alight with experiences you can’t have anywhere else.

The post Reinterpreting the urban environment with Whitechapel Gallery for Nocturnal Creatures first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Tearing up the classical music rulebook since 2011, The Multi-Story Orchestra was born in Peckham, giving the traditional multi-instrument concept a contemporary refresh. Removing it from its archetypal grandeur, and re-situating strings, brass, and wind within a multi-story car park, it was an intuitive pathway to drawing new audiences, providing a creative outlet for the community, and giving the artform newfound life.

The Multi-Story Orchestra’s home is Bold Tendencies, an innovative SE15 arts organisation based atop Peckham Multi-Storey Car Park. With the group being made up of both professional musicians and young adoptees, the intention has always been to “bring powerful and meaningful music to life”, believing that “creating the best art means involving and valuing absolutely everybody” – it’s a project that works with, and for, its immediate local community.

Produced with a group of inspiring Peckham teenagers, its most recent piece, The Endz, comprises spoken word, rap, and songs derived from the writers’ lived experiences of social inequality and the gang culture that can accompany it. It’s “their story, their words, their music.” Following a pair of friends torn apart by violence, the modern-day story of friendship, heartbreak, and loss took shape after the tragic and untimely death of one of their friends.

The post The Endz showcases The Multi-Story Orchestra’s commitment to the Peckham community it serves first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Fascinated by space and how we inhabit it, he initially gravitated toward street photography because it appealed to his curiosity about people, style, and how we signify group belonging. But these interests eventually coalesced in the creation of TSAU, the acclaimed design studio founded by Agyemang which draws on his vast range of influences to create beautiful garments and objects which distil his ever-evolving personal style and his interest in artisanal techniques. “It’s an acronym of The Space Around Us,” he explains. “‘us’ being everyone.”

Talking to me over Zoom, he’s sat in a beautiful, considered-looking room with Moroccan plastered walls and a daybed scattered with bold, embroidered cushions. Sun streams in through a Victorian sash window and it feels like an appropriate convergence of the very London and African design elements that recur throughout the visual language of his work.

The post Bevan Agyemang’s label TSAU is the embodiment of his Ghanaian heritage and ‘London aesthetic’ of his youth first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The scope and pace of technology have enabled us to be electronically connected with vast numbers of people at all hours of the night and day. But if we can communicate with people from all over the world at the touch of a button, then why are so many people still feeling chronically isolated?

The experience of modern life can feel dislocating, especially throughout the lockdowns over the last few years. As access to communal space was quite suddenly denied to us and businesses, offices, and many public places closed indefinitely, we missed the bodily magic of being in the same space as other people. Siloed in our homes and unable to meet up in any communal way, we were denied so many of the important everyday interactions we perhaps took for granted before. Connecting remotely is no substitute for being together.

As the world reopens its doors and we are once again able to mix with one another again, we felt it was more important than ever to celebrate community in all the forms it takes. To launch the ongoing partnership between BUILDHOLLYWOOD and Dazed Club, we decided to stage a takeover project occupying billboards across London, Bristol, Sheffield, and Manchester, and we put out an open call inviting members to “Show us your club! After years at home, clubs of all kinds are more important than ever as a place to find community – whether that’s an actual club with dancing, or mushroom hunting with a group of friends, or a collective finding purpose through their work. Getting together is our act of creativity. So show us your club! The work can be anything visual you like – either what your club does, or your club doing what they do – we just want to see you’re up to, and put it on posters.”

The post BUILDHOLLYWOOD launch ongoing collab with Dazed on billboards across the UK first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Time and time again, artists on the rise have proved there are no limitations on art and artists are not always born after taking the traditional route of studying art. That is exactly how artists like Patricia Bugembe find and claim their space in the world of art.

After growing up in Ethiopia, Bugembe moved to Sheffield to study Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. “I come from a long line of people who work in the mental health and medical field. My grandfather was a psychiatrist, my mother is a psychologist, and my elder sister is a paediatrician that specialises in neurodevelopmental conditions. And so, then I followed suit and went into psychology and neuroscience so I too could work with people with autism and other neurological conditions,” she explained. It was not until a few years ago, when she turned to drawing as a form of release, that she realised her artistic talent and began to hone her craft.

Since discovering the power of art when experiencing a tough time, Bugembe brought some of her friends together and created the ultimate judgement-free environment: a relaxed art club. “There’s no teacher who “There’s no teacher who knows who will tell us what’s right or wrong. Just us, so we feel the freedom to just sit and draw. With no teacher, and no experts, we’re all exploring from the inside out.” said Bugembe. “So, it’s more about just trying and seeing what comes out, we all just enjoy being free to create whatever,” As well as using her passion to encourage others, Bugembe has also used her rising success as a means of fundraising and helping others. Bringing together her love for art and mental health, Bugembe has raised funds to help black women access psychological therapy through Art for Therapy. On top of this, Bugembe also donates a percentage of her annual shares to the organisation Black Minds Matter.

The post Meet Patricia Bugembe, the artist finding the power in art’s therapeutic tools first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

ReGo means “to put aside our ego and go again and again through a continued process of change both in oneself and in society.” With this as a starting point for Our Story in the Making, the cross-disciplinary project has come to embody collective action as it unites London College of Fashion students with East London-based brands, all in the aim of affecting positive social change. Having seen the negative impact of knife crime on the local community, the project’s intention was to counter the problem through fashion and creativity.

The idea was to repurpose knives from amnesty bins alongside other urban waste as inspiration for (and to be utilised within) clothes, accessories, and jewellery. Co-created by young people from East London and local brands Michelle Lowe-Holder, CQ Studio, FibreLab, and The Reclaimery, they’ve engineered the transformation of objects of potential violence into something beautiful. ReGo intended to “connect creatives across disciplines with the aim to illustrate to young people how they can control the direction their lives take by leveraging the power of fashion, making, and storytelling to shift the prevailing narrative around youth violence.”

The post ReGo: Our Story in the Making sows the seeds of social change through fashion activism first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

At first glance it appears to be a sort of cartoon memento mori, a visual whistle stop tour reminding us of all the vices that’ll ensure we shuffle off this mortal coil sooner rather than later: booze (99.9% ABV… Eek!), fags, debt, drugs, screens, fast food, (un)happy pills and more.

Amidst the frenzy, in the centre of the work, there appears to be a tablet computer with a hand hovering over options to select a virtual experience (which, we are assured, ‘Feels Just Like The Real Thing’). Hiking, Drinking or Drawing, anyone? And then, whatever you feel about the potential excitement afforded by these activities there’s a disturbing proviso. The hand apparently poised to make the choice is, erm, compromised somewhat. The index finger is lopped off. It’s also been severed at the wrist. The radius bone is sticking out. Ouch, it looks nasty! Oh, and on the back of the hand there’s also an open mouth. It appears to be screaming.

The post Existential Yikes! Viktor Void puts ‘Freedom’ through the wringer first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In response to the young people they work with from the communities around Grenfell Tower, West London charities One Vibe and The Harrow Club have created the single West Side Story. As the horrific event reaches five years since its happening, the song looks to provide much-needed reflection and remembering for lost loved ones and be “testament to the young people’s own indomitable spirit despite such difficult circumstances.”

West Side Story’s production comes from renowned DJ and producer Toddla T, and features up-and-coming artists from in and around Ladbroke Grove – Sophie DeMasi, Double C, S-Town, MsBambii, 23Trill and G2 Slime. Their joint efforts have made the song “a collective voice of unity, resilience and strength”. We’ve partnered with One Vibe to platform the release on the streets of West London – as well as providing street space, we had our very own (West London native) Steven Wiggins photograph the imagery for the release, and helped to design its artwork.

The post West Side Story tells the tale of community spirit inspired by Grenfell first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Coco sees themselves as standing apart from the crowd. Being black, queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent, they have often felt a lack of representation in, or inability to relate to, leading figures in mental health, in the creative worlds, or even in broader society. After their own mental health struggles became a catalyst, Coco created a platform – Talk to Coco – that would be an online safe space. They set out to ensure that other people who identify differently don’t endure similar things on their own.

Uniting their work in creative writing and activism, and providing an uncompromising listening ear for people to share their thoughts, feelings, or experiences with, Talk to Coco is now making sure that people who reach out to them always feel understood and accepted. Coco’s honesty, openness, and deep-running empathy has enabled them to become a stalwart of the mental health awareness world. They’ve since come to run creative writing workshops, speak on panels, and collaborate with huge global organisations like Amazon and Yahoo on the issues they’re proud to platform.

The post Talk to Coco takes their affirmations nationwide for Mental Health Awareness Week first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Early works – Broken Wall 1 and Preludes – appear to both create and enquire into the precarity of and atmospheres associated with particular spaces. These interventions seem to ask, ‘How does dismantling the fabric of a wall (revealing the stark contrast between the pristine surface and interior gubbins) or introducing variations of light via suspended material change the way think about and bodily relate to interiors we presumed to know?’

The subtle amalgam of found materials in a later work like Untitled (Sink) evince, again, a measure of insecurity. We’re not sure how sound the construction is and so are invited to engage with it tentatively. The work comprises a pair of rickety table-like structures: one, horizontal and topped with a smudged transparent sheet and the other slightly slanted and wrapped in a material covered in small blue flowers.

The post Michella Perera takes over West Graham Street first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As a project that’s both public art and an environmental message, Breathe:2022 with Dryden Goodwin reinstates an earlier 2012 work of the same name, now updated to be at home on Lewisham’s streets today. Created alongside London air quality scientists, the work underlines the urgency of conversations around air pollution. Featuring over 1000 enlarged hand-sketches of local people who bear witness to the impacts of poor air quality in the borough (and city beyond), the sets of drawings form photo-in-motion sequences that show people labouring to inhale and exhale.

Invisible Dust approached us to install Dryden Goodwin’s piece across Lewisham – in the “choked underpasses of busy bridges” and on the Old Town Hall in Catford. As a piece that’s grand in size and scale, Breathe:2022 is imposing and thought-provoking. Occupying prominent spaces in the centre of Lewisham, Hither Green, Forest Hill and Catford, it will raise climate consciousness in the borough, with an events and engagement series running around it. As Invisible Dust notes, “Breathe:2022 asks us to both stay with the claustrophobia of ‘fighting for breath’ but begin to look upwards and outwards, towards the possibilities of community action and a clean air future for all.”

The post Breathe:2022: Dryden Goodwin’s climate conscious art lives on Lewisham’s walls first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Although recycling schemes have been a fixture of UK life for decades now, plastic pollution remains a measurable problem. As Greenpeace have noted, “We’re all doing our bit to recycle, but plastic waste is still everywhere. Something doesn’t add up…” – and now they’re seeking the nation’s help to prove it.

Working alongside The Big Plastic Count, they’re planning an eponymous week-long event, starting on 16^th May, that’ll be the biggest UK investigation into non-commercial plastic waste. Hoping to draw the attention of households, schools, businesses and community groups alike, the collaboration is seeking new evidence that more drastic environmental measures are needed if we’re to counteract the climate crisis with any effect. Looking to take steps towards a promise that the UK’s single plastic use will be cut by 50% by 2025, the project has all the (much-needed) ambition that’s come to be expected from the environmental campaign group.

To bring Greenpeace and The Big Plastic Count’s message to the streets of the UK, they’ve partnered up with JACK – displaying campaign posters right across London, looking to get the capital’s backing. Posted in the north, south, east and west of the city, the campaign reached right out into London’s communities ahead of the project beginning in mid-May. Find out more about The Big Plastic Count and how you can get involved here.

The post Platforming The Big Plastic Count on the streets of London for Greenpeace first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Nightlife spaces can be shrouded in mystery, protected in order to keep the communities that inhabit them both safe and close. Often founded by those with marginalised identities, they’ve long provided a place for self-expression to be nurtured in full spirit – making them cultural hotspots and touchpoints. And, unfortunately, these spaces don’t tend to last forever – which makes their documentation all the more special and vital.

Taking over in the late 1970s and through into the 1980s, New York City’s disco and dance subcultures gave life to now-legendary spaces like the Paradise Garage and Studio 54, which became home to some of pop culture’s most famous faces. In hindsight, those eras were launch points for today’s dance, club and art culture – so have been rightfully revered and storied ever since.

As now-veterans and contemporary leaders of that scene, Simon Dunmore’s Defected Records and its Glitterbox imprint wanted to pay tribute to that foundational time in NYC. Collaborating with photographer Bill Bernstein, who was a central figure in capturing the energy of those nightclubs, Glitterbox and Defected pulled together the exhibition Last Dance. Showcasing a selection of images curated by David Hill Gallery in London, including exclusive pieces never before exhibited, it took up residency at Defected HQ’s newly launched exhibition space.

The post Savouring the Last Dance: Glitterbox’s Bill Bernstein exhibition celebrates one of nightlife’s greatest eras first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

With the Conservative government’s recently passed Nationality and Borders Bill, the UK’s hostile environment policy continues to advance, making the immigration process evermore difficult to navigate. For people escaping war, conflict, and a lack of safety in their own countries, it means that displays of solidarity and support once they reach Britain are more valuable than ever.

Having gone through the asylum system herself, Comfort Etim was motivated to set up a safe space for women in similar situations, and started her Liverpool-based football team, Comfort Angels, in the process. Working with the support of Amnesty and the LCFA, the sessions started small, and have grown to have a group of around 30 women regularly in attendance. Comfort’s initiative and persistence empowered her to find and cultivate a community of her own, in a time of potential isolation.

The post Shining the light on Comfort Angels’ safe space and community with shado mag and Amnesty first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Devoted to the Cardiff scene for over 15 years, Minty is a bona fide expert on the city’s venues, local artists and hidden gems. His passion for Welsh music culture spans from the country’s many legendary artists right across to the grassroots. Attending gigs and shows for sport, he’s been able to develop Minty’s Gig Guide as a bible to the local scene for Cardiff natives and tourists alike, wanting to share the very best that the city has to offer with everyone who can experience it.

As the 6 Music Festival arrived in Cardiff in early April 2022, Minty was the perfect person to collaborate with to spotlight the event programming in the city. The Minty’s Gig Guide team worked alongside 6 Music Festival to produce an interactive map that would showcase the weekend’s packed listings, alongside the bridging Fringe Festival organised by Creative Wales and Cardiff’s own local venues and artists. The beautiful illustrations of the individual venues come courtesy of Alex Waeland, facilitating the accessibility and vibrancy of the map, encapsulating the essence of each featured spot in fantastic watercolour.

To platform the collaboration, we worked alongside Minty to bring Minty’s Gig Guide to the 6 Music Festival onto the streets of Cardiff. Taking over the full spread of our Custom House Street sites, the poster displays showcased Waeland’s illustrations of each festival venue and put the spotlight on the city’s music scene for all to see.

The post Minty’s Gig Guide to Cardiff meets BBC’s 6 Music Festival on the streets of the Welsh capital first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Founder and co-directors Megan Stuart and Kieran Idle talked recently about the genesis of the project with Gary Mansfield on his marvellous Ministry of Arts (Ep. 165) podcast. Megan said, “I wanted to make a wall, a gallery wall to put in the field and I asked Kieran to come along with me and look see what we could find in skips […] and we got this door that was number 32 from Welling High Street or somewhere and you suggested that as a name…” Et voila! The fast-evolving plan to create a free and accessible space for artists, and to promote creative exchange between them, with other galleries, with visitors and casual passers-by had a name: Gallery No. 32.

Solo artist and group shows followed, along with impressive collaborations and curatorial ventures such as partnering with The Factory Project in 2021. Fast forward to the present and Gallery No. 32’s most ambitious project to date, their Winter Sculpture Park is an open invitation to experience a remarkable variety of contemporary artworks and adventurous curation. A visit to Bexley coincided with the first draft of featured artists generously discussing their work on site.

The post Expect the unexpected as contemporary sculpture comes to Bexley first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Founded by spoken word artist Emmanuel Nwaohai, SPK ABOUT IT is a voice-over agency disrupting a noisy industry with a brand-new approach. Using its expertise in the field, and impressive network of performers and writers, SPK ABOUT IT is able to “champion authentic voices and diversify the voice-over space”, with “a community of spoken word talent from different walks of life”. Nwaohai’s aim was both to help young poets know the worth of their talent, and help brands to hone in on the real experiences, stories and passion that gives life to a tone of voice.

The post The written word speaks volumes in London with #ScanTweetSPK from SPK ABOUT IT first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Eminent multimedia artist Yoko Ono has been flying the flag for peace for a long time. For too long. But she is steadfast in her devotion to stopping violence and conflict, so in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is once again lending her voice and platform to the anti-war movement.

This time around, she’s teamed up with CIRCA (experts in art and culture with purpose) and Serpentine. Yoko has provided her word-dominated artwork IMAGINE PEACE, set to be sold in print to raise money for the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund. All of the proceeds from the prints will be given to the charity – while the artwork continues to interrupt metropolises by its daily display on some of the world’s most prominent digital screens, in the centres of London, Seoul, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, Milan, New York and Rome, showing every single night in March.

We’re honoured to be working with Yoko and CIRCA to supersize IMAGINE PEACE on the streets of London in paper and paste form, taking the words far and wide across the city. By using our sites to showcase the artwork, it will reach out and share Yoko’s message right within London’s communities – in Dalston Junction, Shepherd’s Bush, Commercial Street and Sclater Street around Brick Lane in Shoreditch, and Southwark’s Blackfriars Road, amongst many other spots in the city. We’re also working alongside original flyposting experts UNCLE to take Yoko’s message to some of the super-central, hard-to-reach places where it certainly ought to be seen.

The post We’re getting London to IMAGINE PEACE for a good cause with Yoko Ono and CIRCA first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Gaurab Thakali’s artworks are the product of the rich inner landscape of his imagination, hued with the vibrant colours of Kathmandu, populated and soundtracked by the musicians he’s most deeply inspired by, and informed by his encounters with a series of alluring subcultures. His distinctive work has appeared in prestigious publications such as The New York Times and The New Yorker, and his illustrations have also adorned clothing, skateboards, beer cans, record sleeves, and turntables. Defined by their saturated colours and gradients delineated by bold line work, his work moves between psychedelic landscapes, city life, and snow-topped mountain ranges, incorporating mystical elements with features of the everyday, while nature – at its most abundant and riotous – is ubiquitous.

