Our series of 5 postcards from ‘A Welcome To Those Who Come’ are now available. The images were produced by Abigail Gilchrist with local volunteers in the Somerstown area of Portsmouth. We gathered written and photographic documentation over a number of meetings with 5 volunteers about their lives and their community. We would like to thank Barry, Craig, Ismail, Margaret and Tine for taking part. ‘A Welcome To Those Who Come’ is a Delta Arts project in partnership with aspex. Supported by Grassroots.

View from our studio at Omega Centre, Portsmouth

We have teamed up with Aspex art gallery in Portsmouth and artist Abi Gilchrist for a creative investigation of Somerstown, the neighbourhood around Delta Arts’ studio.

Somerstown continues to be the subject of public regeneration schemes seeking to tackle deprivation on many fronts. While these interventions can have a transformative impact on the neighbourhood many people see unfortunate stigmatising side-effects.

We hope to avoid, or even address, some of these pitfalls with an informal approach of talking to neighbours individually, looking at Somerstown in the eyes of people who live and work there. Many residents do small things to make this a better place for local people, such as cooking, gardening, caring, and through social groups.

In our Grassroots-funded project, ‘A Welcome To Those Who Come’, we are talking to local volunteers who would like to challenge external perceptions of Somerstown by talking about their personal talents, passions and local knowledge.

Townley+Bradby, Golden Threads fellowship, Denmark, 2010

GOLDEN THREADS: BEIRUT, COPENHAGEN, LONDON

7 – 8.30 PM, THURSDAY 27 JANUARY 2011, MODERN ART OXFORD, 30 PEMBROKE STREET, OXFORD

Though increasingly familiar in the UK, what does it mean to be a socially engaged artist in another cultural context? Emma Smith and Oliver Sumner (of Delta Arts) unpack this and other questions addressed by our recent Golden Threads programme of artist research fellowships between London, Beirut and Copenhagen. We will be joined by artistic duo Townley and Bradby and artist/designer Samar Maakaron. Organised by Delta Arts in partnership with ARC.

Free, booking essential via MAO on 01865 813800. Event link:

http://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/whats-on/golden-threads-beirut-copenhagen-london/about/

Rural Transport Vehicle: CyberMohalla mobile studio, Delhi, October 2010

Delta Arts visited Delhi in October on a British Council-funded exchange as part of our project, Aane walon ka swagat / A welcome to those who come, thinking about urban regeneration and asking: how can people change perceptions of where they live?

Our partner in Delhi was Sarai, a coalition of practitioners and researchers, where we worked with their CyberMohalla project.

Emma Smith and Oliver Sumner joined CyberMohalla on an eight-day mobile workshop (by many forms of transport) to outer parts of Delhi, including resettlement colonies and neighbourhoods affected by displacement and other consequences of urban planning and rapid growth.

The workshop, in Hindi and English, included CyberMohalla collaborator and translator Shveta Sarda, and CM members Azra Tabassum, Jaanu Nagar, Lakhmi Chand Kohli, Rakesh Khairalia, Neelofar, Shamsher Ali, Babli Rai, Love Anand, Nasreen, and Rabiya Quraishy, all practitioners in their twenties living in neighbourhoods across the city, such as LNJP colony in Central Delhi, Dakshinpuri in South Delhi and Sawda-Ghevra, a new resettlement colony at the northern frontier of the city.

Trickster City, an excellent collection of writings by the group was recently published by Penguin. ‘This book chronicles the difficult period of loss of home and livelihood in the city through urban eviction, encounters with the agencies of the state, love stories gone awry, the fragility of relationships, and the sustained effort to build life in anticipation of beauty and pleasure’.

Workshop at 98weeks, Beirut

Delta Arts member Emma Smith has recently returned from a three-week fellowship in Beirut (27 September – 16 October 2010), completing the Golden Threads fellowships for 2010. Golden Threads is Delta Arts’ international fellowship program that ran this year between Lebanon, Denmark and the UK, supported by the Arts Council England and the Danish Arts Council.

During her fellowship in Beirut Emma was supported by 98weeks. Hosted by artist Marwa Arsanios and Mirene Arsanios who co-direct 98weeks Emma’s visit included a number of artist and organisational meetings, an artist talk, performance event, and three-day workshop.

