Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair, Sunday 5 May 2013

This year, Victoria Baths will be holding a smaller version of the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention to coincide with its open day on Sunday May 5 from 12 noon-4pm. Fanzine-makers, small presses, independent magazine/book publishers, book artists, art and design collectives, small record labels and representatives of university and college art, illustration, design, fashion and photography courses are invited to have a stall to display and sell their work.

The fanzine fair will be accompanied by a film screening of Helpyourself Manchester, which tells the unsung story of Manchester's DIY music promoters, followed by a Q and A with the directors, Castles Built in Sand collective. Additionally, there will be an exhibition of original gig fliers featured in the film.

Manchester-based illustrator and zinester David Carden will give a lively musical tour inspired by the history of Victoria Baths, with songs about the ladies pool, channel swimmer Sunny Lowry, a couple meeting in the Baths and the building's beautiful stained glass, and will also be on hand to draw your portrait in five minutes (for a small fee!).

See original artwork and hear from John Mather about his Pictorial Guide to Greater Manchester Public Swimming Pools during his talk at 2.30pm upstairs in the former superintendent's flat.

Dip into a hands-on zine-inspired activity with Pool Arts throughout the day, who will be asking for your help to produce VB's very own fabulous fanzine, The Vicky. 'Bring Back Baths' will use team effort, collage, lino printing and on-the-spot reportage from the fair to compile some articles about why public wash baths should be making a comeback! The first issue of The Vicky appeared during 2003 with occasional issues ever since. Bring your old comics, your sense of humour and your glue sticks! Original copies of the early issues will be on sale on the day!

Listen to readings by Manchester author David Hartley, including from his new book Threshold, and hear Karren Ablaze! read from her recent book the City is Ablaze, about her experiences of making zines in Manchester and Leeds in the 1980s.

The event will be soundtracked by a choir performance by Ordsall Acapella Singers in the Gala Pool. Guided tours of the building will also be on offer, including a 'behind the scenes' tour.

Listen to the Shrieking Violet talking about the event on All FM's Under the Pavement Radio show here:

25th April 2013 Natalie of Victoria Baths Fanzine Fair by Under The Pavement on Mixcloud

Read a preview of the event, linked in with a feature on zines and DIY culture, in the Skinny magazine.

Running order on the day:

1pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester, cinema space (off the sports hall)
- Talk by Karren Ablaze! (superintendent's flat)
1.30pm - Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers, in the Gala Pool
2pm - Musical Tour of Victoria Baths by David Carden
2.30pm - Talk by John Mather on the Pools of Greater Manchester (subject of his hand drawn Pictorial Guide)
3pm - Film screening, Helpyourself Manchester, cinema space (off the sports hall)
 - Choir performance, Ordsall Acapella Singers, in the Gala Pool
3.30pm - Reading by David Hartley (superintendent's flat)

Some of the stallholders confirmed so far:

Emily & Anne
LOAF (Catherine Chialton and Jimmy Edmondson)
Kristyna Baczynski 
Corridor8 
Knives, Forks and Spoons Press 
David Carden
John Mather
Salford Illustration Department
Castles Built in Sand
Within Six 
Becky Kidner Diary Drawings 
Loosely Bound Zine Collective 
Young Explorer/Today Zine
Twigs and Apples
Sugar Paper
Laura Brown Word
Tommy Eugene Higson
Knickers for Bonnie
Karoline Rerrie
Vapid Slackers (Vapid Kitten)
David Hartley
Joe List 
Megan Price Mr PS
Paul Murray and Kat Smith
Marco Brunello
the modernist
Karren Ablaze!
DNYLNE and Adam Jacques
Lottie Pencheon

For more information visit www.victoriabaths.org.uk/visit/2013/family-friendly-trail, email gill.wright@victoriabaths.org.uk or phone 0161 224 2020.

Facebook event.

Please invite everyone you know!

Join the Victoria Baths fanzine-making co-operative! (for one day only)!

We want visitors to the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention to help us make a fanzine all about Victoria Baths!

What is a ‘fanzine’? A fanzine is a small, self-published book or magazine dedicated to a subject the people who are making it love. It is usually personal and handmade and contains a mixture of drawings, writing and things like collages and photos.

People write fanzines about all different types of things and we think Victoria Baths deserves its own fanzine!