The post Gaurab Thakali’s vibrant artworks explore the experience of music, city life, and the natural world first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The pandemic put a temporary halt to more pops of mural joy and thoughtfulness appearing in towns and cities across the UK but he’s back at it now. When we met for a bit of a waffle over a falafel, I couldn’t resist stating the obvious, “You don’t seem that angry!”

“Ha! That goes back to my first email address, when we all had stupid email addresses. If anything, I try to be the antithesis of angry. I wasn’t sure at first but I’ve embraced it now. Adults always ask, ‘Why Angry?’ But kids never do.”

Dan’s creations have graced walls from Reykjavik to Barking, they appear on street furniture in Manchester and Hastings, friends’ backyards, under bridges, beside railways, they’re all over the place.

As straight five-line limericks these compositions are skilful, amusing and often quietly affecting. When transformed into visual artworks in urban spaces (as well as the postcards, prints and paintings) a fresh configuration of word and image evolves.

The characteristic rhythm and rhyme remain but lines are curtailed or carried past the five-line poetic form so viewers are encouraged to re-read, to remake the poems in their minds, to confirm their limerickness. This mode of presentation slows down reception but there’s an agreeable satisfaction in teasing out the original form nestling in the bold illustrative visual presentation.

The post How pleasant to meet Angry Dan first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Having received universal acclaim, Life Between Islands “explores the work of artists from the Caribbean who made their home in Britain, alongside other British artists whose work has been influenced and inspired by Caribbean themes and heritage.” Centring around the formations of community and identity, it celebrates visionary artists, photographers, designers and creatives who have altered the course of British culture and transformed contemporary society through their practices.

Designed as a community-orientated extension to Life Between Islands, our pop-up street gallery with Tate Britain is taking over our billboards, as well as buildings, spaces and places across the capital, sharing newly told stories about London’s Caribbean communities and cultural heritage. It highlights cinemas, markets, clubs, libraries, community centres and restaurants – inviting passers-by and those intentionally exploring the route to hear the voices of people who have loved, used, and perhaps had their identity and work shaped by, the locations featured.

Stories from the likes of Steve McQueen CBE, Hew Locke, Grace Wales Bonner, Neil Kenlock, Wyn Baptiste and Ingrid Pollard cover Ridley Road Market in Dalston, Crystal Palace Farm, the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, Notting Hill Carnival’s Trini Hall, Alexandra Palace, Matchstick Piehouse in Deptford, and many, many more community spots, taking inspiration from English Heritage’s Blue Plaque scheme with over 40 stories and sites to explore.

The post London’s culture-making Caribbean-British heritage comes to the fore with our pop-up street exhibition with Tate Britain first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

From 1^st-6^th March 2022, specially commissioned works for Bristol Light Festival will premier alongside pieces making their city debut, in carefully curated locations on the streets – filling the city with creative light.

2019’s edition included interactive and immersive works, and this year’s programme is set to feature much of the same – with installations and experiential light art pieces to explore. Created by international names, local artists, and Bristol-based collectives, like Squidsoup, Lucid, and Designs In Air, each one has been tailored to its location – filling varied urban spaces with colour, ambience and new potential for enjoyment, showcasing the city in a different light, highlighting both its landmarks and lesser-known spots.

To introduce 2022’s Bristol Light Festival to the city, we worked alongside Bristol City Centre BID to bring its joyful, bright pink logo to the streets, filling our sites with light-flooded artwork. To accompany a takeover of our West Street sites in Old Market, we also constructed a head-turning creative billboard – with a giant, illuminated, 3D version of Bristol Light Festival’s logo, bringing the art to the streets.

The logo was created by local photographer André Pattenden, who manipulated and created light art to form the vibrant and dynamic heart shape. He then echoed the work around different spots in the city, producing incredible shots through the middle of a night to tease this year’s festival launch. We spoke to André about his creative inspirations and processes, life as a photographer, and work for Bristol Light Festival, ahead of its programme beginning in March.

The post Illuminating the streets of the South West with Bristol Light Festival first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

To reflect the fact, we’ve produced another film retrospective, capturing the creativity and energy of our collaborators – through another year that turned the world upside-down.

To accompany and echo its sentiment, we’ve also made a return to print with BUILDHOLLYWOOD Annual Issue 3. It encapsulates the year that was. A who’s who of art, music, fashion and culture showcasing the inspiring collaborations and carefully curated Your Space Or Mine projects that took over street-sides throughout the country to make our 2021 so special.

The post The BUILDHOLLYWOOD Annual has landed first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Each book is a new sphere of creativity to explore, with editors and marketing teams working alongside us as authors’ biggest cheerleaders – transforming worlds of their own writing into tangible, real-life interventions on the street.

After working around the many challenges that 2021 threw at the world – yet another year that saw the creative industries endure trying times – we were delighted that some of our work was able to make a long-lasting impact, with campaigns we helped to bring to the streets winning their categories at the Book Marketing Society Awards.

Simon & Schuster’s campaign for Dave Grohl’s new autobiography, The Storyteller, won the Adult Non-Fiction Award; we brought Dave’s words to the streets with a giant model of the book and a huge, custom window wrap at Foyles Charing Cross, plus a show-stopping billboard that saw Dave read excerpts from the book to passers-by. The Children’s Campaign winner was Greg the Sausage Roll – as part of its release, just in time for Christmas, we worked with Puffin Books to bring the story by Mark and Roxanne Hoyle (aka LadBaby and LadBaby Mum) to London, with an interactive festive billboard festooned with Christmas lights, illuminated by people on the street.

As well as these, we also contributed to wide-reaching campaigns for Merky Books’ Keisha the Sket by Jade LB, Vintage Books’ 1000 Years of Joys & Sorrows by Ai Weiwei, and John Murray Press’ Windswept & Interesting by Billy Connolly – with the campaigns designated as Highly Commended in the Adult Fiction category, and winning the Innovative category, and Spotlight Award for Graft respectively.

The post Celebrating Book Marketing Society Awards wins first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Self-styled ‘Mad In England’ extreme craftivist Carrie Reichardt’s art takes various forms but she is probably best known for her innovative, campaigning and community spirited mosaic works.

Reichardt lives in a house covered in mosaics made by herself and close collaborators from the UK and across the world. It’s a sight to behold. During the course of her rich and varied career she’s tiled taxi’s and pick-up trucks, life-size figures, elephants, horses, the walls of many towns and cities, the steps of the Victoria & Albert Museum… All her mosaics, of course, demonstrate consummate craft skills as well as an acute visual wit and imagination but, just as importantly, Reichardt’s major projects reflect the artist’s enduring concerns: combating systemic injustice and cruelty and promoting progressive, engaged social activism.

She also produces some very fine x-rated and sweary china tea plates and trinket boxes.

The post Carrie Reichardt first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

After completing Graphic Design studies at Leeds Polytechnic in 1989 and going on to gain an MA at the Royal College of Art in London Burrill’s early career was concerned with making his way as a commercial graphic designer. But, as he explained in a recent interview for D&AD’s New Blood digital festival, “There’s always a tension working commercially […] delivering other people’s messages that maybe I didn’t believe in myself. I very gradually began to kind of move away into something that was more fulfilling and nourishing for me as a person.”

The first major project where Burrill was able to use his penchant for brevity, wit and bold typography came in 1997 working with Erik Kessels on a campaign for Hans Brinker’s budget hotel in Amsterdam. His kitchen table, cut ‘n’ paste collage approach chimed perfectly with the creative brief: namely to flip the failings of very shoddy accommodation and non-existent facilities into USPs.

It worked a treat. At a time when advertising graphics were leaning towards the ‘slick and sophisticated’ – read busy and a bit oblique – Burrill’s clarity, humour and plain-speaking shone through. That success eventually meant he could work on select commercial jobs as well as lending his skills to charities and pressure groups close to his heart and pursuing personal projects.

The post Celebrated graphic artist, printmaker and designer Anthony Burrill shares a message of patience, hope and positivity across the UK first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Not exactly a new idea. But potentially a goer. You’d have thought anyway. Pop star Damon Albarn gave it his best shot. He nominated works by Banksy and kennardphillipps. For the art/activist duo Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps this was, “A chance to use a public place to make an iconic image that would reflect the hopes of millions, to make an image of hope after a year of war.”

And so it came to pass. In 2003, as part of their joint research prior to submitting an image for Orange’s ‘Brighten Up London’ project, Kennard and Phillipps found themselves in The National Gallery. At the time, in Room 32, ‘The Virgin in Prayer’ by the Italian artist Sassoferrato caught their eye and a number of ideas and themes coalesced resulting in a piece the art duo would put forward for projection.

For their ‘Peace on Earth’ work kennardphillipps swapped the face of the Virgin Mary in Sassoferrato’s deeply devotional portrait for an image of planet earth seen from space. Above her bowed head, where you might expect to see a halo, there’s a slanted iteration of CND’s peace symbol. Conscientious objector Gerald Holtom, writing to the editor of Peace News, explained the origins of his 1958 design: ‘I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself, the representative of an individual in despair, with palms outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.’

The post kennardphillipps brings ‘Peace on Earth’ to UK streets first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Born and bred in the capital, Chapters has lived all over north London but he still hasn’t yet exhausted the city’s vast possibilities. “London has shown me a lot. It’s taught me a lot,” he marvels. “There’s a lot of different worlds within this one city and, yeah, man, it’s crazy.” His photographs distil the dirt, dynamism, and joy of the urban landscape, paying tribute to the idiosyncrasies, resilience, spirit, and style of his beloved wider community.

Now, as part of the latest artist iteration of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Your Space or Mine, Chapters’ photographs will be displayed for the first time on billboards on the very streets that inspired his work – including one location in Gospel Park that’s particularly close to his heart. He explains, “I was born five minutes up the road, man.”

The post Vincent Chapters’ photographs pay tribute to the everyday beauty of London life first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The project was created as an alternative response to the rise in the number of young people being adversely impacted by violence, which has been met by reactionary measures from the national government. Tougher criminalisation of youth, increased stop and searches, and greater police presence in majority communities has seemed to hinder – not help – the issue.

Kay was instead inspired to consider the subject of increasing violence through the lens of public health – which required looking into the mental health provisions for the demographic in question – or as it became apparent, the lack thereof.

Kay’s research took him to countries with world-beating measures of happiness, including Denmark, Bhutan and Sweden. While travelling, he uncovered eight factors deemed responsible for the ratings – which were used to form the basis of subsequent workshops for 13-year-old boys back in London. Involving poetry, discussion-based art sessions and photography, the sessions sought to develop the boys’ ways of expression, encouraging them to explore their sense of identity, and find new ways to manage their own happiness.

Now, Kay has worked with over 300 Black boys from ten London boroughs. The projects have been used to create exhibitions across the city – including Hackney Council’s, which is presenting 17 portraits of its own S.M.I.L.E-ing Boys.

We’ve worked with Hackney Council to help display the portraits in public spaces across Hackney – including on a trio of our sites on street-sides in the borough – alongside an exhibition at Hackney Bridge, bringing important sentiments about happiness and community-focused solutions to the fore.

The post Hackney Council’s S.M.I.L.E-ing Boys project is beaming from the street-sides first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Since JACK and Ahluwalia first collaborated for Your Space Or Mine back in March 2021, Ahluwalia has continued on an understandably impressive trajectory, working with huge industry names like Mulberry and GANNI; founder and Creative Director Priya Ahluwalia has also been nominated as a Leader of Change Honouree at The Fashion Awards 2021.

With Priya’s creative and conceptual eye driving Ahluwalia forward, the brand’s SS22 offering is another impressive step. As the first joint menswear and womenswear drop, the collection is set to celebrate the artistry of Afro-Caribbean hair, its symbolism, and rituals, through braid-inspired prints, embroidery, and seams woven throughout the pieces. With fluid lines and silhouettes accompanied by perfectly contrasting tones, the collection sees Ahluwalia taking inspiration from retro hair salon imagery, J.D. Okhai Ojeikere’s photography, and redolent 90s music videos.

Showcasing the immersive Ahluwalia world in all its glory, the Parts of Me shoot forms the perfect basis for Your Space Or Mine takeovers across London, launching integral SS22 pieces on the streets. Shot by London-based photographer Laurence Ellis and styled by AnOther Magazine’s Senior Fashion Editor Nell Kalonji, it’s a broad showcasing of talents, exuding equal-parts warmth, futurism and festivity.

We loved working with Ahluwalia to create the artwork for each takeover – taking into consideration the street spaces as we know them – and providing the platform for the brand’s SS22 collection to occupy streets around the capital. Our Your Space Or Mine project continues to broaden its fashion focus by supporting up-and-coming designers, placing their work directly within the communities that inspired them all over the country.

The post SS22 Ahluwalia brings a dose of sunshine and the sublime to the city first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

BUILDHOLLYWOOD are excited to be supporting one of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary artists. In a typically low-key appraisal of his new show being exhibited simultaneously in Paris and Glasgow the artist has said, “It’s good to see what’s been under my bed all these years.”

The exterior walls of The Modern Institute’s Aird’s Lane Gallery in Glasgow are currently blitzed with posters that point to censorship. The original black and white Parental Advisory label was introduced in the US in 1984 after pressure from, amongst others, Mary “Tipper” Gore. She co-founded the ‘Parents Music Resource Centre’ whose stated aim was to increase parental control over the access of children to music deemed to have violent, drug related or sexual themes via labelling albums, CDs and cassettes with ‘PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTENT’ stickers.

In 1985 the American musical virtuoso and arch non-conformist Frank Zappa – even before the Recording Industry Association of America officially adopted the sticker – printed a satirical advisory message on his ‘Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention’ album covers to protest at the PMRC’s political activities. The message read: “This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear nor suppress.”

You get the distinct impression that Jeremy Deller is more ‘Team Frank’ than ‘Team Tipper’. Plastered alongside the black and white iterations of his Aird’s Lane ‘WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT’ posters are pink, green and orange fluoro versions of the same message. The original warning labels, of course, achieved the opposite of what they set out to do. Acting like magnets for curious minds, the stickers were a sign of challenging, transgressive works you should be paying attention to. So it is with Deller’s multi-coloured street installation/invitation to view his near 30 year survey of ‘Prints & Posters 1993 – 2021’. This show is an understated tour de force.

The post WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Bringing swathes of the world’s foremost leaders to the city (and the media coverage to boot), the event had enormous significance, bridging connections between international delegates and dignitaries, and equally, providing a global meeting of activists, campaigners and lobbyists. With collaboration as a key aim in order to tackle the increasingly concerning effects of climate change, the conference was set up to be a pivotal point in the global battle against it – with more hinging on the decisions than ever before.

With so many voices in Glasgow looking to get heard, we wanted to platform those from the immediate community too – so we teamed up with #OurDearGreenPlace to bring art by local schoolchildren to the streets of the city. Using our space to provide the perfect backdrop to the COP conference and the climate protests around it, we wanted #OurDearGreenPlace’s ongoing environmental project to continue and magnify its impact within its own locale.

As part of a scheme commissioned by Glasgow City Council’s Education department, SWG3’s Yardworks took up the mantle of helping students express their opinions on pollution, plastics and climate change, all through the medium of art with the help of local artists Molly Hankinson and Michaela McManus. #OurDearGreenPlace resulted in bright, bold and emotive environmental designs, speaking for a planet being increasingly harmed by human pollution. During COP26, the designs were right at home on the streets of the city – alongside huge protests and demonstrations with similar messages.

The artworks featured an array of different designs, including a tearful planet earth, candid words about preventing plastic pollution in the sea, endangered and anthropomorphised sea creatures, and snappy and emotive slogans – hopefully motivating the city’s residents to adopt more eco-conscious behaviours; campaigners to keep up their fight; and perhaps even conference delegates to listen, empathise, and act accordingly as a result.

Displayed on our drums throughout the city, the #OurDearGreenPlace artworks are evocative, apt and equally endearing, capturing the spirit of young people and their desire to look after the planet they’re growing up on. As a generation that could bear the brunt of decades of environmental damage, their passion for preventing climate breakdown is tangible and understandable.

We were delighted to play a part in bringing #OurDearGreenPlace to the street to showcase the work and campaigning being done locally before, during and after COP26 – to hopefully help the fight for a brighter future for our planet.

The post Giving the youth of Glasgow a platform in the city to coincide with COP26 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Impassioned, ambitious and furious, this extensive series of montages is bookended by images featuring black military style watch dials. ‘Past Midnight’ opens the show, economically apprising viewers as to the parlous state the planet and humankind finds itself in. Its watch hands mounted on a WW2 gas mask are nuclear missiles. The time reads 5 past midnight.

In August 2021 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report prepared by 234 scientists across 66 countries warning that human activity has resulted in atmospheric CO2 concentrations that are higher than any time in the past 2 million years. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the IPCC report was the ‘code red for humanity, the alarm bells are deafening and the evidence irrefutable’.

In the final image of the CODE RED series the watch dial this time is an image taken by Apollo astronauts in 1972. It shows planet earth as a whole, swathed in its diaphanous, swirling, life giving atmosphere. A hand reaches into the image frame, it’s holding onto a cord attached to the minute hand. The concluding work’s title ‘Pull Back’ reads both as a command and a desperate plea.

The post Code Red: One last chance first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

From the start of her career to now, Ronan Mckenzie has quickly established herself as one of UK’s most authentic and multifaceted creatives. Born and raised in Walthamstow, East London, her rise to success saw Mckenzie progress from a beaming young artist participating in an art foundation and internship at i-D magazine to a highly skilled creative with a plethora of titles under her job description.

Developing on her background in styling, lockdown saw Mckenzie delve into the design world after a newfound interest in sewing pushed her to launch her own brand Selasi. But her versatility did not stop there, last year also saw Mckenzie launch HOME – a black-owned multifunctional creative space in North London that features an art gallery, community events location and creative workspace. “HOME responds directly to the personal and communal need for a more honest and representative space, that cares deeply for the artists we present and the community of people that we welcome into our space” she told us, speaking on what pushed her to launch the project.

The post Ronan Mckenzie curates “Celebrating Joy” street exhibition first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Taking place on Saturday 16^th October, the event’s fourth edition is set to be packed with gigs, live interview events, Twitter listening parties, record store activities, special album releases and reissues, and huge bespoke programming across BBC Sounds.