Emma met with a number of Lebanese artists / practitioners including Hatem Imam (Golden Threads fellow to the UK 2010), Kiki Bokassa, Ghassan Maasri, Vartan Avakian, Elias Maalouf, Ghassan Salhab, Alfred Tarazi, Dalia Khamissy, Souad Abdallah, Eyad Houssami, Masour Aziz and Maxime Hourani.

Organisational visits included the Arab Image Foundation, Sfeir Semler gallery, Zico House, Sanayeh House and Studio, Ashkal Alwan, Zoukak and the Beirut Art Centre.

During her stay Emma ran a three-day workshop at 98weeks called ‘Art Services: Cultural Production and Public Use’. This peer-to-peer workshop explored self-organisation, how practice is valued, where it is located, the role of the artist in society and how practitioners can contribute to change.

She also gave an artist talk and hosted a reading group at 98weeks, and hosted a performative event at Sanayeh House in collaboration with artist Lawrence Abu Hamden.

Thursday 16 September, 6.30 – 8.30pm

Droit House with Tracey Emin commission 'I never stopped loving you'. Turner Contemporary. Image: Sebastian Sharples

Lebanon-based artist and designer Hatem Imam leads a professional development discussion for practitioners. Where do artists situate educator roles within their practice? And how might this vary between the UK and Beirut? This event is organised in partnership with ARC and Turner Contemporary. Part of the Golden Threads fellowship programme organised by the collective Delta Arts in association with Gasworks, London.

Booking and information via http://www.turnercontemporary.org/

Hatem Imam, 'Self-portrait in Beirut, December 2005'

Beirut-based artist Hatem Imam makes his UK research fellowship 28 August – 18 September 2010, as part of our Golden Threads programme.

Hosted by curator and educator Oliver Sumner (of Delta Arts), in association with Gasworks, he will be staying in Portsmouth and London.

Described in Bidoun magazine as ‘a shaggy-haired polymath’, Hatem Imam works in the fields of visual arts, design, theatre, event organisation, publishing, and education. His work considers the production of landscape in printed media and their relation to national identity. Hatem Imam currently teaches design at the American University of Beirut, he is a board member of the 98Weeks Research Project, and co-editor of Samandal comics magazine.

The focus of his visit will be to observe, negotiate and constructively critique the role of the artist within the context of education, in the UK and Lebanon. On being a contemporary artist in Beirut, he says, ‘There is no governmental art fund, barely any spaces for cultural production, and an ever-diminishing public space; our practice is constantly pushed to the margin of our daily production. This condition allows me a critical distance; it forces me to constantly re-question the validity of my work, and to situate it within a social and political context’.

Golden Threads is funded by Arts Council England.

Sølyst Artist in Residence Center (SAIR), Denmark

Danish artist Karen Land Hansen’s three-week Golden Threads visit to UK ends this weekend. She has had a packed itinerary of meetings and events, hosted by Oliver Sumner in London and Portsmouth. Meanwhile UK collaboration Townley+Bradby have arrived in Denmark for their Golden Threads fellowship hosted by Lars Mathisen in Copenhagen and at Solyst Artist in Residence Center. See their blog at www.goldenthreadsdenmark.wordpress.com

Documentation and dialogue will continue to appear on the Golden Threads ning site at http://goldenthreads.ning.com

Townley+Bradby, Big red ball with drums, 2009

Delta Arts announces two Golden Threads artist professional development research fellowships between the UK and Denmark in June and July.

Denmark-based artist Karen Land Hansen travels to London and Portsmouth from 5-26 June, hosted by curator and educator Oliver Sumner (of Delta Arts) and in association with Gasworks, London.

UK collaborative practice Townley+Bradby travel to Copenhagen and Sølyst from 17 June-10 July, hosted by artist Lars Mathisen in association with Sølyst Artist in Residence Center in Denmark.

Two fellowships between the UK and Beirut, Lebanon are being planned later in the year in association with Gasworks and 98 weeks research project, Beirut.

Golden Threads is a series of international artist fellowships organised by Delta Arts. Four peer-to-peer fellowships will take place in 2010, focusing on opportunities to experience models of education or social practice in the partner countries. The three-week visits will be closely programmed with an itinerary of meetings and short placements arranged with each artist in advance of the fellowships. After the artists return home, follow-up events will take place in all three countries. The project will be documented online and in a publication.

Golden Threads is supported by Arts Council England and the Danish Arts Council. With advisory partnership from engage and ARC.