West Indies to West Midlands

"West Indies to West Midlands" is a series of contemporary portraits of West Indian war veterans and a selection of their own archival photographic collections. Inès Elsa Dalal, from Birmingham, has endeavoured to document WAWI project through their presence at military parades as well as ever-increasing public outreach: intergenerational and intercultural engagement in schools, libraries, churches and community centres.

Ines began this series 12 months ago and will continue to work with under represented communities for the entire 4-year commemoration of WW1 (2014-2018).

WAWI project aims to highlight the link between hundreds of years of West Indian contribution to the British military to mass migration. This history has so far not been publicly acknowedledged let alone commemorated.

WAWI project's principal aim is to promote greater awareness and understanding of Britain's diverse population.

Documentary photographer Inès Elsa Dalal specialises in conducting social commentary projects involving heritage, community, sanctuary and social rituals. Her previous work includes ethnographic studies which range from locations as hyperlocal as Harborne and Balsall Heath, Birmingham, to as far-reaching as Jerusalem, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Here is a short video of the exhibition. I have to apologize to Inès for my wrong location of the accent on her name.

Catalonian Referendum

This is what I was about to publish at Telesur about the Catalonian Referendum!

Don't know what happened but here is the report!

Thanks Ana, Dany and Gloria!

Podemos: a new era in the Spanish Politics

Podemos have started to change the Spanish political environment. Statistics are giving them a 20% of the votes for the next elections and still growing. In the past European Elections and with only one month of life they won 1.2 million votes consolidating as the third political party in a country full of corruption and a distrust atmosphere.

The idea behind the party is simple: It's citizens doing politics and getting involved in decisions. Pablo Iglesias is the leader of this party, created from the Indignados movement, when millions of Spaniards protested in the streets against the current situation in Spain and their rejection to the present governors.

Prodemos’ promises include doing away with tax havens, establishing a guaranteed minimum income and lowering the retirement age to 60. The party ran its European elections campaign on a shoestring budget, using crowdfunding and Iglesias' presence as a talking head on Spanish television to build momentum.

Online presence

Currently they have created a different way of organization giving full presence to the online meetings. At the moment more than a hundred thousand people are deciding via internet the party’s development and there are hundreds of different Podemos’ circles from different sectors in various parts of the world.

This new party is also sending international delegates to explain to the thousands of immigrants in the world the new situation in Spain and they are convinced that they will win the next elections.

Almost all the mass media in Spain are against Podemos, but Pablo Iglesias’ strategy is easy, let the conservatives and labours make decisions, they are doing everything wrong and the citizens are getting just fed up. As a very important data, the 17% of the Podemos voters were previously conservatives.

Eduardo Maura is the UK and Ireland representative for Podemos and has been doing talks in both countries; here are some of the keys of this political party.

Protests against BBC coverage at Gaza

Hi

I did a journalistic report about protests that happened in Birmingham last weekend regarding BBC coverage about Gaza's situation. I won't make any opinion and I just will show what happened. Unfortunately nobody from BBC showed up and talked about the subject.

This is the video that I made:

Flamenco Edition

Hi All!!

Hope everybody good!!!

First RIP Alex Angulo, I can't say if you were a good actor or not, but for sure you were a nice person and it's a real pity your loose. Hope all goes well wherever you are.

This is a short post to show my latest video about the first FLAMENCO EDITION in Birmingham. Fantastic Jesus Fernandez and his troupe and so Ana Garcia, a great promoter of this event. I really hope to see a second, third and thousand edition and not only in Birmingham!!

This is a small tribute to a great weekend including, lessons, performance, speeches and lots of fun!

(Thanks Nerea for your help)

Thanks Be Festival

Yesterday, Tuesday 08/07/2014, I had the chance to assist to the launch of Be Festival, and it was an amazing experience. Something that I never seen before in Brum, but I have seen previously in Madrid or my beloved Bilbao.

The atmosphere was simply magical, plenty of artists and volunteers who come from plenty of different cities, a big and very high space where you think everything is possible, a great dinner, sharing table with people that you don't know but suddenly meet, the directors talking to the audience, the artists as well after their show, and even giving you a free shot of Danish licuor that made a perfect ending of the evening. Unfortunately I couldn't assist to the final concert but I 've heard that was simply marvellous.

There are still few days left of festival and also alternative talks and exhibitions around it, please, if you like performing arts and you have the chance, don't miss it... It's incredibly cheap for all the things that this festival offers...

Thanks to Be Festival for making Birmingham more interesting!!!

And also I recorder with my old flip a few moments of the event... the quality is not very good but I hope you can feel the atmosphere.

This is also the program:

http://befestival.org/festival/programme-2014/

Yesterday I had the chance to see Dadara's performance (and also a little chat with him, his partner and son at the end of the night), also a great performance called "How to make a living as an artist", where I listened the AURRESKU,  a Basque anthem at the end of the show and a great performance called "Next door" from Out of Balanz a great Nordic couple that made us laugh big time.

Advice: Try to visit this festival at least once!

Be Festival

It has already started but Be Festival will re-start again this week (8th-12th July). I am recomending it and not because either Miguel and Isla (the organizers) are fantastic or because, Dadara, the Dutch artist is a fantastic opener with a great performance (I hope so because I was one of the guys that brought him from Amstrerdam last week and I found him very interesting)... It's great because it's original, it's different and is creating on me great expectations...

 

This is their website
http://befestival.org/

There are plenty of theatre companies coming, different and not conventional performances, talking about what it's real or what's not but should be... I am really looking forward to see it started and I would like to recommend it to everyone that would like to see something different in this city full of festivals.

Yes!! if you came to Brum 10/12 years ago you can see the differences in the artistic movement, there are still gaps to fill, like... what the hell is happening with the independent cinema in Brum? Where is the Birmingham International film society? Why is it dissapearing?
But I have to say that there are lots of artistic options nowadays and we have to take advantages out of it or either new galleries like The Loft in Birmingham where young talents are allow to show their work or investigations, like @InesElsaDalal and her proyect I AM: AM I... or new theatres such @mockbirdtheatre in Digbeth where my film "Universal Heritage" is going to be screened again!!!! (July 30th).
So please people, don't find any excuse to see art during this summer and the rest of the year in Brum!!!