Jointly arranged by the BPI and the Entertainment Retailers Association, the event brings together the UK’s recorded music community, celebrating the nation’s industry in all its forms. As National Album Day’s outdoor media partner, we’re helping to bring the day’s celebrations to the streets of Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester and Sheffield, with poster displays taking over sites in each city.

For 2021, the focus is on women in music. Looking at pioneers of pop, present-day legends, and passing on the baton to future talent, it’s all in the name of reaffirming the truly integral role women play in the music industry, as songwriters, producers, cultural influencers and recording artists alike – with Joy Crookes, Ray BLK, Laura Mvula, Sharleen Spiteri and Kylie Minogue as ambassadors.

For National Album Day, our street posters across the country will be facilitating an interactive album trail experience that invites fans to learn about 10 iconic albums by female artists. Popped-up by a QR code on each poster, the trail will include records such as Solange’s A Seat at the Table, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black – alongside exclusive testimonials by album experts, and a great competition to win exclusive National Album Day merch.

We’re proud to be supporting National Album Day on the street as it unites so many of the moving parts of the music industry, all in honour of one of music’s most loved forms – and can’t wait to get involved in the fun this weekend.

The post The art of the album is taking over the streets for National Album Day first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Chefs in Schools, a charity set up in 2018, are campaigning for schools to sign up to a School Food Charter, and for the government to adopt recommendations from the National Food Strategy. These will ensure that children in primary and secondary schools across the country are fed more nutritious, freshly made food, targeting broader health concerns, and considering the problem of food poverty in the process.

Backed by huge names from the food world, including Prue Leith, Tom Kerridge, and co-founder of Leon Restaurants Henry Dimbleby, the Chefs in Schools campaign calls for the public to Give a Sausage about the food on kids’ plates. Pointing out that despite years of campaigning, many meals still don’t meet recommended standards for nutrition, Chefs in Schools suggest that kitchen staff should be invested in, valued, and highly trained, allowing people who have a passion for food to pursue it with a school kitchen career.

Designed by legendary creative agency BBH London, the vibrant campaign artwork was created to catch the eyes of parents and kids alike on the street, using cartoon-style illustrations and graphics to convey the vital end emotive message in an upbeat and accessible way. We’ve dedicated space to the campaign on streets right across London, spreading Chefs in Schools’ vital words throughout the city.

The post Chefs in Schools’ school food revolution lands on the street courtesy of BBH London and JACK first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Having seen how poetry became a tool to facilitate closeness and unity throughout the pandemic, this year’s National Poetry Day is unleashing the power of the poem onto the streets of Sheffield, Glasgow, London, Bristol and Cardiff, with street-side poster displays of poetry in each city.

As the biggest, mass celebration of the artform, the yearly National Poetry Day continues to demonstrate the beauty of uniting people in appreciation of the written word. As they say themselves – “It starts conversations, encourages a love of language – and best of all, it’s open to absolutely everyone to join in.”

The poems selected for display in each city have been penned by renowned local writers. Marvin Thompson’s ‘May 8^th 2020’ brings a sombre, vibrant meditation on death to the street-side in Cardiff, while Caleb Parkin’s ‘Shrinking Violets’ provides Bristol with his mind-bending metaphors. Warda Yassin’s ‘Weston Park’ takes to the streets of her city Sheffield, while Peckham’s Caleb Femi stirs the streets of his neighbourhood with ‘Thirteen’. In Glasgow, Imtiaz Dharker’s ‘Choice’ reflects the name of this year’s National Poetry Day theme, and shares intimate and intricate thoughts on motherhood.

Using our sites in the heart of each city, we’re bringing the poems straight to local people – with tear-away notepads attached to each site making copies available for passers-by to take home. Broadening access and awareness, it means the poems will be experienced not just by the people who witness them on the street, but also the family and friends they might choose to share the words with.

We’re delighted to be working with National Poetry Day to reach out and enable people who may not typically engage with poetry to enjoy, discover and share each piece. As poetry is one of the most beautiful and illuminating ways to explore identities, it’s an invaluable way to bring about closeness, understanding and empathy after enduring a time period of pervasive separation.

The post Celebrating the beauty of the written word with National Poetry Day first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Allais’ project titled ‘Laundry’ is typical of his patient, imaginative way of working. “I’d been visiting this estate for more than two years, taking photographs regularly every week. I saw how the details changed from day to day and season to season.” Then one day he felt that, “the estate had stopped breathing, there was no longer a pulse.”

It turns out the site had been slated for demolition to make way for the new high-speed rail line. Over the course of numerous visits Allais visually samples architectural details, he records different effects the weather has on the mood of certain views and catalogues ignored corners where discarded items accumulate over time. It struck Allais, however, that he didn’t often see the people who lived there. This was true before the proposed destruction of the site. And while the dwindling number occupants hung on still the most conspicuous indication of their presence were lines of washing hung between the estate buildings.

In the weeks before the site was entirely fenced off Allais printed his photographs of washing onto banners and displayed them on lines in the same way that the washing had for decades been hung out to dry. The result is a moving, somewhat wistful intervention. A final ‘waving goodbye’ to a place that had been home to so many ephemeral presences. Gently shimmying in the breeze, ‘Laundry’ flags up material change – the estates’ demolition – but also alludes to a human fragility, the work poetically marks what a huge impact large scale civil engineering schemes have on communities displaced by them.

© Concept and Photographs Copyright and Courtesy of FRANCK ALLAIS

The post Photographer Franck Allais reframes the city first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Adam Jones’ spiritual home is the traditional boozer. Finding the decor of these British institutions endlessly inspiring, he tells us, “When you’ve got an eye for fashion, you can’t help but notice the wood against the green pool table on top of those red, brown, orange sun-bleached carpets. It’s a lot of colour and texture for the mind. You could just sit down there and make the entire collection out of that room.”

The 30-year-old fashion designer with an eye for kitsch has made a name for himself by repurposing original beer towels and turning them into a range of distinctive, genderless fashion (which have recently been spotted on the likes of Dua Lipa, Nothing But Thieves, and Sports Team). He even used a pub – where he had a bar job at the time – as a venue to show his first collection during London Fashion Week 2015.

In the wake of launching his latest collection, Jones is the most recent emerging designer in our ongoing Your Space Or Mine project. Shot by photographer Luke Million, this series of billboards feature Jones’ newest sartorial creations presented alongside classic archive pieces and photographed on location in a South London former-Job Centre-turned-bar – a time capsule of peak-1970s decor.

The post Pubs, punk rock, and pints: we talk to fashion designer Adam Jones about his romance with the classic British boozer first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Design consultancy Brinkworth, made up of duo Adam Brinkworth and Kevin Brennan, are behind some of the most iconic retail concepts of all time. Working across disciplines like architecture, interior and brand design, Brinkworth was launched in 1990 by Adam and they have since grown massively, having opened a second office in New York in 2017 and completed over 2500 projects across 80 countries in just over three decades. Their award-winning projects span different sectors, from retail to music to hospitality to workplaces and residential design. The projects are often akin to art installations, with interactive spaces and an awe-inspiring, playful approach to the work.

The post After over 30 years, Brinkworth are still revolutionising design first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Some pictures were never meant to be seen. That’s what makes our collaboration with Matty Bovan, the latest in our Your Space Or Mine series, so exciting. The collection of posters features images of Matty in his studio trying on his own pieces, fitting photos that were only ever intended for personal reference. Collaged together with bright, eye-catching colours alongside his playful logo, they are evocative of DIY zines and offer a rare insight into the designer’s process. He designed every poster himself, intending to get across a “certain energy” intended to convey his personal energy into the spectacle of each.

The post York-based designer Matty Bovan brings his cut-and-paste style to the streets first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Lewis started the project with a zero to one hundred grid of ages on her studio wall and over three years proceeded to substitute the numbers with portraits of local individuals. Some subjects came recommended, a couple self-selected, mostly it was a case of Lewis spotting a person she liked the look of and persuading them to take part. And despite her infectious enthusiasm for the project and proven record of making remarkable photographic essays it wasn’t always plain sailing. “Who’d be interested in me?” said Dave (79) on being invited to take part, “Why would anyone want to look at my photograph?”

Alongside a career working as an editorial photographer One Hundred Years is Lewis’ third major personal project following the much admired One Day Young and Hackney Studios. This latest work is reaching the public through various iterations. One Hundred Years is a sumptuous and engrossing book published by Hoxton Mini Press and the entire series has also been installed at Britannia leisure centre in East London. A selection of thirty portraits grace the walls of Shoreditch Park Surgery. On Regent’s canal, behind the Lewis’ studio, seven three metre tall prints can be viewed from the opposite towpath. Lewis said she’d calculated that seventy-two thousand people had walked past these works in the last few months and added “The way you look at them, how you feel about the portraits can change depending on what mood the viewer’s in, what’s going on with the sky that’s enveloping them.”

The post ONE HUNDRED YEARS Portraits of a community aged 0 – 100 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“What’s that man doing lying down there dad?” So piped up a young lad on seeing Ben Wilson sprawled across the ribbed metal floor of London’s Millennium Footbridge. Despite the fact that Wilson was wielding a tiny brush and surrounded by pots of acrylic enamel paint the kid could be forgiven for asking the question because the work itself was so small you had to get on your hands and knees to focus on the teeny-weeny figure! “Good on yer Ben. You’re a star. Your stuff’s better than half of what they’ve got going on over there,” bugled another enthusiastic passerby waving her arm breezily towards Tate Modern.

Suffice to say that Wilson’s trademark paintings on splats of disregarded gum are true crowd pleasers. He can spend hours on a single work. The paintings range in styles. There are black and white calligraphic designs with whirling lines and forms that reveal worlds within worlds. Sometimes he’ll opt for a meticulous painterly representation of people and places that he can see from the site where the gum is found. On other occasions he creates fabulous tiny abstract designs that incorporate dedications to folk, texts painted seemingly with a single brush hair that celebrate or commemorate persons, places or events dear to Wilson or are suggested by people who happen across him at work.

Asked what artists he likes Wilson rattles off various names that suggest the range of his own creative past, “Oh, Jackson Pollock, Andy Goldsworthy, Dave Nash, Andy Warhol, Stik, outsider artists…” Wilson has previously built beautifully crafted wooden sculptures and environments, painted billboards, created assemblages out of litter found in the streets, filled numerous sketchbooks with observational drawing, made ceramic tiles, established trails above the arctic circle and elsewhere across the world. He added, “And the painter printmaker Peter Green was very supportive when I was younger. I like all artists. What’s really most important to me is the immensity of human creativity.”

The post Ben Wilson aka Chewing Gum Man teams up with Your Space Or Mine to paint the town first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

While the last month finally saw the grand return to art galleries and creative spaces, the process of going and enjoying an exhibition is still not quite as accessible as it once was – with the backlog of exhibitions creating an extremely long waitlist for tickets. However, thankfully for art lovers all over London, curator Tanaka Saburi has collaborated with BUILDHOLLYWOOD for the second year in a row to bring an exhibition to the most accessible location of them all, the streets.

If there’s one thing, in particular, that is clear when talking to Tanaka Saburi is his naturally determined and hardworking demeanour. Born to a Zimbabwean family and raised in Birmingham, he attended Keele University to complete his undergraduate degree in Law and Liberal Arts. With the initial intention of becoming a painter, Saburi’s interest in curation was birthed when he moved to London in 2017 to work on Savile Row. Since, Saburi has occupied important roles at Paul Smith, Joseph and Richard James (where he currently works through the week). Extending beyond tailoring, his responsibilities have included working on merchandising and PR. “I used to go to all the northern cities and show them how to display Paul Smith suiting in certain ways, how to show it off and understand the mix between art and fashion for him in his context,” he explained.

Launched last year, during the height of the pandemic alongside designer Nina Kunzendorf, The Molasses Gallery is a space to promote the work of young artists of colour. The first iteration of the collaboration with Your Space or Mine featured 12 artists, with a theme inspired by the 1975 poem “To a Black Artist” by Gordon Parks. This time around the exhibition entitled ‘commodities’ focuses on the relationship young up-and-coming artists of colour have with the concept of value and commercial success.

The post Tanaka Saburi is the art curator making space for underrepresented artists on his own terms first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Borden was at the top of his game photographing famous faces when life changes caused a shift to making more personal work. His first book paired compelling portraits of Holocaust survivors together with their memories, handwritten and harrowing. Combining life stories and images, where a reader’s attention moves between the two to create numerous connections, was a format he wanted to pursue further. Thornton’s longstanding fascination with trees led to a joint interest in exploring the different ways people are involved with the arboreal world today. It proved to be a fertile and hugely rewarding venture.

The post Four Hugs Wide first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

While their final-year experiences are no better or worse than any previous graduates’, they are undoubtedly different – so, naturally, their degree showcase was reimagined to suit their times – leading to the birth of the Homemade Grads concept.

Inspired by the students’ abilities to think beyond the four walls of their homes, Homemade Grads redefines what a degree showcase can look like. Using one of our billboards in the heart of East London to link to a specially designed, interactive AR experience, the QR code pops up a gallery of student work that you can navigate through as you move around the space. Working alongside a website with exhibitions of projects and final pieces, it creates a graduate show that’s both physically experienced, and digitally constructed.

The creative thinking behind the concept is representative of the students’ incredible abilities to problem-solve and think outside the box over the past year. Out of necessity, all of their work has been “homemade” – but clearly not bound by the confines and limits of lockdowns. With learning situated online, it encouraged the class to foster dynamic relationships with each other and the wider creative community, broadening their horizons and making the best of a trying time.

We’re delighted to be supporting this medley of makers, designers, creators and writers on the streets of London, placing innovative creativity in the heart of the city – right where it belongs.

The post Spotlighting the creativity of Ravensbourne University London graduates on the street with the Homemade Grads AR exhibition first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Representing the charity’s broader aims of inspiring social change and bringing together the arts and culture, the call out came as part of a project to provide space for queer and trans artists on the streets. The chosen artwork has been displayed on sites in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sheffield and Cardiff. Alongside the artwork, the street posters were designed to include QR codes linking to activation pages for each artist, introducing calls to action in support of causes close to their hearts – firmly linking inspiring art with social justice.

Providing the space for LGBTQ+ artists to occupy the streets can help to empower the communities the artists represent. Beyond that, it’s also an opportunity to inspire direct action that prioritises the needs of marginalised people, works towards equality, and aims to eradicate discrimination and prejudice.

Queercircle’s founder, Ashley Joiner, says of the open call, “Occupying and taking back public space is a crucial and empowering tool in instigating positive change. Through their artworks and the campaigns they’ve chosen to support… [the artists] are advocating for social justice and calling on the public to action transformative change.”

After much deliberation, the judges – artist Evan Ifekoya, Artsy’s curatorial director Gemma Rolls Bentley, Queercircle’s founder and director Ashley Joiner, and BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s very own Emma Clackson – chose pieces by Bex Wade, Kgotlelelo Bradley Sekiti, and CJ Reay from Black Lodge Press.

Bex Wade is a London-based documentary photographer, who captures protests, Pride, expressions of otherness and outrage, and moments of solidarity. Kgotlelelo Bradley Sekiti is a South African multidisciplinary artist, reflecting explorations of queer identities through self-portraiture, text and video. Black Lodge Press is a North Yorkshire-based print and micropublishing platform with radical roots, inspired by punk culture and anarchism.

The chosen artists’ pieces covered a spread of different formats and when sat side by side, create a beautiful, impactful, defiant street gallery accessible to all, uplifting LGBTQ+ visibility in cities beyond Pride month. As Bex Wade has noted, “Visibility does not equate to security” – so the activation pages and advocations for important social justice causes that accompany the artwork are intrinsically linked to each artists’ practice, and unify the project’s aims.

The post Art and calls for social change occupy the streets with Queercircle first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Sports Banger is a true from-below phenomenon, punching up and talking back to authority. Born from the tradition of anti-establishment DIY culture, the acclaimed clothing brand is making an art form of conspicuous, unapologetic bootlegging. Founded in 2013 by Jonny Banger – an artist working across fashion, activism, culture and curation, music, publishing and so much more – Sports Banger channels the frustrations, passions, dreads, and hopes of a generation. Always focused on community, Jonny explains, “Sports Banger is a celebration of people, our relationships with each other, and the outside world. We know lots of people from all different worlds and we like to bring everyone together. Everyone we work with, there’s a personal relationship there somewhere. The most important thing is art and fun.”

The post Sports Banger is the anti-establishment, bootlegging artist making fashion, art, and music with a DIY ethos first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Inspired into existence by one of the most difficult years in recent memory for health and care workers, they’ll be creating bold, bright and colourful scrubs for people to buy and send to a care home or hospice of their choosing. For its launch, the project has joined up with Grey London – and we’ve partnered up with them both to bring Happy Scrubs to the streets.

The social enterprise is the brainchild of Harry Wright, a young entrepreneur who began his professional life as a ballet dancer, but made a bold step to explore different passions through mentoring platform OKO. There he met his future business partner, Dave Evans, who helped him to prioritise his passions for creativity and helping others.

Grey London and Happy Scrubs have kickstarted the new venture by enlisting a number of artists to create unique and joyful artworks in their distinctive styles, with each piece being inspired by the project. The resulting works, by Morag Myerscough, Rude, Supermundane, Marcus Walters and Murugiah, will be displayed on our sites in Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, ahead of a fundraising auction for the project where the pieces will be available to buy.

In amongst all the PPE produced for hospitals over the past year, care homes relying on donations of scrubs have missed out – so it’s Happy Scrubs’ aim to give back to them, as a thanks for their dedication and dependability throughout the pandemic. We’re delighted to be helping them to spread the word on the streets.

The post Bringing joy to city streets with Happy Scrubs and Grey London first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Sadly, Andy Gill, the band’s only remaining founding member and one of their main writers for many years, passed away in February 2020 after an unexpected illness. Up until the time of his death, he was working on a retrospective record, one that would pay heed to four decades of the Gang of Four and their pioneering musical output. In his memory, his wife Catherine Meyer decided to pick up the project where he left off and bring the album into the world – with The Problem of Leisure being the end result.