Victoria Baths is known as ‘Manchester’s water palace’ because of its beautiful decorations such as tiles and stained glass windows. It was very luxurious when it opened in 1906! Although the swimming pools don’t have water in them anymore, and the building is no longer used for swimming, the Baths is still visited by people who have lots of memories of coming here to swim. The Victoria Baths Archive contains thousands of people’s memories of Victoria Baths, as well as photos and other things which help us remember what it was like in the past.

So, we need your help making the Victoria Baths fanzine to celebrate this unique building, and we want you to show us what you like best about this fascinating place.

Join in the workshops in the former superintendent's flat to make either your own, individual Victoria Baths fanzine or add to a book that will be displayed in Victoria Baths as one big fanzine for future visitors to see. Between 10am and 3.30pm you can make your page to contribute to the collaborative Victoria Baths handmade book, and then from 3.30pm to 4.30pm we will all pitch in to bind the pages together. We'll need all the help we can get!

Visitors will be able to use:

Selected material from the Victoria Baths Archive 

Be inspired by pictures and memories of the building's past.

Lino cutting and relief printing

Explore simple relief printing and create unique illustrations and repeatable patterns to adorn your own hand-made zine. Looking at the decorative interiors of Victoria Baths as inspiration, use traditional lino and easy quickprint foam to make unique tile-sized blocks to print wherever you want.

 

Button book binding

Discover the stitches to bind and design your very own book using buttons, thread, soft papers and card. You can decorate your book with embroidered stitches inspired by the architecture of the Victoria Baths.

Ps, what's a co-operative anyway? 

People with all sorts of different skills and interests form co-operatives and work together to achieve what they cannot achieve alone, helping themselves at the same time as helping each other. Co-operatives are owned and run by their members, and each member has an equal say.

All different types of organisations are run as co-operatives, from food co-operatives to film co-operatives, housing co-operatives to design co-operatives. 2012 is the United Nations' first International Year of Co-operatives, and co-ops across the world are celebrating what makes them unique.

To find out more about co-operatives and how they work, why not go and talk to Footprint, a Leeds-based workers' co-op which prints fanzines, posters and much more, at their stall on the balcony above the sports hall?

 Join the Victoria Baths fanzine-making co-operative upstairs in the former superintendent's flat from 10am-5pm on Saturday 19 May during the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention.  


Free, drop-in and children welcome. 


If you would be interested in volunteering to help at this workshop please email Natalie.rose.bradbury@googlemail.com. 


(Pictures taken from last year's workshops, led by Rebecca Willmott and Lauren Velvick)

Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention May 14 — stalls, speakers, film screening, tours, food, workshops

The first ever fanzine convention to be held in the beautiful setting of Victoria Baths will explore the past, present and future of self-publishing through stalls featuring self-published books and zines to browse, talks, a film showing and workshops.

Manchester's opulent Edwardian water palace, which opened to the public in 1906 and closed in 1993, will be packed with events as part of the Future Everything festival.

To have a stall on the day, either as an individual zine or group of friends, costs £10. Apply by emailing Natalie.Rose.Bradbury@googlemail.com. Facebook event here.

All events in the building are free to enter, although donations are welcomed. Read more about the building at www.victoriabaths.org.uk. Tours of the building will be on offer.

Poster by Kate Prior.

What's on

A screening of $100 Dollars and a T-Shirt, a documentary about fanzines in Portland, USA and the famous Portland Zine Symposium, will introduce what zines are and who makes them. http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/title/1011








DJ and writer Dave Haslam will explore the legacy of post-punk fanzines, including his own publication Debris (1983-1989) which ran to 19 issues and was called the "the best fanzine in the world" by the NME. Debris featured everything from interviews with Sonic Youth and the Fall to authors Raymond Carver, Tony Harrison and Hubert Selby Jr to a 70 year old barber and the woman who ran the local launderette.
www.davehaslam.com


Alex Zamora of London-based Fever Zine, and contemporary Manchester zine makers Vapid Kitten, who produce an edition for Kindle, will explain how zines are adapting for the digital age, and consider what lies in store for the medium in the future. www.feverzine.co.uk
http://vapidkittenblogs.blogspot.com

Visitors will be invited to create their own response to the building and its stories on the day by making their own zines drawn from what’s going on in the building during Future Everything as well as using material reproduced from the archive at Victoria Baths. This includes hundreds of memories donated by people who used the building before it closed, from reminiscences by children from nearby schools who were so keen to swim they rushed there in their lunch hours to vivid recollections of scary swimming teachers and post-swim Bovril to old ladies nostalgic about meeting their husbands at the dances that were held at the Baths when the gala pool was covered over in the winter. Artefacts also include swimming shields and certificates, as well as material relating to the Channel Swimmer Sunny Lowry who trained at Victoria Baths.