From the rock, punk, indie, alternative scenes and beyond, big names and rising stars have been united on this cover record, re-imagining and recording their own interpretations of songs from Gang of Four’s huge back catalogue. With the likes of Serj Tankian, Tom Morello, Gary Numan, Idles and Warpaint on the album, it shows just how widely respected and revered Andy Gill and the band are.

To launch the project on the streets, we partnered up with The Problem of Leisure for a nationwide poster campaign. With head-turning album artwork provided by none other than Damien Hirst – who happens to be a long-time Gang of Four fan – the partnership is a perfect meeting of art and music, allowing us to do what we do best: bring culture into the heart of our cities once again.

The post Bringing The Problem of Leisure to our cities in tribute to Andy Gill and Gang of Four first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Two boards are standard 48 sheets. The first has the word ‘EVERYTHING’ together with an image of our extraordinary planet seen from space shadowed by an earth that appears spectral and burnt out. The second billboard carries the word ‘MUST’ above a scrambled melee of brand logos. The third appears to have been disturbingly upended such that one corner rests on the ground. This tilted board is all black with only the word ‘GO’ lopsidedly veering across it. Beneath it, as if having fallen off the advertising surface and trailing across land adjacent to the display site, is an assortment of consumer goods and domestic waste.

Asked what their aim was kennardphillipps said, “We wanted to take a swipe at the relentless calls to gorge on consumer products that bombard us every waking minute. And to do it on actual billboards that envelope our social space with their invocations to Buy! Buy! Buy!”

Everything Must Go is presented in association with Vanguard Street Art – a collective of artists and specialists involved in the global street art movement – who are staging a hugely impressive exhibition together with Bristol Museums at the M Shed exploring the instrumental role of local creatives in the development of British street art from the 1980s to the present day.

The post kennardphillipps brings ‘Everything Must Go’ to Bristol first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

For this year’s edition, we’re taking a commission by American feminist art collective Guerrilla Girls to iconic locations, countryside spots and seaside towns from 18^th June to 18^th July.

Entitled The Male Graze, it’s an exploration of deplorable male behaviour in the art world, with a particular focus on British artists and collections. Manifesting as a national series of billboards alongside a website and live event on 26^th June, it’s been prepared in partnership with galleries and institutions from across the country.

The post Taking Guerrilla Girls nationwide for Art Night with The Male Graze first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The piece features five powerful, frenetic drawings of heads by Smith, captioned by Wagner with a characteristically humorous ‘haiku’: “I Shall Live in the Now, Starting Tomorrow!”. An appropriate declaration for the challenges we’ve all faced in the past year, it also explores recurrent themes from both artists’ work, examining the dimmer recesses of the human condition with an undertow of ironic humour.

Of the exhibit, Smith and Wagner said, “It really is synergy, the inspiration from both of us, two minds sharing visions and finding our own way to share. It’s like the Coen brothers or Gilbert and George – but with much smaller budgets than the former and more laughs than most artists enjoy.”

Curator Martin Gray noted that, “The powerful, yet delicate beauty of Roderick’s imagery has extraordinary presence, which combines with Sam’s darkly insightful humour, to create something memorably poignant, that plays with your head like a great song… The prints are housed in polished coverings that merge reflections of the ever-changing rhythms in the surrounding environment with the artwork itself. As the city darkens, the work is backlit, projecting its message out into the street like a row of faces inside curtainless windows or a mirror to yourself… Street art continues to be a powerful way of engaging with a wide audience and promoting the work of emerging and established artists.”

The post Illuminating West Graham Street with Martin Gray, Sam Wagner and Roderick Abercrombie Smith first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Alongside them, we’re launching an open call for artists’ work that draws public attention to demands for radical change – with chosen works to then be displayed on selected sites of ours around the UK, in London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester and Sheffield.

Looking to take Queercircle’s approach to the streets, the callout seeks responses to the Bell Hooks quote, “There can be no love without justice”. Encouraging LGBTQ+ artists to take an intersectional approach, work is eligible for submission whether it covers issues on an international, national or local level, with winners being shown in July.

Submissions close on 16^th June at 6pm – find out more and enter for yourself here.

The post An open call with Queercircle first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Nurturing talent and inspiring artistry, indie record shops have become the spiritual home of many bands, DJs and artists, and we’re certain the music industry wouldn’t be the same without them.

To launch Record Store Day’s 2021 poster campaign across the country, we’ve partnered up with them for displays on our sites in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, coinciding with our music photography street galleries for our Your Space Or Mine project. Independent record shops are a lifeblood of the music industry, so in a year that’s proved detrimental for so many, we wanted to provide them with the platform they deserve. Catch you in the queue.

The post Record Store Day first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

To coincide with Record Store Day on June 12^th, BUILDHOLLYWOOD will unveil its one-of-a-kind street gallery with billboard images from legendary photographers Mick Rock and Pogus Caesar displayed alongside those from up-and-coming photographers Denisha Anderson and Steven M. Wiggins in London, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

The project will see iconic photographs of renowned musicians including Jay-Z, Madonna, Grace Jones, Dizzie Rascal, Debbie Harry and Stevie Wonder appear alongside emerging talents like Wu-Lu, Scrufizzer, Sketch and Oscar Jerome. Displayed in cities throughout the UK, the striking images bring bold music photography into the heart of the community – and onto the very streets which inspired many of the musicians who are featured.

The post Celebrating the music industry and the photographers who turn its artists into icons first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Caesar has documented prominent figures in the music industry alongside key historical events including the Handsworth Riots in 1985. He often reworks 35mm negatives into new forms, challenging the notion of religion, sex, history and identity from a Black British perspective.

As a music fan and scholar, Caesar was thrilled when he got the opportunity to be able to document some of his musical icons from the 80s onwards. Over the years, these photographs formed his ‘Muzik Kinda Sweet’ project, where Caesar takes globally renowned artists and captures them in everyday situations.

“When I took these images, it was about trying to photograph the artists outside the context of their stardom,” Caesar says of the street locations where he took many of his photos. “A lot of images and portraits of musicians are usually very shiny and staged. I wanted the opposite of that…I wanted to capture them in a natural setting to illustrate that. It was always important for me to show they’re just ordinary people who do extraordinary things.”

Caesar’s work has been exhibited widely and is acclaimed for documenting Black British history from the street. In 2004, he established OOM Gallery Archive in Birmingham, which represents his photographic archive worldwide.

Caesar spoke to us to reflect on his career, what it’s like taking an image of a musician in an ordinary setting like the street and what he hopes the public will take from the project.

The post Pogus Caesar first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Rock has been responsible for some of the most iconic album covers of all time – from Queen’s Queen II, Joan Jett’s I Love Rock and Roll, Lou Reed’s Transformer, Coney Island Baby and Rock N Roll Heart as well as Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power, and The Ramones End of the Century.

The post Mick Rock first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Anderson’s work for the project takes two of her musician friends and puts them in a street setting, in the centre of the communities where they grew up. Challenging both the viewer and her subjects, her striking images reveal much about music from South London, the street influences which define her subject’s style as well as the community that shaped them all as artists.

Anderson drew on a wealth of experience for the project which included debuting a long-term project ‘MAN’ at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2018, contributing work to ‘The Self Portrait’ – an exhibition curated by Ronan Mackenzie and working alongside acclaimed filmmakers Spike Lee, Daniel Mulloy and Joost Vandebrug.

 “I aim to empower my subject, whilst disrupting the pre-conceptions viewers may feel towards them,” Anderson says of her work. Here, she reveals more about the artists in her photos, their creation and why she is excited to see the pictures on the streets where they were taken.

The post Denisha Anderson first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

With subjects as vast as childhood friends who have been involved with gang violence, Notting Hill carnival revellers, council estates, everyday characters you see on the street to leading grime and rap artists, his work culminates in a dark, gritty and unique look at modern life in London.

His pictures for this project come from the grime and rap world, with all photographed on the streets where they’re from. “This project is a brilliant way of celebrating two elements that feed off of each other – music and the street,” he says, adding he hopes it inspires others on the streets too.

“There’s also people from some backgrounds and social classes that have an interest in photography or art but may not feel like they’re welcome in gallery spaces so don’t ever think to visit one – this is why projects like this are needed because they essentially give everyone the opportunity to view art and photography in person.”

We caught up with Steven to find out more about his inspirations, the story behind his shots and what he hopes people will take away from his photographs.

The post Steven M. Wiggins first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Held at Protein Studios from the 20th to 23rd May 2021, we partnered with the exhibition to raise its profile with displays on our sites across London. It’s the brainchild of Tom and Will Butterfield, a response to being abruptly cut off from their creative outlets when the pandemic and ensuing lockdown began last year.

After coming up with the concept and designing and building the original timber chair in 19 days, the duo managed to recruit an impressive line-up of creatives to work on the project. The exhibition will feature designs by Joe Lycett, Morag Myerscough, Brandon Carlton, Es Devlin, Sabine Mercelis, Jean Jullien, Ashley Williams and Nicole McLaughlin to name a few. You can view the full list of contributors and see each chair on the project’s website. With a relatively simple brief – “reinvent, reimagine or redesign your chair with an older person in mind” – the chairs are a nod to the work done by charity Age UK, “connecting collaborators with those experiencing the isolating effects of the pandemic most deeply.”

19 Chairs want to thank Age UK and Resourcing Racial Justice for the vital work they’ve done over the past year, so in parallel to the exhibition, each chair will be auctioned off to raise money for the organisations. The project’s core mission includes supporting those badly affected by the pandemic, uplifting advocates for social change, and beyond that, to shine “a positive light on the arts sector in these challenging times for the creative industries”.

The post 19 Chairs: A creative response to the COVID-19 pandemic first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

With support from Hackney Council, Your Future Worlds sought to document the opinions of young people from the local area, looking at their hopes for and expectations of the area’s future. The project predicts how Hackney might evolve using the voices of its own community.

Originally intended as part of a physical exhibition, the project had to adapt to the pandemic – and so it was fitting for it to take to the streets it sought to explore. We were delighted to partner with Eastside and Syrup to showcase Your Future Worlds on billboards and sites in and around Hoxton, with a vibrant colour palette to perfectly pair with the surrounding areas.

While the project included the voices of a number of Hoxton locals, a few snippets had to be chosen to encompass its broader concept on the street. Spot ideas like, “There’s lots of opportunity here. You can start small but go big in Hackney”, representing Your Future Worlds’ wider themes: that the future of Hackney is changing, green, creative, ours, and much, much more. You can browse the project in full on the Your Future Worlds website, with voice recordings and graphic interpretations of the collection of ideas.

The post Your Future Worlds: Syrup Magazine and Eastside document the Hoxton community’s hopes for Hackney’s future first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“I started Conversations From Calais after volunteering there for several organisations and every time I came back to London, I felt the need to share what I saw, heard and experienced. I felt so angry about how displaced communities were being portrayed in the media, especially when arriving in the UK from Northern France. I wanted to find a way to break away from this by remembering, documenting and commemorating all the different conversations I’d had with displaced people I’d met there. I thought this would be the simplest, rawest and most powerful way to share my experience. And slowly the project grew from there.”

The ‘refugee jungle’ in Calais may have been razed to the ground by French authorities in 2016 but there’s still a constant stream of displaced people stranded in the port city, anxiously seeking ways to reach the UK and apply for asylum.

Conversations From Calais bears witness to the multiple challenges facing these refugees and migrants. By recounting and sharing their chats with volunteers so many hitherto invisible, silent voices are recovered. “This ever-growing collection of conversations focuses on capturing the diversity of experiences and avoids creating new stereotypes of refugees as villains, heroic figures or hopeless victims.”

You noticed my cracked hands from the cold as we were having tea together. You insisted on  giving me some hand cream and told me to take care of my hands. I will never forget the kindness and warmth you showed me in that moment, even after all the hostility you had experienced from the world.

The post Listening across borders: Conversations From Calais first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A subsidiary of the Royal College of Art and part of a collaboration with contemporary curators Gasworks, we partnered with the mind-bending project, providing space for the distribution network to take over sites throughout London.

Acting as a commentary on capitalism and modern lives lived to excess, Fulfilment Services Ltd commissioned artworks created in response to an “alter-fulfilment narrative”. The resultant pieces – by Arvid&Marie, DNA, Florence Jung and Frank Wang Yefang – display “a rethinking of capitalist logistics disguised as the mechanical supply chain of fulfilment”. It’s a chain that we all know and are beginning to question more – particularly in response to climate concerns and following on from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Connected by their unifying theme of “corroding existing networks of dissemination”, the commissioned artworks cover varied topic areas, with commentaries on surveillance, elitism, big tech and much more. They are ultra-contemporary in style, utilising textural and dimensional graphic design, anti-utopian text messaging and stark and blatant compositions to create eerie imaginings that feel other-worldly, but are very much grounded in reality.

The project utilised the streets and our billboard sites as impactful gallery space in Wandsworth, Tower Hamlets, Camden, Lambeth, Lewisham and Greenwich. You can also view the full curatorial programme on their website.

The post Fulfilment Services Ltd disseminate contemporary art across the capital first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Curated by the Fashion Minority Report, a body highlighting and seeking to remedy the lack of diversity within the fashion industry, the festival will include intimate in-person and online events, with panels and fireside chats centred around opinion-formers and cultural pioneers from the Black community. As well as that, there’ll be workshops led by Black creatives, and a free-to-view photography exhibition – The Power Of Black Identity.

We were delighted to partner with Power Of Festival and Nikon to launch a competition for up-and-coming Black British photographers, with the winner having the chance to showcase their work in the photography exhibition at the festival and as a street gallery on one of our poster sites later this year. In the meantime, we’ve been raising the festival’s profile on London’s streets with billboards and displays on our sites across the city.

The post Celebrating the influence of Black identity on British culture with Power ___ Of Festival first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“Art for me has been about expressing emotions I can’t explain another way. These paintings highlight my issues with barriers and hidden anxiety and mental health.”

As part of our ongoing Your Space Or Mine initiative to provide a platform for creatives on the street, we showcase a series of 14 vibrant paintings, on 7 billboards across Bristol, forming an outdoor gallery and trail to be enjoyed in a safe and accessible way by the local community. Jeff is “Hoping that these paintings bring colour and the light of hope to the viewer. I hope they encourage people who are down to look up!”

The post Live music legend Big Jeff explores his inspirations and emotions in a new series of paintings first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Talking with King Owusu, we return continually to the idea of community. It’s the recurring element that influences, motivates, and facilitates his work as an artist and illustrator. Often drawn in marker pen, his colourful, narrative-led artworks are anchored in a fundamental desire to share some simple truths about humanity, community, and inclusivity, and to enlarge our empathy. He tells us, “One aspect of my work that is really important to me is its accessibility and telling stories that highlight and capture the black experience.”

Not only is his art highly influenced by his roots as the child of Ghanaian parents, it’s also informed by a spirit of generosity. His work is born from and of the communities that raised him, and he’s driven by a desire to give something back. Reflecting on his childhood as the youngest of seven, Owusu recalls, “At home, I was like a little fly on the wall just listening and taking in all the creativity that was being conjured up.” He remembers being particularly inspired by an art project his brother initiated in the local community. “He made all these really beautiful, detailed portrait paintings documenting the people growing up on our estate at the time,” he says, “Such a kind and simple concept.”

London itself is integral to Owusu’s practice, exposing him firsthand to a kind of visceral collaboration-in-action – the exciting moments where cultures collide and witnessing how these encounters can generate something new and dynamic. Growing up in Wood Green in North London, he was surrounded by a vibrant West African community alongside the wider multicultural influences the capital had to offer. “In London, we are blessed to have so many diverse people from all over the world that help build and shape our communities,” he tells us. “I have really appreciated and enjoyed the diversity not just in culture but also in ideas and ambitions.”

Whilst studying design at CSM, Owusu met South London photographer and filmmaker Campbell Addy, who signed him up on sight to his diversity-first agency, Nii. As a model, Owusu has been featured in Love magazine, Dazed & Confused, and Farfetch. Considering the exciting and inextricable relationship between fashion and art, he says, “Fashion also creates the opportunity for art to be made into textiles and for print to be worn. I think about the t-shirts Keith Haring made which made his work more affordable and accessible to a wider audience.”

The post King Owusu’s loving portraits pay tribute to the strong women in his life first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In November 2020 we celebrated their achievements and supported their NS Yearbook initiative, a project showcasing the work of emerging, black, British musicians, with a nationwide poster campaign.

Theirs is a story of triumph, driven by community spirit, hard work, perseverance and a passion for entertaining the masses. The drive to make something great, unique and powerful when the odds are against you. The ability to see opportunity in the face of a crisis.

This documentary film that we created in collaboration with No Signal charts a year in the life of the innovative, rising stars of British radio and one of the most powerful forces in the British Music Industry today.

We couldn’t be more excited to announce that The Rise of No Signal: Black Radio – Here to Stay out now on BBC iPlayer.

The post The Rise of No Signal: Black Radio – Here to Stay out now on BBC iPlayer first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The entirely crowdfunded exhibition celebrates the many people from different walks of life who came together at a time of unprecedented hardship to look after one another. Karishma Puri, the artist behind the project, was inspired to capture the images after establishing Covid Mutual Aid in Kentish Town. A WhatsApp-based community group, it was set up for neighbours to support one another and overcome isolation. “It was clear people were facing acute challenges. But I was also aware of a growing hope and community spirit. So I set out to capture this energy and resolve with my camera,” Karishma explains.

Jack Arts are delighted to be collaborating with Isolating Together to transform our poster space across Camden into a street gallery to support the project. Other displays will include community spaces and local shop windows. Each location was carefully selected from among the most meaningful venues in the area. The centrepiece will be displayed across a 14 metre wall at Number 19, the home of community action in Camden.

The post Isolating Together: An outdoor photography exhibition born out of Mutual Aid to mark one year of lockdown first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

He may not have the biggest collection of released music, but the 22-year-old is fast becoming one of the most talked about artists right now. He’s already been co-signed by the likes of US rapper Big Sean, BBC 1Xtra rap show host Tiffany Calver and UK drill pioneer Digga D. The breakthrough artist has just dropped his debut studio mixtape ‘Wild West’ and in the promo video he’s hit up our sites in West London to mark the occasion. Check it out.

The post Central Cee hits up our sites in West London for ‘Wild West’ mixtape drop first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The concept of gathering stories from past and present global histories comes naturally to Ahluwalia, who grew up a kid of the diaspora with Indian and Nigerian heritage. As a native southwest Londoner she remembers being surrounded by hubs of migrant communities in the 90s, going to Tooting to get her hair done and travelling up to Southall with her family to go to the butchers.

The post Breakthrough designer Priya Ahluwalia is honouring the strength and beauty of community first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Drawing on a unique and stylish lexicon of cinematic references, his distinctive photographs often evoke the high-key colour of a Californian dreamscape. With its irresistible golden light, and that uncanny experience of boulevards and vistas you’ve encountered a thousand times before, as if in a dream or immortalised on the silver screen, California seems like the perfect home for Krug’s saturated, otherworldly images.

While influenced by the enduring aesthetic of the 1960s exploitation movies which he devoured as a youth, Krug’s vision seems to depict a world disorientingly dislocated from time. Like so many others prepared to make their home on a fault-line for the promise of eternal summer, the Kansas-born photographer was drawn to the Pacific Coast by the elusive, shimmering mirage of bygone California. “It’s something that doesn’t exist anymore,” he explains. “But it’s a place in our minds, and it’s present in the works I’ve made over the years.”

The post Neil Krug’s psychedelic desert dreamscapes are coming to a billboard near you first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“The last three years have seen fundamental changes to how we relate to one another as individuals and as a society. Britain has exited from the European Union; the pandemic has bought new geographies to our daily lives; Black Lives Matter has voiced powerful articulations of systemic inequality. Division/Revision is a reflection on how relations are being re-defined through seismic shifts in the current social and political landscape.”

Uta Kögelsberger

 

With everything in such a state of flux it seems fitting that participating artists’ work will appear on sixteen billboards and change daily for sixteen consecutive days in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Glasgow.

As you might expect the individual artworks are hugely diverse. From plain-speaking to intriguing, visually metaphoric to fantastical, playful to symbolic… Together they act as a fascinating, multi-perspectival intervention in the public realm that holds a mirror up to the turbulent and mutable times we are living through.

The post DIVISION/REVISION first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

United by a shared commitment to emerging artists, they are joining forces to award £60,000 in production grants for new commissions in artists’ moving image and film. A total of seven grants will be awarded for the production of new works as part of Image Behaviour 2021, the ICA’s annual convening dedicated to experiments in artists’ moving image. Artists awarded these grants will then present their new works as part of Image Behaviour 2021, as well as through Dr. Martens’ digital platforms and on Cinema 3, the ICA’s new online platform.

In support of the project we have partnered with the ICA to rollout a poster campaign to build awareness around the open call, this will be followed up with a street gallery to showcase the winning entries later this year.

Visit the ICA website for more information.

The post The ICA and Dr. Martens team up for this year’s edition of Image Behaviour first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In ‘Lockdown A Self Portrait’ – the first of nine photographs on poster sites throughout Glasgow and Edinburgh: the latest iteration of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s Your Space Or Mine artists’ street display project – we see five images of Nadeau variously posed in the same small corner of a cluttered room.

The post Lottie Nadeau delicate, surreal self-portraits displayed in Scotland first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Spanky the hand is front and centre, as he often has been throughout a rise that’s seen Super Freak turn a passion into a career, featuring on the pages of the New York and LA Times as well as working with brands like Vans, Levi’s and Dr Martens. Whitehouse’s signature character has been a key part of his ‘Superverse’ since his inception – in his own words, Spanky ‘is generally the happiest hand around but pretty clumsy so often finds himself in odd predicaments’. The pure cartoonish fun of a happy hand simply having a good time has its own effect, but Super Freak’s work isn’t pure fantasy. In fact there’s something oddly satisfying about the juxtaposition between Spanky’s chirpy demeanour and some of the more downbeat accompanying messaging when reality does occasionally seep in.

Here, though, our brilliantly malleable hero has definitely been caught on one of his good days and is a picture of carefree contentment. To find out a bit more about his influences, process and message behind the work, we caught up with the man himself…

The post Super Freak and the importance of dreaming first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

One of the artist’s most recent creations is a 20ft high mural titled ‘Nous’ or ‘We’ (2020). It’s a striking, refulgent work made during a year that saw the BLM movement catapulting systemic racism to the fore of public consciousness, furthered the Brexit divide and witnessed an edge of the seat election in the US. Against a straw yellow disc Power’s painting features at its base a pair of crossed legs. This meditative pose dynamically morphs into two figures. They have one arm wrapped around each other’s shoulders. Their other hands are pressed palm to palm, overlapping and rendered in such a way as to mimic an anaglyph 3D effect. While our eyes bobble, the figures’ faces merge, their joined hands pulsing together, communicating ‘solidarity, unity and sisterhood’ as the artist intended.

As her ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ 2017 painted piano work suggests – part of Luke Jerram’s international project to install pianos in public spaces for passersby to play – Power holds a special place in her heart for music and the performing arts. Nowadays that seems more important than ever. As she says, “For many of us, boogying on a sticky dance floor at a bar, gig or party seems like a distant dream. I want to give a shout-out to performers, musicians and those in the events industry who have faced a particularly challenging year.”

Power’s collaboration with BuildHollywood’s Your Space Or Mine street display project will showcase a new work featuring a splashy trio of colossal dancers. Appearing on poster sites both singly and together they finger click, writhe and high kick ecstatically against plant forms reminiscent of Matisse’s late cut-outs. But there’s a suggestion too that the figures are dancing underwater. Okay one’s wearing boots but hey! They’re getting down like their lives depended on it, throwing shapes and strutting their vitality even while submerged beneath a barely visible weight. So imagine how much more euphoric and spirited their dancing will become if they ever surfaced. Likewise, you can be sure the dancing will be wild and free when we finally emerge from the gloomy depths of this pandemic. In the meantime Bristol’s streets are in for another treat.

The post Zoë Power first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Yinka’s large scale pieces work with pops of colour to transform public spaces like Thassaly Road Bridge and Dulwich Pavilion into eye-catching, inspiring works of art. Much of his work spreads words of positivity, like a recent commission by Harrow Council, for which Yinka took over an entire wall with a show-stopping rainbow mural reading “LOVE ALWAYS WINS”. His new billboards, which will be live for the month of February, are characteristically bright. Utilising his signature colours and unmistakable eye for design, Yinka chose the words “IF YOU CAN DREAM THEN ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE”. With pink, bold outlined type against a playful background of green, yellows, pinks, and blues, it’s an eye-catching reminder that we are always allowed to dream.

The post Yinka Ilori’s colourful quest to help you keep dreaming first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We had the pleasure of working on some incredibly inspiring campaigns. Campaigns that were spurred on by this collective new wave of energy – that made us smile, think, feel or just ones that were executed brilliantly.

Alongside this, our ongoing Your Space Or Mine project, which gives artists and creatives a platform on the street, really went from strength to strength last year. We collaborated with some amazing talent to place thought-provoking statements and imagery on our streets to celebrate the NHS and key workers, support the Black Lives Matter movement and encourage us all to be there for each other and keep smiling.

So we had a look back at what we’d done in 2020, made this little film, and you know what, it just made us feel a bit better about it all. As always, we couldn’t do any of this without you, so we wanted to thank you all for your support as we look forward to making this a cracking 2021 after what has, let’s face it, been a bumpy start.

We’ve got our shiny new BUILDHOLLYWOOD website coming soon as well – so keep your eyes peeled for that.

The post Our annual retrospective film is here first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Chance happenings in Archer’s daily life also spark ideas: a scribbled note or list that blows across her path in the park; a childhood rhyme or song lyric that returns unexpectedly to mind; the shit things that happen as well as the often-underappreciated everyday pleasures such as dogs, sunshine, bird song and boxes of Mr Kipling’s Cherry Bakewells.

Her cutesy imagery is often cut, however, with an altogether opposing sentiment. That is, the world is sick. Archer often combines delighting, toothsome motifs with hand-painted words that come from the pit of the stomach. Her painting of a lamb, pink bow for a collar with its shiny black hooves frolicking amidst tulips, hibiscus and violets coupled with the phrase ‘My Life Is Crap’ is one example. Then there’s the orange-eyed, pale lilac kitten on a pink ground, an imploring image with an imploring phrase rendered in sunny yellow to go with it, ‘Text Me Yeah?’ A special favourite is a chalky white blancmange with a pinky-red jelly topping set against a grey background. This wobbly dessert is top and tailed with the words ‘Thank God,’ and ‘I’m Normal.’ Archer’s work draws the viewer in through a delighting image and at the same time talks of human frailty and random cruelties, neediness, fear and self-delusion that visit all of us.

The post Magda Archer’s Is It Over Yet? first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We are delighted to be partnering with Choose Love by donating our poster space across the UK to build further awareness for their Choose Love shop, which is the world’s first to sell real products for refugees and displaced communities. Every item represents a similar product or service provided by one of the organisations they support around the world. When you buy an item at Choose Love, they get it to where it’s needed most. Please do visit https://choose.love to support them.

The post Choose Love first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

At the heart of everything they do is an impassioned commitment to candour, transparency and inclusivity across society and in particular the creative industries. Their campaigning for better pay and conditions for everyone – including ancillary staff and support workers – is inspiring. Working for better access, fair treatment and art/community spaces that do more than pay lip service to social engagement is their clarion call.

For the Your Space Or Mine collaboration TWP wanted to address some of the systemic injustices and inequalities that prop up a rarefied, hierarchical model of art production and consumption. Their ‘ideas for a new art world’ comprise direct and ambitious suggestions as to how things might be improved for the many and not just the few. Posters and billboards bearing sparse black text on a series of brilliant colour backgrounds – ‘Shiny Self Care’ blue; ‘Luvd Island’ red and ‘Soft e-Boi Blush’ pinky-lilac, to mention a few – echoing the website ‘Pube Pallete’ (courtesy TWP’s fave designer Amad Ilyas). These grey-day-defying interventions confront passers-by with plain speaking ideas such as ‘old guard gatekeepers need to step aside for diverse leaders that frequently evolve – in art and everything else as well to be honest.

What’s special about TWP is they walk the walk. A visit to thewhitepube.co.uk evidences independent and tireless effort. In their own words, “We decided to start writing and state how art made us feel (happy, bored, angry, in love). We try to write in a way where we would fall through feelings and write about the art along the way (someone would later tell us this is like embodied criticism: body first encounters in the gallery).” Not content to produce numerous, entertaining, always thoughtful and very much felt texts they also support new writers by dishing out grants, champion creatives through offering their site homepage as a rolling platform and provide resources that level the playing field for emerging talents.

Gabrielle and Zarina hail from and currently reside in Liverpool and London respectively – Instagram is their ‘office’ – so over the coming weeks we’ll be sharing TWP’s mini-manifesto for a fairer art world, and a more just society on billboards and street sites in both cities.

Follow them on Instagram, check out their artist shout-outs and read or listen to the sometimes provocative, always attentive, probing and reflective texts via their website. Oh, did I mention they’re also down to earth and often very funny. Taking the world and work seriously doesn’t mean being po-faced. TWP are a breath of fresh air, just what we need to kick off 2021.

The post The White Pube’s ideas for a new art world first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Who convinced the Williams Fairey Brass Band to transcribe and perform a repertoire of acid house music?

Who persuaded ex-miners and police officers to work with members of an historical re-enactment society to recreate the bloody last stand of British coal production?

Who took the buckled, rusty carcass of a motor vehicle bombed in Baghdad on a road trip from New York City to Los Angeles?

Who collaboratively directed a film, narrated by a chameleon, featuring a Japanese dance hall queen called Bom Bom competing for glory in a dusty Jamaican car park?

Who marked the Battle of the Somme 2016 centenary by dispatching across the UK thousands of volunteers dressed in authentic WWI uniforms? When approached they didn’t speak but handed out cards with the name and rank of one of the 20,000 soldiers killed on just the first day of fighting.

Who adores bats, represented Britain in the Venice Biennale with images of tax haven Jersey ablaze, and thinks we should be worshiping lobsters and squid not eating them?

The art wizard Jeremy Deller, that’s who. A man who seems to produce more in a month than I’ve managed in a lifetime. When detective Lieutenant Columbo was asked what made the director John Cassavetes so special he said the man had a most fertile mind.

Ditto Deller. He is a ringmaster who delights his audience. And Deller’s audience isn’t just the art crowd but pretty much anyone with a pulse. He loves to both pose and prompt questions, to entertain, to provoke, to explore, to better understand and share a fierce curiosity and compassionate engagement with people and diverse cultures.

There are works that quietly seethe at injustice: the material banners commissioned on which, writ large, are callous texts sent to employees exploited by the gig economy. Others, like his bouncy castle replica of Stonehenge, at first seem a vehicle for sheer physical joy but along with the somersaults is a critique as to what’s considered heritage, what it’s for and who it belongs to.

Last year Deller made Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984 – 1992. In this film he talks to a group of young students about the origins and development of rave culture in the context of social and technological change, how the ad hoc parties in abandoned factories in Northern towns across the UK were – like Thatcher’s defeat of the miners – a ‘death ritual’ that marked a transition from an Industrial to a Service economy. The 1980s was a time of desperate uncertainty, a pivotal decade economically, socially and politically. It looks like we’re about to launch into another one. Hold on to your bucket hats.

Some of Deller’s earliest exhibited artworks were the posters he made advertising imagined exhibitions, apocryphal events that perhaps only he wanted to see at the time. He’s gone on to produce works on billboards and further forays in the primal medium of the poster.

In 2017 his ‘Strong and Stable My Arse’ work in response to Theresa May’s election campaign phrase caught the mood of the nation. Just before the first COVID– 19 restrictions Deller’s equally blunt ‘Tax Avoidance Kills’ posters sprung up across London. With design collaborator Fraser Muggeridge during lockdown they produced and sold thousands of ‘Thank God For Immigrants’ posters in aid of refugee support and action tackling food poverty.

Street display addresses two of Deller’s key criteria in producing work: accessibility and participation. Another quality often evident is plain speaking. Which brings us to the BUILDHOLLYWOOD family’s current Your Space Or Mine collaboration with the artist. To coincide with Human Rights Day on Dec. 10th billboards throughout the country will carry a chilling reminder that all across the world people are being denied their basic human rights.

These stark, dolent works spotlight numerous locations where atrocities persist: the water poisoning in Flint, Michigan, USA; the treatment of refugees at Brook House, Gatwick, UK; the genocide of Muslim minority Rohingya people in Rakhine State, Myanmar; etcetera. The posters don’t go into detail. They simply point to the incongruity between a professed adherence to the universal declaration of human rights and what actually goes on across the world. All 193 member states of the United Nations sign up to the UDHR, and yet… and yet…

So, while 2020 has been a bit of a bummer, and the coming season looks like being more of a damp squib than festive bash, just thank your lucky stars you don’t live in Saudi Arabia, or Nigeria’s Borno State, or Minsk in Belarus… Wait a minute, that’s the point isn’t it? It’s not about geography. It’s about people and conscience and caring. A true Christmas message. And one that’s not just for Christmas.

The post Jeremy Deller’s provocative billboards for World Human Rights Day first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As the students were unable to show off their hard work at an end of year show as they would in previous years, we wanted to offer an inspiring alternative, bringing their work to the eyes of an even bigger audience.

The post University of Westminster photography students showcase work in East London first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

His love of music is another big influence that often seeps into his work, and especially his shows, which can be traced back to his parents who started one of Scotland’s first reggae nights in Dundee in the late 70s after meeting in the city. He cites the music he was exposed to growing up as a key part of his creative education and built on his family’s history by recreating Reggae Klub for one night only at V&A Dundee last year with his dad Jeffrey, aka IMan SLYGo, playing records and his mum Maureen leading a knitting workshop.

Challenging the notion of what fashion shows ‘should’ be, his AW18 collection ‘Red Clay’ drew on the fashion of Miles Davis and was presented in the form of London artists including James Massiah and Nabihah Iqbal performing while wearing the pieces. He’s also worked with Adidas and Fred Perry, again taking inspiration from the latter’s musical heritage fusing punk and reggae for a AW20 collection that featured a liberal sprinkling of tartan among reworked classics. Community in collaboration are important to Daley too – together with Fred Perry he launched a grant for unsigned artists to go along with his collection and a section of the profits from his Reggae Klub t-shirts went to jazz education and artist development organisation Tomorrow’s Warriors.

The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family are excited to be linking up with Nicholas for his first poster campaign as we begin a series of fashion collaborations at a tough time for the industry and emerging designers in particular. With spaces across London, we’re celebrating Daley with a retrospective of his last year’s work featuring the photography of Piczo and Bolade Banjo as well as the illustrations of Gaurab Thakali. The campaign also highlights his upcoming 2021 Now Gallery immersive exhibition RETURN TO SLYGO, a ‘celebration of music, culture, fashion and ancestry’ which will blend his three core values of community, culture and craftsmanship. The campaign will also start up again for a second phase before London Fashion Week in February. Check out the interview below.

The post Nicholas Daley is celebrating music and roots through menswear first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family have taken a retrospective look at some of the finest street campaigns we’ve had the pleasure of working on. From thought-provoking to artful, moving to entertaining, or just great examples of creative ideas that were executed wonderfully, we’ve seen them all. So, without further ado and in no particular order, here are our top 10 campaign picks from 2020.

The post Our top 10 campaign picks from 2020 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The first studio album in eight years Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres said they knew they were onto something special when Rolling Stone writer David Fricke – having already supplied the sleeve notes – asked for more time, “to do the album justice.” The hunch proved right as the disc later went on to feature in 2020’s album of the year recommendations in Mojo, BBC Radio 6 Music, Uncut, Record Collector, Shindig! and more.

BUILDHOLLYWOOD were, of course, on board for the original poster campaign back in March. Singh explains that the artwork – featuring an androgynous warrior/saint-like character – was designed by long-time Cornershop friend and collaborator Nick Edwards. “…It’s certainly part of the charm of the album, we thought it was different and striking enough to make a great street poster. The image provokes questions, like the album title itself.”