Workshops

• Linocut your own versions of the Pilkingtons tiles that adorn Victoria Baths with Lauren Velvick!
• Letterpress with artist Amy Pennington!
• Embroider with Threads & Letters fanzine! Stitch your own Angel of Purity inspired by the colours of the spectacular Victoria Baths stained glass window. Materials will be provided along with angel templates.
• Manchester-based book artist Christa Harris will be happy to answer any questions about book arts, bookmaking and small/self publishing and will be disseminating information on a variety of related topics including basic bookbinding, advice for small publishers, how to get an isbn etc. Hardback bind your Victoria Baths fanzine for a nominal cost!

In advance of the Fanzine Convention, on Sunday 1 May, Tess Lomas and Alison Kershaw of Pool Arts will revisit the 2003 classic but rare fanzine "The Vicky" for one more issue. Become an instant "The Vicky" Journalist and file your report on the day's happenings. No experience required just willingness to get stuck in! The new issue will be available at the Fanzine Convention on 14th May!

Listen to the Shrieking Violet discussing the event on All FM's Under the Pavement radio show, and picking some tracks related to self-publishing, swimming and Riot Grrrl, here:

Under the Pavement 21 April 2011 by Under The Pavement on Mixcloud

Elsewhere in the building

Also in the building will be a HANDMADE event and two artists in residence: Antony Hall from the Owl Project and Yu-Chen Wang from the Chinese Arts Centre, who will make an installation and performance.

Physical Oscillators at VB arts

Sunday 1 May 12-4, Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 May 10am-4pm

Artist and local resident Antony Hall will make use of the magnificent and newly refurbished Gala Poolto develop a new work on a grand scale, involving local young people and students in its construction.

He will be creating an installation continuing his research into physical oscillators to generate sound and visible patterns in a new kinetic artwork, created within the space of a now empty swimming pool. The project will use pendulums and the gyroscopic action of motors and fans to create a sensory walk-through environment reflecting the behavior of small swimming or flying insects.

The residency culminates in a demonstration and exhibit at Future Everything Handmade event.

Antony first explored VB arts (Victoria Baths) as an MA student and has gone on to develop a practice that examines the boundaries of art and science.

A multidisciplinary artist who investigates biological and physical phenomenon; the behaviour of liquid or animals, and the physicality of sound, he is interested in how we interface with science & technology; visually, physically and ideologically; and how these interactions effect us creatively and socially.

He is a founding member of the 'Owl Project' who with north east based producer and musician Ed Carter have been selected as the north east winner of a £500,000 commission for Artists Taking the Lead, one of the major projects for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

Handmade: Digital | DIY | CraftVB arts (Victoria Baths) will co-host a day of contemporary craft, digital hacking, interactivities and DIY culture. A new maker community is emerging, connecting the culture of traditional skills and materials with modern-day digital production, distribution and interaction techniques.

Future Everything will invite makers to create objects, installations and performances that explore the cross-fertilisation of new and traditional media and materials.

Taking a conference strand from discussion forum to practical exploration, Handmade will bring the dialogue around the intersection of craft and digital culture to life in one of Manchester's prime heritage locations.

The festival will create an all new forum for Crafters, Hackers and Digital Innovators to share ideas and practice, led by some of the UKs leading digital crafters.

The UK's only FabLab will be moving the lab to Handmade for the day, inviting the public to play with their digital manufacturing equipment and create something they can take away with them.
Established Digital Ceramisist Michael Eden will be contributing to Handmade by delivering a short presentation on the relationship between the handmade and the digital in the evolution of his work. This will be followed by a Q&A session.

MzTEK and SPACE Studios and Dundee University will both be present to host a range of digital crafting workshops while Manchester Craft and Design represent the more traditional world of craft and design.

www.futureeverything.org