Singh went on to observe, “One positive thing about the enforced isolation so many endured was that more and more people got to listen to the record and the albums upbeat nature helped people stay positive.” It is a brilliant, multi-layered listen. Full of thoughtful lyric provocations and their characteristic synthesis of instruments and broad musical influences while at the same time it’s unabashedly dancey and fun with earworms to spare.

The post Cornershop first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

‘Kid A’s panoramas of power were fuelled in part by 1990s news reports of war in former Yugoslavia; visuals for ‘OK Computer’ derived from imagining a nuclear winter, the aftermath of human devastation; abstract imagery for a ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ evoke the unpredictability and power of the elements.

Likewise, the stark, graphic rendition of London deluged by floods for Thom Yorke’s solo album ‘The Eraser’ pictures man made doom. And there’s work like Ness (pub. 2018) – a collaboration with nature writer Robert Macfarlane – inspired by and portraying a very strange landscape, the shingle spit of longshore drift known as Orford Ness in Suffolk. Donwood started making imagery with materials found on the coast: sea coal, mud and clay. But as is often the case with this artist – who is so flexibly and sensitively attuned to making work that elicits feelings, experience and senses beyond words – the chosen media morphed to fine penmanship, detailed drawings that capture both the ephemeral atmospheres and architectural archaeology of a strip of land that’s been used for decades as a military test site. Bad Island published earlier this year on the cusp of UK’s COVID-19 pandemic is a stunning and stark wordless graphic saga. Eighty monochromatic lino prints made over a period of two years chronicle both the discovery of a rich and magical world and, with a sense of inevitability, its destruction.

So what’s with the work showcased in this latest Your Space Or Mine outing for BUILDHOLLYWOOD? Are we seeing Donwood’s sunnier side? “I’m trying to make pictures that elicit some kind of happiness. It’s a novel concept for me,” said the artist. Looking at the vertically formatted Sol, its giant refulgent sun almost seems able to warm viewers’ faces. It is a beautifully pared down design with rich flora in the foreground and skeins of woven luminosity emanating from the star at the centre of our solar system. The source of light and life.

A larger work called Set will appear on 48 sheet billboards and other sites across the country. A detail from a fundraiser released through Donwood’s new imprint The Lost Domain, Set shows a squall of birds silhouetted against a raging sky. It is sublime, and uplifting but still, there’s clearly unnerving depths to Donwood’s foray into cheering the nation.

That said, in an effort to chime with the artist’s newfound shift towards brighter subject matter, we embarked on a light-hearted chat with Donwood, proposing a baker’s dozen of questions covering fashion, beauty, celeb and lifestyle news. All in a further bid to temper the mood of gloom that stalks the land. Here we go:

The post Stanley Donwood first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Earlier this year, we spotlighted Mark Titchner’s artwork PLEASE BELIEVE THESE DAYS WILL PASS in a series of bright posters which offered a rallying cry for hope and endurance across nation during the early days of the pandemic. With the UK back behind closed doors, we are collaborating with Mark once again to showcase 4 new inspiring artworks on our sites across the capital as we head into the grey winter months. It includes the messages HOPE REVEALS THE WORLD, THERE WILL BE A WAY, THE SUN RISES BRIGHT and THE FUTURE WILL BE BUILT FROM TODAY.

The post Mark Titchner returns with inspiring posters to celebrate the London Bridge community first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Perhaps a style of visual art that produces perceptual ambiguity, illusion and contradictions is particularly fitting to the times we’re living through now. If the ground isn’t literally shifting beneath our feet a half-glimpse at the news, wary trips to the shops or any attempt to plan something concrete in coming weeks, perhaps months, induces a debilitating dizziness at the uncertainty of it all.

The Your Space Or Mine Build Hollywood street displays in Sheffield currently feature works by the award winning local artist Rob Lee. He is more than a dab hand at the skills required of the op artist: anamorphic installations, dazzle graphics, plays on perspective, the production of complex, paradoxical space by manipulating parallel lines and waves and the clever deployment of chromatic tension are his forte.

The post Rob Lee first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

To promote the track, we collaborated with Caroline International on something super special that captured the energy of the track. As well as posters and actual lemonade stands, we created an installation of a carton of lemonade. Larger-than-life, with bright yellow packaging and a red-and-white straw, the piece was toured around London, an unmissable homage to the song.

The post Internet Money keep turning lemons into Lemonade first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

None of these more established names could claim to have had a better spring lockdown than No Signal, though. You couldn’t move for timeline debate around the station’s flagship show #NS10v10 which pitted artists like Skepta and Giggs and Missy Elliot and Busta Rhymes against each other, with over 200,000 listening in and voting on Twitter as Wizkid took his clash with Vybz Kartel 10-0.

The team is over 40 volunteers deep, spanning producers and DJs to designers and social media managers all focused on the importance of keeping things fun and community-focused, not surprising given the Sonubi brothers’ history as promoters with their Recess parties. Education, information and entertainment are the three key pillars for the station who’ve labelled themselves as #blackradio, not shying away from supporting social causes like BLM and The Black Curriculum.

The post No Signal and their year book of stars first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The lush digital painting titled ‘Glasgow Tenement’ features a young woman seated at a tall, open sash window. She’s perched with one leg folded over the other, smoking a cigarette. It’s the colours as much as the composition that hint at this everyday solace being never-the-less a special time. Rich mustard walls, dark greens and purples, dusky blue sky outside and languorous plant life around her all suggest a moment of quiet calm. We sense the tranquil atmosphere and connect to a figure lost in her own thoughts.

Other portraits are brasher, equally enthralling but sometimes almost formidable. In the work titled ‘Jaconelli’s’ – the Scottish/Italian café famous for its fry-ups and ice cream – a womxn sits casually on the back of her booth seat, munching a chip and looking directly at the viewer as if to say, ‘This is me, taking up my space, get used to it!’ Again, striking hues compliment Hankinson’s unerringly bold design. The use of pattern and block colour conjures thoughts of Patrick Caulfield but spying the row of sweet jars in the background there’s wit and sense of place too. Anyone for a quarter of Soor Plums?

The post Molly Hankinson first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The idea for the campaign came from creatives Nathalie Gordon, Amy Fasey and Jacob Hellström, who contacted artists of different genders, sexualities and nationalities to contribute original pieces of art for the Museum to be sold at an online auction with all proceeds going back to the Museum in a bid to keep it open.

The Vagina Museum operates on a fully inclusive basis and is proud to be an LGBTQ+ and intersex ally – it was paramount that the people approached to work on this campaign (and the work created) were representative of that. In the end, 58 artists created unique pieces based on the vagina. From embroidered textile banners from Millie Sewell-Knight to line drawing of public hair from Mr. Bingo to gold leaf covered clay casts of the clitoris from Merissa Hylton to a queer self-portrait from Ezra Smith, the breath of original pieces available is truly unique.

We’re delighted to be partnering with the Vagina Museum to celebrate it’s re-opening by donating our poster space. A selection of the beautifully evocative artworks are now being featured on our sites across London.

The post The Vagina Museum re-opens with the help of 58 artists first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Secret 7” co-founder Kevin King about the incredible project, how it’s grown over the years and find out what’s next.

The post Secret 7” first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family are hugely pleased that Robinson has agreed to our displaying two poems from his recent collection ‘A Portable Paradise’ (pub. by Peepal Tree Press) on the streets of the UK. This duo of strikingly designed posters is the latest Your Space Or Mine project which gives artists and creatives a platform on the street.

The post Roger Robinson’s poetry for the people first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We are delighted to support the Alt-D movement and bring their digital exhibition to life – showcasing a collage of 83 Edinburgh Art School graduate works onto two of our Meadowbank poster sites. The street level display showcases an impressive host of artistic specialisms and aims to increase accessibility and present the works to a wider audience in a safe and distanced way.

We commissioned BA Photography student Josephine Berry to capture the campaign artwork for us.  Project led by Jody Mulvey, assisted by Amber Brown, design and graphics by Thea Bryant and Beth Harle. (2020 graduates) Check out the full digital exhibition online: alt-d.online

The post Showcasing Alt degree show on Meadowbank first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

So, along with other renowned artists who’ve made bold statements in the public domain – Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, the Guerrilla Girls – Wilde doesn’t mince words. Her infamous print ‘DADDY I WANT A FUCKING PONY’ being a case in point. The spoilt, petulant tone summons up Roald Dahl’s Veruca Salt character in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ while at the same time it addresses a privileged sense of entitlement, class iniquity, the patriarchy, consumerism… And it’s funny. Wilde’s wit speaks multiple truths. Which brings us to ‘DADDY I WANT TO PAINT A LOUSY MURAL IN SHOREDITCH!’. A riff on the snarky ‘I went to X and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’ trope, is the artist perchance suggesting East London’s good folk might be overly exposed to glib, sometimes even cynical art on walls? We’ll leave that to you Dear Reader.

The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family of JACK, JACK ARTS and DIABOLICAL has collaborated with curator Olly Walker to realise this work, the latest Your Space Or Mine project which gives artists and creatives a platform on the street. With Dr.D aka Subvertiser‘s vulpine support, Wilde has made her own ironic wish come true and created an apt and timely riposte to the role that some variations of street based art have played in the gentrification of our cities.

Calling for a more thoughtful approach regarding urban interventions Wilde has said ‘I want us to be more conscious of what we’re putting out there, who we are working for and with and the wider implications of what we do. And I want us to question the effect our creations have on local communities and their attitudes.’ Wilde’s ‘LOUSY MURAL’ for Your Space Or Mine evinces both ethical concern and a motivation to visually delight viewers. Bespoke, eye-catching communication that embraces germane placement, wit and a working moral compass: The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family’s ideal artist partner for sure.

The post Aida Wilde’s anti-gentrification mural first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Robinson commented, “Thirteen years ago, I launched Create Not Hate to open the eyes of black inner-city school kids to their creative potential. Fast forward to 2020 and, while much has changed, much still hasn’t. Profound inequalities in society, as well as the issue of the lack of diverse talent being fully utilised in our particular industry, remain unresolved.

The post Create Not Hate first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The exhibition features some big-name visual artists and writers: Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, Turner Prize-winner Jeremy Deller and German fashion photography luminary Juergen Teller. Its focus, though, is defiantly humble. Many of the contributing artists and writers have chosen to portray family members, friends, or people in their local communities. Often disarmingly intimate, each portrait – whether originally rendered in paint, charcoal, photography, collage, or with language – is vividly imaginative and emotionally compelling in its own way.

We are delighted to be the media partner for this inspiring exhibition and have now extended it off-site with portraits presented across several of our billboards on selected streets all over London and other cities throughout the UK including Birmingham, Brighton, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield.  Everyday Heroes is open September – November. Find out more here.

The post The Southbank Centre celebrates key workers in an outdoor art and poetry exhibition first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The newly formed Castle Quarter Café – which is built directly on Castle Street – is part of a wider range of measures being put in place to increase useable, outdoor space for the hospitality sector which is trying to recover from the effects of the pandemic. The surrounding floor vinyl design was created by our Your Space or Mine artist Patternista‘s and in support of Cardiff Council and our local clients in the hospitality sector, we have transformed the designs into poster format for a wider display across the city, to welcome the public back to Cardiff properly.

The post Cardiff Welcomes us back first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

‘Art is powerful and at a time when all Scotland’s venues are closed for the foreseeable future, they can still have a voice by offering their walls and doors to be used for this dramatic, vital statement of support for Black Lives Matter.’

The artworks – colourful, challenging, moving, powerful and diverse – have been created by artists from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, all living in Scotland, find the full list of locations and join the trail:  https://www.wezi.uk/mural-trail-locations/

The post Black Lives Matter Mural Trail first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Avalanche Records are an independent music shop specialising in supporting new music and championing Scottish artists, Billy is known for his art pieces and illustration series based on the contemporary pop art movement – in collaboration they are taking the streets of Edinburgh by storm with punchy, cartoon inspired illustrations paired with stylish black graphics.  We posted these across the city to mark the reopening of their Waverley Mall shop, brightening our drums and creating intrigue across our boards.

The post Butcher Billy designs for Avalanche Records first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The dual language posters alternate across our frames creating a space between the other campaigns on the site – literally socially distancing them! We loved this concept and it was a pleasure to bring this campaign to live as we gently ease out of lockdown and get back to business – whilst keeping Wales safe.

The post Socially distancing posters for the Government first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We are delighted to form a part of the proceedings and showcase works from three exciting contemporary artists on our sites across Edinburgh – forming a street gallery for this years’ alternative festival offerings.

Ruth Ewan, who revisits her Sympathetic Magick (2018) project with an online presentation of her short film, Worker’s Song Storydeck, and a special poster series devised with magician Ian Saville. Artist and activist Ellie Harrison presents an up-to-date version of her graph showing the tonnes of carbon produced by the personal transportation of a ‘professional artist’ and Tam Joseph re-presents The hand made map of the world, Transforming and subverting the ‘World Political Map’, renaming familiar landmasses (America becomes China; United Kingdom becomes Cuba) to lay bare the destructive quest for territorial control which has dominated geopolitics over the centuries.

Find out more about the full programme: https://www.edinburghartfestival.com/

The post Edinburgh Art Festival Artists first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

For our Your Space Or Mine series, we at BUILDHOLLYWOOD collaborated with Kaggwa to bring her message to the street via art in our billboard spaces in London, Bristol, Glasgow and Cardiff. Kaggwa’s piece began life as a mural painted in Deptford: “The lockdown restrictions in London at the time of conceiving this project were much stricter, and like many people, I was still spending a lot of time at home consuming hours of social media content following the wave of global civil rights protests,” says Kaggwa on the art’s origin.

“The resource sharing posts and images of crowds waving placards were alluding to a shift in consciousness, but it was only once I started seeing posters in people’s windows during walks around my local area that it began to feel like something tangible outside of my Instagram echo chamber was actually changing,” she adds. As more and more people who had previously been either “apathetic or ignorant to the systemic and institutional scale of racism” were waking up to it, Kaggwa felt a strong current of hope under her despair and exhaustion. She wanted to bring that feeling to others on a large scale, so asked her friend Naomi Edmondson, who runs legal street art project Survival Techniques to collaborate with her.

The post Magda Kaggwa’s “All Black Lives Matter” message hits the streets first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Born, educated and bred in London, Myerscough is dedicated to enriching her local community. For the Design Museum, she created their first free permanent exhibition, featuring hand-picked selections from the museum’s archive. She transformed Battersea Power Station, a notoriously drab location, with a vivid piece entitled “POWER”. She has also worked further afield, transforming the children’s bedrooms at Sheffield Hospital into spaces that actively improve the patients’ wellbeing.

For our Your Space Or Mine collaboration with Myerscough, she’s created an artwork that will be displayed at our poster sites across the country. Reading “Sun Dance”, the vibrant posters spread the positivity that Myerscough is known for. As she puts it: “It is always time to dance.” To celebrate the launch, we interviewed Myerscough on her work:

The post Morag Myerscough transforms everyday spaces with love first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The eye-catching campaign is a continuation of their recent activation where they installed neon pink warning tape outside of the UK theatres, from London’s Barbican to Edinburgh Playhouse the campaign highlighted the closure of the theatres, and the forgotten workers and freelancers who usually work behind the scenes.  With so many of our amazing clients still effected by the lockdown rules, we show our solidarity with an industry that has for centuries shaped our cultural heritage and play our part in helping the curtains rise again.

The post Scene Change first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The Manchester College is the largest further education college in the United Kingdom. As the number one provider of 16–19 and adult education in Greater Manchester it is a major education and skills player in the region – they hit the streets in their latest campaign to appeal to a younger demographic, using bold photography and simple text the campaign encourages viewers to unleash their creativity and start something fresh this term.

The post Be amazing with The Manchester College first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

“I find myself drawn to the work of womxn artists which often speaks directly to my interests and concerns. At the same time, I continue to be surprised and saddened by the inequalities which perpetuate in the contemporary art world,” Neave said of the decision to launch her project. She was particularly motivated by a 2019 report from the Freelands Foundation that revealed that opportunities for women artists are increasing at a “painfully slow rate”.

Without money or connections, many marginalised voices cannot create or promote their art, but by commissioning new work, Ellipsis gives them the space to breathe. They also aim to further careers by allowing artists to expand their practice while providing visibility, sales, and support. Ellipsis currently exists online and in exhibitions in London, so we decided to collaborate with them for our Your Space Or Mine series, in which we offer artists poster space to spread their messaging.

The post Ellipsis Prints highlights early-career womxn artists in Hackney first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Top Boy is back first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Over 800 impressive applications were submitted, ranging from poetry to photography to makeup looks. Their esteemed judges managed to narrow that down to just 47 pieces that reflects the vibrancy and diversity of the capital. Londoners will be able to view selected entries alongside the works that inspired them, on our billboards in Camden, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Southwark and Walthamstow.

All featured works respond to a range of much-loved artworks from Tate’s collection, including Sir John Everett Millais Ophelia 1851-52, John Martin The Plains of Heaven 1851-3 and John Simpson Head of a Man (Ira Frederick Aldridge?) 1827, currently on display at Tate Britain. Wassily Kandinsky Swinging 1925, Ibrahim El-Salahi Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams I 1961–5, Sheba Chhachhi Urvashi – Staged Portrait, Gulmohar Park, Delhi 1990 and Guerrilla Girls from Guerrilla Girls Talk Back, Dearest Art Collector 1986.

The work spans mediums, moods and themes: from a photograph of sandwiches dripping in paint to a painting of a man who is half-skeleton to stunning portraiture to floral dreamscapes. The pieces are diverse and intriguing, showcasing the incredible talent from London-based artists that might otherwise have gone unseen.

The billboards will be up until August 21 and will be accompanied by takeovers across Tate Collective’s social media channels. More information on the artworks can be found here.

The post Tate Collective Young creatives take over London billboards first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The package will include, well, everything. Food, flowers, dress, cake venue, photography, music, shoes, planning and on the day hands-on help will all be sorted for one lucky couple. We teamed up with Love Made Me Weddings to provide poster sites to promote the important prize draw, featuring a couple kissing and the words “thank you NHS”. Find out more here.

The post One Lucky NHS Worker Can Win a Free Wedding first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As the pandemic has closed many art galleries, the Molasses Gallery aims to bring this art to the public. Curator Tanaka Saburi says: “we believe we can spur philanthropy whilst educating the public with knowledge of often pigeonholed artists within our own city of London”. The inspiring project features works by emerging and established interdisciplinary artists of African and Caribbean heritage to coincide with renewed discussion around the role and recognition of Black artists in the creative industries.

Design-led by Nina Kunzendorf, the exhibition was inspired by a poem by New York artist Gordon Parks. Written in 1975, “To a Black Artist” remains ever-relevant today, and its influence is felt throughout the vibrant work that as Saburi says, features artists “with a multitude of different narratives that share one commonality,” conveying their own unique experiences through art.

The post The Molasses Gallery first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In 2001 she turned her avid, poetic and forensic gaze on a porn version of the Lewis Carroll classic. Banner’s Arsewoman in Wonderland screen printed in pink ink on a white billboard caused a stir when displayed at the Tate in 2002 but overall her practice elicits thoughtful, multi-layered engagement rather than ‘oo-er missus’ knee jerk reactions. Her ekphrastic transcriptions slow down perception, forcing viewers to apprehend sensation more deliberately, with an enhanced attention and self-awareness that viewing commercial productions rarely engenders.

Prose can seem transparent. While reading we discern ideas, feelings, scenarios but this act of decoding passes over or through the words so that once meanings have been gleaned the words evaporate. In Banner’s hands words, letters, even for single punctuation marks, it’s the physical form and material qualities that are bought to the fore.

In Buoys Boys (2016) the artist took full stops from five different typefaces and made them into large helium filled inflatables that bobbed around in the sky above the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea. For another work Banner spent nearly 20 years collecting the entire back catalogue of Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft books. Titled 1909 – 2011, she displays the annuals as a four-metre tall stack. Transformed into a sculpture, all the detailed description and seductive design pertaining to more than a century of aviation is hidden from sight. Denied the geeky info and sexy pics we are encouraged instead to arrive at a more complex, ethical considerations as to the subject of planes and human flight.

The post Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The latest artist to collaborate on the Your Space Or Mine street poster collaboration with the BUILDHOLLYWOOD family is Carleen de Sözer. Birmingham born but living and working in London for many years De Sözer’s practice spans tattoo design to street murals, works on canvas to CD covers, clothing to delivering numerous workshops for black women artists and young people. She’s both widely recognised and greatly admired for her figurative aerosol portraits often rendered in a classic black and golden yellow palette.

For the Your Space Or Mine street poster De Sözer has set aside her signature style and opted for a stark clenched fist design in primal colours: black, red and white. Gesture of anti-authoritarian collective resistance, the BPP focussed the symbolism of a clenched fist as a demand for black civil rights, an end to police brutality as well as the public policies and institutional practices that perpetuate injustice. She explains “I first designed this image after the London riots in 2011 it was initially meant to be a t-shirt print, the design was intentionally basic and bold and slightly miss quoted, changing the (a) to (the) to fit in the allocated space on the wrist. I wanted the image to look like it came from the 60’s, from the Black Panther Party. I took the quote from Black Panther leader Fred Hampton “you can jail a revolutionary, but you can’t jail a revolution” I changed the quote to

The post Carleen De Sözer first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Pogus Caesar first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

For a takeover in their city of Cardiff, Patternistas created an eye-catching, bold design that wouldn’t look out of place on a one-of-a-kind rug. With beaming sunshine faces, threads of colour and words reading, “kindness is catching, pass it on”, the work is bound to bring smiles to passing commuters and people on their errands. “We wanted to inject a sense of fun and spread some happy, shiny, sunny positivity at a time when so many people are feeling insecure and isolated,” says Suzanne of their intent.

The message, Suzanne feels, is the perfect antidote to “the general anxiety about catching or spreading the virus.” Plus, as many people are leaning on each other and their communities for help and support, we’re feeling the support of our local areas more than ever, and giving it back in equal servings. “It’s true that you can’t give kindness away – it will always come back to you in one form or another and the more kindness we experience the sunnier we feel,” says Suzanne, adding that they hope the image will “make people smile both on the streets and from behind their screens.”

Patternistas’ attraction to bold colours like those in the patterns of Singapore and Zambia shines through in this piece. The pair see patterns in everything, from puddles to trees to leaves. Suzanne adds that even we are patterns if you look closely enough, and “recognising that helps deepen our connection to one another and planet”. She says, too, that, “It’s always helpful to remember that we all have more in common than that which sets us apart but in the face of a global pandemic hopefully it’s at the forefront of all of our minds.”

Forever optimistic, Suzanne sees the positive in the pandemic: “most people are appreciating cleaner air and green spaces so we’re keeping hopeful that there will be lasting positives from these darker times.”

www.patternistas.co.uk

The post Suzanne Carpenter first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

‘The Sum of Us’, by poet Tony Walsh, is a powerful and thought-provoking new poem to bring the country back together as we begin to emerge from 12 weeks of lockdown, and show that collectively the sum of us is greater than its parts.

‘The Sum of Us’ has been commissioned by New Writing North, the writing development agency for the North of England.  We have collaborated with the talented design agency,  The Office of Craig Oldham, to create a site-specific display of the poem, running across 10 of our individually framed poster sites on Newton Street, in the heart of Manchester’s Northern Quarter.  The design has taken into consideration the clever use of language and play on mathematical terminology throughout, resulting in a design that utilises mathematical symbols to engage the passing views and create a visual flow across the ten posters

Watch ‘The Sum of Us’ here: https://newwritingnorth.com/tony-walsh-the-sum-of-us/

The post The Sum of Us – new Tony Walsh poem displayed in the heart of the Northern Quarter first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

All Social Recluse’s poster designs feature strong graphic linear representations set against subtle single colour backgrounds. In ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ the famous equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington has, of course, somewhat incongruous headgear. The ritual of crowning the Duke with a traffic cone epitomises Glaswegian’s anti-authoritarian spirit and irrepressible humour. The lyric derives from the 1985’ Simple Minds’ hit and is one of the most popular songs to come out of the city. “I wanted to get into people’s heads and talk to them,” the designer said.

The haunting refrain of ‘Oh Let Me Tell You That I Love You… That I Think About You All The Time’ from the song Caledonia is aptly paired with the silhouettes of famous Glasgow music venues. The sense of longing for home and family is palpable and reminds us how much we’re missing the sounds and companionship of attending gigs, concerts and communal singalongs.

Another famous Glasgow venue, the Barrowland Ballroom, sits beneath Jerry Rafferty and Joe Egan’s ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’. It’s a lyric that sums up the occasional despair of being cooped up inside with people we love but from time to time may feel we’ve seen quite enough. Obviously for Quentin Tarantino film fans it conjures up an altogether more disturbing instance of lockdown but maybe we’ll draw a veil over that one. Real life is shocking enough.

instagram.com/socialrecluse/

The post Social Recluse first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Baillie is a graphic designer based in Edinburgh who currently works with cultural organisations like V&A Dundee, Glasgow Short Film Festival and Dundee Contemporary Arts. For the collaboration, he has created a bold, blue poster with bright yellow, green and pink block lettering reading “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things”. With a backdrop of images like cash registers, nurse’s uniforms and parcels, it highlights the necessary role that people from delivery workers to NHS staff to retail workers have played throughout the last few months. Plus, hopefully, it’ll help us to realise that their role is not yet over, even if we are allowed to go to the shops.

“Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things” is a fitting phrase to honour the way in which we have all worked towards safeguarding each other during the pandemic,” says Baillie of his design. As well as the visual references to key jobs, there are some more hidden nods to the various roles ordinary people have played: “The stitching line in the top-right corner of the design is a nod to the individuals and organisations who have given their time and resources to make scrubs and PPE, as well as the wider story of people all over the country who have been doing what they can to help, whether it be through volunteering or simply doing their very best to follow guidance and keep themselves and others safe.”

Even the colourful lettering designed and created by Baillie holds a deeper meaning and message: “The design also features bespoke type, with each letter built-up using geometric blocks, again alluding to the idea of people from different walks of life coming together.” We’ve had to all work together in recent months, helping out neighbours and friends with everyday tasks and keeping each other safe.

Baillie hopes that when ordinary people see the poster out in the streets (especially now they’re allowed out more regularly) it’ll “help to brighten up their day”. He wants to reinforce that everyone’s experience has been unique: “I imagine they’ll have their own examples of what the title “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things’ means to them.” While things are easing up, the fight for many ordinary people is not over, the BUILDHOLLYWOOD family will continue to use their street space to honour them and to offer bright messages of hope to the community.

martinbaillie.com

The post Martin Baillie first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Your Space Or Mine is a side project in which the BUILDHOLLYWOOD family offer its poster space to artists in cities across the UK to spread their positive messaging. Right now, it’s more important than ever – lots of people are lonely and in need of uplifting messages. Keen to bring positivity to the streets, Woollvin’s work will be on display in Sheffield.

Called “House Party”, the piece spreads warmth outside while reinforcing the possible magic of staying inside. In gentle but bright colours of pleasing turquoise, pink and yellow shades, the piece features fantastical scenes in a cutaway illustration of a house. It shows what’s possible if you only use your imagination: dancing cats, an octopus eating cake in the bath, and bears wrestling in the living room are among the fun images Woollvin chose to create.

Also available as a print with 25% of profits going to NHS Charities Together, Woollvin’s work breaks the idea that staying inside is boring. “The ‘Your Space Or Mine’ project allowed me to embrace the many ways households are managing isolation,” she says, adding, “Focusing on the small moments of joy we have found in our homes, whether you’re binge-watching tv, studying the stars or eating cake in the bath!”

Just like Woollvin’s other work, House Party is playful, but it carries deeper messages: “It enables me to spread positivity to the wider community,” she says.

www.bethanwoollvin.com

The post Bethan Woollvin first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Hearts, eyeballs, petals, teeth, smiles, worms, wedges, a grinning grey rat and fly agaric mushroom jostle around, behind, over and in between vertically arranged black letters that spell ‘Love’. Pink flicky drips, rocket powered bananas and those miniature mountains looking very fondly at one another. The whole shebang is a psychedelic, loony love-in.

Whitehouse observed how in Birmingham “All the places where I love to eat, drink and hang out with friends are sadly closing their doors. But despite the challenges I’ve seen so much compassion and support in our community… It reminds me how bloody brilliant this city is.”

In ‘Hope’ the smiling Mickey Mouse gloves make an appearance again, the rat wearing shades is there too but he’s pink this time. The word ‘Hope’ beams out amidst the mayhem in sunny yellow. The spatial playfulness in Whitehouse’s work is astonishing. If ‘Love’ has the feel of a freaky featured inferno, ‘Hope’ with its planets and spaceship reaches beyond the clouds to infinity.

Both works afford a joyful panacea to corona worries. The scramble of craziness also reminds us what happy gatherings used to be like. Whitehouse’s clever compositions let us imagine his visual cacophonies go beyond the frame, as if they are snapshots of some jubilant crowd on a beach, in the street, at a club. Meanwhile it’s a delight to lose yourself in these hypnotic, hallucinatory works. While we wait for the lovely days to return.

www.super-freak.co.uk

The post Super Freak first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

‘Let’s Make This Love Normal’ and ‘Kindness At Its Proper Level’ are big-hearted thoughts… Purnell’s Your Space Or Mine COVID-19 collaboration with the BUILDHOLLYWOOD family is the latest in a long line of conscientious visual interventions on the urban environment. His Add Art project promotes likeminded designers’ and artists’ work. Selling Virtues is another initiative that seeks to critically examine the slew of unsettling messages and imagery we are often bombarded with in our towns and cities.

Purnell noted that “This pandemic has made clear we can’t maintain current lifestyles; if everything stops for just a few weeks, the effects are beyond comprehension. It has exposed to some, the need for family, to others the gift of community.”

In all three poster iterations hopeful and anticipatory phrases are broken into single words that range across bands of fuchsia pink and sap green, marigold orange, bumblebee yellow and clear sky blue. The minimal design – five bars of colour on a black ground – make Purnell’s heartfelt calls for fellow feeling all the more prominent.

Block black capitalised letters and no-frills kerning qualify the rainbow sentiment. Yes, the isolation, rigours and grief of past weeks, months have often bought out, demanded the best of people. But the stark design communicates an urgency: we cannot afford to lose sight of newfound acts of kindness, love and community. Neither must we forget the light these times have shone on social and occupational injustice.

There’s a lot of talk about things returning to ‘normal’, getting back to work, rebooting the economy… We’re not going back to normal. We will go forward to something else. We have to. Visual creatives with a conscience can perhaps help direct our future path, our future actions, so as to achieve post COVID-19 a fairer, kinder and more inclusive ‘Community Like Never Before’.

www.micahpurnell.com

The post Micah Purnell first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

O’Hara works across different disciplines: mural painting, design, and illustration. She’s particularly fascinated by fluidity and bold colour combinations: “I’m interested in capturing the fluidity of an image in motion,” she says. At a time when many people are looking to feel uplifted and positive, work like O’Hara’s, with its flowing shapes and bright colours, is more necessary than ever.

Displayed on billboards across Brighton and Hove, her collaboration reads, “everything is an opportunity,” in her trademark wavy text against a background of bright, flowing pink, orange and blue shapes. It’s a reminder to use this time carefully, if you can, not just to reflect but to do things you really want to: start new hobbies and projects, or keep in touch with friends.

The billboard is a testament to O’Hara’s optimism: “For me it’s important that I try and find something positive in every bad situation, perhaps something that I have learnt,” she tells us. The intention with her work is always to uplift, and on a large scale like this, it’s even easier to bring joy to many. “During this time, I think it’s particularly important that I do this with my work, in any way I can, which makes this the perfect collaboration,” she says, adding: “I wanted to create something bold and clear. Almost a strip back of what I usually do, whilst still keeping it in style.”

O’Hara’s positive, playful outlook on life feeds into her work’s ethos, making her projects, which are often on large scales, uplifting. She’s transformed many outdoor spaces, from walls to basketball courts, and her work with us is powerful, with a simple goal: “I want people to walk by and feel positively powerful and uplifted.”

www.loisohara.co.uk

The post Lois O’Hara first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The #medicineonthewall collaboration between Dr John Lee of Bristol University’s iBA programme in Medical Humanities and the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft (aka the ‘PRSC’ who, from 2007, have been at the forefront of defending public spaces, cultural freedoms and promoting alternative voices across the city) brings together local graffiti writers and street artists – including Ryder, Decay, Uncredited, 3dom and Sepr – to prescribe ‘Graphic Medicine’ on urban walls.

Lee explains, “#medicineonthewalls resists the notion of a standard patient with a standard disease, it tries to make an emotional engagement with medicine and health, reaching out to diverse publics in ways that can outpace official channels of communication.”

What’s a progressive healthcare initiative and radical activist enterprise doing teaming up with the epitome of commerce: a creative out-of-home agency family? That said, over the years the BUILDHOLLYWOOD family has fine form when it comes to enlightened partnerships supporting ethical, community driven projects. And this #medicineonthewalls Your Space Or Mine collaboration with BUILDHOLLYWOOD is another great example.

So, because not everyone has a home in which to shelter, the phrase ‘Stay In’ appears on boards across town. In place of getting names up, occupying risky territory, for the time being #medicineonthewalls has bought counterculture in from the cold. Dynamic, dripping, shattered scripts that usually occupy brickwork, bridges, trains or highpoints in the townscape, have given voice, generously lent their spraycan banditry, to a cause that has everyone’s well-being at heart.

The post #medicineonthewalls first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

In ‘Staying Apart, Always Together’ we see set against a rising sun the silhouette of two figures standing apart. Their shadows, however, are holding hands like a couple, like friends or family. Pre-quarantine this poster might’ve seemed a tad saccharine but its clear message and tender sentiment will be seen by many passers-by as pretty heart-warming right now.

The post Holy Moly first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family have teamed up with Ilori to bring his trademark colour to the street yet again with their Your Space Or Mine project. With a message of “better days are coming, I promise” in 70s-style text against a vibrant backdrop of orange, blue, green pink and yellow, the poster is both uplifting and meaningful.

The piece will be on view in our poster site in Blackfriars, taking inspiration from the sketches for the new A&E department at Westminster Hospital, which Ilori will also be designing. The project is in collaboration with charity CW+, the official charity of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and Kensington and Chelsea Art Week, who are creating temporary installations in West London.

Speaking about the thought process behind his work, Ilori told us that, “‘better days are coming, I promise’ is a message that I have been singing to myself and loved ones during the pandemic.” He added: “The message has been my therapist during these tough times and has given me hope when sometimes I feel like this will never come to an end.” The news right now is often distressing and painful, but Ilori wants us to take away positive thoughts from our current situation.

“The NHS staff are working to save people’s lives and I can’t imagine what it feel like for them. They must be also struggling to feel like better days are coming, but sometimes we all need a reminder that they are.” Ilori hopes that his work will contribute to the good mood of both NHS staff and regular people as they go about their routines: “I want the artwork to give people a sense of hope and provide them with joy, bringing them some comfort where they may feel pain and uncertainty.”

He adds, “I pray that when people walk past or look at my message on the streets of London It uplifts their soul and spirit because we are in this together.” We are proud to work with Ilori on this important project – we need uplifting words and images right now, and Ilori’s work is always bound to inspire.

The post Yinka Ilori first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Sons of Raphael make a statement with their message to the world first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

After two months of our lives slowing down, we’re all finding creative ways to enjoy our new routines and find space to get inspired. To help drive your inspiration, the BUILDHOLLYWOOD family of JACK, JACK ARTS and DIABOLICAL have collaborated with famous street artist Ben Eine to bring his tongue-in-cheek messages to our streets.

Born in London, Eine is one of the most successful letterform artists in the world and is regarded as a pioneer in the exploration of contemporary typography art. Originally a graffiti writer, Eine started his career over 30 years ago, leaving his first tag all over London before developing his distinct typographic style. Eine began painting huge, bright and colourful letters on shutters all over East London that caught the public’s attention and were seminal in the rise of street art’s popularity. Ben designed his most impressive work to date in 2018, a mural simply reading “CREATE”. The piece, which is the largest street art in the world, took up 17500 feet in his stomping ground of East London and could be seen from space. London based but his works are celebrated worldwide – from innumerous streets, to high end boutiques and even the White House.

The post Ben Eine first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post James Hodson and Jason Keet: War on COVID-19 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Working across a variety of mediums, Philip’s work is bright, eye-catching and modern, which made it ideal for our latest poster collaborations. Intending to bring positivity and light to dark days and dark streets, we wanted to work with Philip to create a series of posters for display across Cardiff.

The pieces, which show bright red hands forming a heart shape, read “God Bless the NHS” in blue lettering. The message is simple, designed to inspire, disrupt, and hopefully bring some much-needed hope to the thousands of health workers trekking to work in cities every day.

Philip wanted to acknowledge the hard work of not just doctors and nurses, but everyone working on the front lines to care for COVID-19 patients and other people every single day: “There are some amazing people working on the frontline right now, and not just all the wonderful doctors and nurses putting their lives at risk, but all the carers, shop workers, bus drivers, delivery drivers. all doing a fantastic job. You make us all very proud.” he says of the work.

Philip’s pieces, which are visible on our poster sites in Cardiff, are a reminder of the life-risking work that those people are undertaking every single day just to keep us safe.

The post Philip Morgan: God Bless The NHS first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Recognising this hypocrisy, artist Craig Oldham wanted to respond to Patel’s comments and the current situation with art. The agency family approached him to put out positive messages on its poster sites in Manchester, Oldham created a bright, colourful piece, which in large, bold lettering, reads: “may they never be deemed low-skilled again”. The text is set against the backdrop of a list of “low-skilled”, now key workers: teachers, warehouse coordinators and therapy professionals to name a few. It spotlights the people that we’ve often not only dismissed in society, but whose massive importance has now been recognised.

Speaking to Design Week recently, Oldham elaborated on his motivations for creating the poster: “It has taken a global pandemic for the government to recognise the value of all of its citizens and workforces. In only February of this year, Patel’s comments and, more to the point, the government’s policy on what determines a person’s ‘value’, are ridiculous.”

Oldham calls this particular form of hypocrisy “snobbery”, noting that the key workers’ input has always been integral to this country. “These workers clean, care, and deliver for this country, and they always have, global pandemic or not, so to suddenly switch just because they are now propping us all up as a nation and you’ve realised how important they are made me a little angry.”

While the work was born partly from Oldham’s anger, he says he wants it to serve as a positive show of solidarity with “all of those people continuing to work despite the crisis, supporting, caring, cleaning, delivering for every single one of us.” He points to the designs that ordinary people are spreading across the country as a symbol of the ways in which creativity is helping us through the crisis: the rainbows in support of the NHS that adorn every street in the form of paint, crayon, paper and collage, intended to uplift key workers.

“These rainbows are probably the result of trying to keep the kids entertained in tough times for families, but they’re also a creative gesture, symbolic of communities reaching out to one another with a promise of hope and better times on the horizon. That’s a real, powerful, graphic symbol, that fulfils a role of community and connectivity probably more so than any polished poster could.” he says. Above all, Oldham hopes that this pandemic will enforce what we now know to be true: that these workers didn’t become important overnight: “They always have been, and will continue to be, Key Workers.”

Download the prints here

The post Craig Oldham pays tribute to key workers first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

An intensely beautiful concept.

Location and curation creates the context, which, combined with the simplicity and purity of the concept, delivers an elevated, compelling and memorable experience.

Jack came together with BBC Creative for a campaign last year to promote Killing Eve series 2 and used a very similar equation, albeit on a much larger scale.

It was a complex integrated campaign that was successful due to the simplicity and power of the execution and, vitally, the context in which it all went down, the streets.

The campaign combined unique poster formats across the UK (London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Cardiff, Bristol) with a combination of 4 sheet takeovers, 48 sheets, 24 sheets all carefully selected to ensure the artwork fit perfectly for each particular space.

The creative mechanic had a tease and reveal stage, evolving into a conversation between the two lead characters played out over the billboards. The campaign displayed statements of obsession “Have you seen my girlfriend,” “I’m going to make you sorry, baby,” and “I thought you were special,” which were then tagged with a hand written message from Eve with a live mobile phone number for curious fans to call.

The post All we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post #stayarthomepejac: Lockdown innovations first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

You sit on your bus route, staring out of the window, and for the first time you take note of the vibrant colour set against grey. This block of flats looks just like a Mondrian painting, and you wonder how you never noticed. You look closer: someone walking past a window, a baby on her hip. You smile and ponder how many of these flats, how many of these blocks, how many hundreds of thousands of people are living in this city that you forget about. You know your own days intimately: your breakfast, your work, your parties, your private complaints.

And all of those other hundreds of thousands of people in this city have them, too, and you wonder what they are. At a red light you think about the details: are they all happy? Do they fight? Are they young? Do they see the intersecting squares, the colour, the way you do? Do the people with balconies hanging over head feel crushed, oppressed, or are they happy enough, just like you?

The post Street Reflections: A perspective changed first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Artist Mark Titchner, whose bold work often features on billboards, buildings and other public spaces, has produced some stunning artwork for our collaboration. Mark wants to offer hope and boost our morale through his colourful posters which are up in 10 cities across the UK. With many of us only leaving the house for our daily errands and exercise, the bright, uplifting pieces are an antidote to the monotony we are all facing.

Reading “PLEASE BELIEVE THESE DAYS WILL PASS”, the bright work is a rallying cry for hope that disrupts the urban environment. It’s likely that Mark’s latest work will be seen more on social media than on the street, something that’s different for someone who so often works in the public sphere, but however you see it, we hope that it will reach the people who need the message the most.

As part of our collaboration we have made the poster artwork downloadable so that you can help spread the message too. Print them out and display them in your window.

Download the poster here

The post Mark Titchner first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

On Monday 16 March, The Society of London Theatre (Solt) and UK Theatre, the industry body that represents most British theatres, announced that all its members would call curtain.

For the Old Vic Theatre, who last closed their doors during the Second World War (when the building was hit by a bomb), the closure has been a real concern. The Old Vic is a world leader in creativity and entertainment and as a not-for-profit registered charity, gains their core income from ticket sales.

We were looking forward to working with the Old Vic on promoting their spring programme, but in light of the closure, we have worked together to adapt the campaign and display their new donation-driven creative.  We have been inspired by their swift response and thoughtful adaptation of their messaging in order to spread the message across London. We hope the campaign will have resonated with the passing public as we navigate these difficult times as a community.

For over 200 years The Old Vic has been many things to so many people; a theatre, a pub, an educational hub, a civic resource and a cultural institution – we look forward to welcoming them back soon.  To make a donation, please follow the link here.

The post The Old Vic – Fundraising campaign first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

So far we’ve had such a heartwarming response to the campaign. If you would like a poster, we’ve now made the poster artwork downloadable so that you can help spread the love. Print them out and stick them in your window!If you would like to make a donation, we would love for you to support our charity partner End Youth Homelessness. For many, self-isolation can mean a time of discomfort. But for Britain’s homeless young people, it can mean much worse. Please make your donation to their COVID-19 appeal here.

The post Community is Kindness first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

26 students were selected to work on the final stage, and with the guidance of designer Craig Oldham, their artworks have been developed into a folio of posters, which we are showcasing on the streets of Manchester in a city-wide intervention. The posters are displayed as 4 sheets on our street-side frames, as well as on two large format billboards which feature a specially designed collage of all 26 final artworks.

We are so inspired by the final artworks, which were a broad, diverse range of styles and mediums and are excited to have the opportunity to use our poster sites to highlight the wealth of emerging local talent.  By showcasing the students work around Manchester and the Art Gallery we have provided the opportunity for the young artists to make a statement within their city and place their art directly into the environment where they have drawn inspiration.

The post Future Creatives Manchester Art Gallery Future Creatives of Manchester first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post In case of emergency Berliners are urged to break glass and take a copy of Guardian Weekly first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The album’s cover art — a sunny room filled halfway to the ceiling with sand, sets the tone for his new music, an experience that brings listeners through a psychedelic trance in time. To mark the return of Tame Impala we worked with Universal Music to bring a ton of sand to Dalston to recreate the album artwork in a creatively impactful way that was sure to turn heads on the street. Check out the video below to see how it all came together.

The post We brought a ton of sand to Dalston to mark the return of Tame Impala first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Jack supports Identity Creates first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The head turning dual creative, devised by Studio Moross, features an assortment of illustrated fantasy characters making their way through a surreal festival landscape in punchy pink and neon highlights, alongside bold artist listings.

A campaign highlight sees a typographic take-over of our huge double billboard site on Great Ducie Street, Manchester – showcasing the full festival line-up with each act designated a unique font, highlighting both the calibre of the talent and assortment of genres on offer. A fresh, visual approach to billboard events listings that we love.

Parklife celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, and continues to be one of the UK’s most anticipated festivals, annually showcasing a diverse lineup of underground dance and alternative music. 13-14  June 2020 at Heaton Park, Manchester, find out more here.

The post Punchy graphics hit the spot for Parklife 2020 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The legendary artist will be celebrated in a new blockbuster exhibition at Tate Modern, opening March 12, which will include his iconic pop images of Marilyn Monroe, Coca-Cola and Campbell’s soup cans, but also works never seen before in the UK. To help build hype in the lead up to its launch we’ve teamed up with Tate Modern on a teaser poster campaign to take over London streets. The striking artwork features the face of the instantly recognisable artist that can’t be missed – keep an eye out for them. To find out more, visit the Tate website here.

The post Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Camille’s design is rooted in the campaign’s creative concept, which was developed by ad agency Truant London, who devised the idea of the maze as a means of visualising the barriers that young people can face in escaping homelessness. The concept presents education as the route out of the maze and encourages viewers to find out more and donate to the fund. A sum as small as £23 is enough to get a young person an hour of specialist employability support and put them on the path to a fulfilling future. For every £1,200, EYH can support a homeless young person into an education or employment pathway which will transform their life. Camille Walala then applied her distinctive aesthetic and sense of colour to the brief, designing a striking, hopeful and characteristically positive poster.

The outdoor campaign will appear on 60 of our poster sites across London, with a further 60 across Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield. It hopes to encourage the public to donate to support EYH’s Employability Fund, helping get homeless young people into work and education.

The post Jack teams up with End Youth Homelessness and Camille Walala first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post National Album Day 2019 first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Our mirrored heart installation for Mark Ronson first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

This year we’re excited to announce that Kevin Graux and Nick Faber from Diabolical will take to the stage at 11am on Friday 10th of May at The Jury’s Inn, Brighton Waterfront as part of ‘The Music Marketing Conference – Making sure people give a shit’. They will be discussing all things creative in street advertising, plus the latest trends in outdoor. So, if you’re heading to The Great Escape to find the next big thing, why not find out how to advertise the next big thing.

The post Diabolical at The Great Escape Festival first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

As part of our partnership, we’re also teaming up with non-binary visual artist Soofiya, who will take to stage at the festival to discuss ‘Finding Your Voice Through Non-Conformity and Politics’, with a spotlight on their recent work on LDN WMN. Find out more and book your D&AD Festival tickets here.

The post Partnering with D&AD first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We have been spreading the word on the street, joining forces with Advertising Week Europe on an outdoor campaign to promote the big event. The posters are up on our sites across the UK – everywhere from London to Birmingham, Edinburgh to Manchester.

As part of our partnership with Advertising Week Europe, Emma Clackson our Strategy Director will be doing a live interview to discuss the power of print posters on the street – join her at the networking area at  11.30am, March 21.

Find out more and book your Advertising Week Europe tickets here.

The post JACK x Advertising Week Europe join forces first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post London Fashion Week AW19 round-up first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

A one-off special hailed as the “TV of tomorrow” by The Guardian, Bandersnatch takes us back to 1984 and follows video game designer Stefan as he attempts to make it in this budding industry by delivering a revolutionary multiple-ending game. However, this is one episode of Black Mirror with a twist – the viewer selects the path that Stefan goes down and his eventual ending. With five alternative conclusions and multiple questions along the way, everyone’s route to the programme finale is unique. One hell of a rollercoaster, you’re forced to choose in extreme – from the mundane of what morning cereal you’d prefer right through to literal life or death moments. The result is perhaps writer Charlie Brooker’s most dystopian outing yet.

We were excited to team up directly once again with Netflix on the out-of-home campaign. The poster creative was just as immersive as the show, not mentioning the online streaming service but instead featuring 80s video games which reference episodes from the Black Mirror anthology. The poster campaign also ran a meta Tuckersoft job advert for budding computer game designers – much like the one that Stefan responds to in Bandersnatch. The 4 sheet posters popped up everywhere across the UK alongside eery 48 sheet billboards, and the original designs certainly got fans excited with many taking to their socials to shout about the work.

The post Are you a budding video game designer? Black Mirror is back. first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Crack interviewed Richard D. James in the November issue to find out more about his latest EP – which has been described by Pitchfork as a “knotty, meticulous, and joyous collection that ranks among his best late-career albums.”

If you didn’t get a chance to see the billboard in person, there is still time to grab a copy of the mag. By downloading the app and pointing it at the cover you can find out what you’ve missed.

The post Crack reality with Aphex Twin first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

We were excited to welcome Robyn back, working with Universal on a high impact teaser for the album launch. Promo of the Swedish star popped over all London, and culminated with a huge takeover of our site in Blackfriars on release week.

Find out more about Honey and download the album here.

The post Robyn delivers Honey first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

Montgomery has been called a vandal, a street artist, a post-situationist, a punk artist and the text-art Banksy. His work puts poetry in front of ordinary people in eye-catching visual formats, taking the written word to the most physical of spaces. The collaboration saw Montgomery takeover five of our major sites in East London, responding to these spaces by creating a series of poems using his signature style.

The poems were lyrical, dreamy and almost optimistic, covering the themes of modernism, racial and gender equality, immigration, love and hope, as well as strong statements against Donald Trump’s denial of climate change. Montgomery and urban explorer Niall McDevitt also lead an up close and personal walking tour of the Billboard Poems focusing on the poetry itself as well as the surrounding location.

“I started doing billboard works in Shoreditch in 2004 as my own protest against the Iraq War, and doing billboards in Shoreditch formed the backbone of my work throughout the 2000s. I no longer live in the neighbourhood, it’s too expensive for artists now, but being invited back by Jack is thrilling as I’m getting to take over whole streets where I used to live. It’s letting me work across multiple billboards and look at each street as a giant graphic poem and experiment much more with the visual aspects of the work. I’m thinking of them as concrete poems really with the billboard as the page and pushing the graphic elements more than I’ve been able to before.” – Robert Montgomery.

The post Robert Montgomery: Billboard Poems in East London first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

The post Joe Cruz first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.

At first sight Mustafa Hulusi’s recent work Pomegranate (2014) appearing on hoardings around East London, strikes a nostalgic note. To feel a clump of rotting fruit caught between heel and sole, causing that awkward public leg hobble or, if really unfortunate, a slithering pratfall was once not an altogether uncommon experience.

These days, with London’s more sanitised, regulated urbanism (and all those plastic bowls I suppose), ground-level flora is a much less common squelch. You could even be forgiven for thinking we live in a cleaner, safer city. Well, perhaps we do but Hulusi’s sumptuous and cloying images of mythical putrescence suggest this isn’t everyone’s experience. Elsewhere humankind, Hulusi would argue Humanism and perhaps the Enlightenment project itself, is drowning in rottenness.

The global food industry systematically ensures 30 to 40% of all food grown in the world is thrown away as waste in order to ‘stabilize’ prices and therefore profits.

I met the artist in Hoxton and over a suitably twatish pomegranate cocktail we chatted about his billboard project. Hulusi talks persuasively of the links between outdoor advertising or more specifically posters on hoardings, his chosen medium and the subject of his current project. Not just in terms of waste generated but that of a geographical media being subsumed by the digitalisation of the 21st century. A shift from collective to individualised communication and also how this affords advertisers a more coercive and insidious sales tool. A necrosis bound up with Neo-Liberalism and Capitalism.

The poster as rotting fruit and vice versa is an anti-‘always switched on’ gesture, maybe melancholic like Turner’s ‘The Fighting Temeraire’, signifying the ending of one age and the beginning of another.

More specifically, gigantic and incongruous mememto mori, these are Cypriot pomegranates slumping and spoiling. We can smell almost, the airless funk, witness the tragic irreversibility of decay. The artist cites parallels between a decadent state, an island divided where both sides are ruled by elites propped up by warring world interests, and a perpetual war being the adjunct of Capital’s myopic conceit: that the only way ahead is ever increased production and consumption.

Across the globe and in the streets of one of the world’s richest cities, there is the sickening stench of tax avoidance, of profits benefiting only those at the very top of the tree. Hulusi argues this image, a gift moldering, references a waste of human potential, cipher for Capitalism’s boot pressed firmly on the face of the world’s poor. This might not be an obvious reading, for many passers-by in East London it’s not an uncommon experience. While economic austerity spurs on UKIP’s fetid, dangerous and popularist banalities, a moribund, craven Socialism as peddled by new Old (just as bad as the old New) Labour offers very little in the way of a credible response to the Lib Con diet of making sure the rich keep an ever tightening hold on the fruits of other people’s toil.

As an art lecturer I am impressed when a creative person realises a work that seeks to inject some hope into the cityscape. If optimism isn’t the prerogative of the young then surely we’re lost. I am less enamoured of a new breed of up and coming artists who peddle the illusion of a rising communitarianism from the safety of a privileged bubble, be it fashion / artworld crossovers or corporate / artworld collaborations. It seems there’s even a few who would have us believe that optimism is a duty. Are they blind or do they just have a trust fund?

In this photographic reminder of transience and fragility, I would argue Hulusi’s thinking has taken a significant turn. He is no longer, as with a previous series, singing the praises of The Joyous, Wonderful and Shining Age. And, to be honest, whilst they were lush, striking paintings, if the title of that series didn’t contain any hint of irony I always thought they could be mistaken for utopian-realist agit prop. With Pomegranate, whilst there is still a beauty of sorts, Hulusi’s fallen fruit sits in grey dusty soil resembling the contents of a funereal urn. A gift of the earth has been neglected, left to rot. A situation that currently chimes with peoples the world over.

The post Mustafa Hulusi: Geo-Politics of Rotting Flesh first appeared on BUILDHOLLYWOOD.