Oxford Inspires News
Friday, 30 April 2010
Oxford City Council: Bringing Communities Together Through Culture
Oxford has a unique cultural heritage and a voracious appetite for new and challenging cultural activities. Oxford City Council supports the development of the city’s cultural infrastructure by delivering and supporting programmes encompassing visual arts, music, dance, theatre, exhibitions, events and festivals. The Council aims to use culture and the arts as a way of bringing together communities from across our diverse city. Over the coming twelve months they will be doing this in a number of new ways.
The Bullpen: The Family Run Rural Arts Centre
The Bullpen is a family-run rural arts centre, based in Stanford in the Vale, Oxfordshire. Over the five years since its creation, The Bullpen has undergone an amazing transformation. Thanks to recent grant funding, as well as ongoing support from the local community, Helen, Wesley, Keith and Beth Jacobs have been able to develop the site so that it now includes gallery, studio and workshop space, all in addition to the foundry itself.
WOOD Festival: Celebrating Music and Nature in Oxfordshire
Friday 21st May - Sunday 23rd May 2010
Wood is TRUCK Festival’s folkier, cleaner and greener younger brother. Created after the floods of 2007, it is a celebration of music and nature in the beautiful surroundings of Braziers Park, Oxfordshire. As Britain’s greenest festival, it will come as no surprise to learn that Wood runs on completely renewable energy, harnessing the power of the sun and wind as well as the people who attend the event. There will be composting toilets, showers heated by wood-burning stoves and a solar-powered stage, and as if that’s not enough, festival goers will also have the chance to dance the night away in a bicycle powered ‘discotheque’.
Artweeks: Oxfordshire's Biggest Visual Arts Festival
Saturday 8th May - Tuesday 31st May 2010
Artweeks was founded in 1981 by a group of professional Oxfordshire artists. Their aim was to create a way in which local people could enjoy visual art away from the formality of a gallery setting, in a relaxed environment and with direct access to the artists themselves. Over the past twenty nine years, Artweeks has developed to become the county’s largest visual arts festival, during which artists and crafts people from all over the county open their homes and studios to the public to share their work.
Special Exhibition: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
An exhibition of photographs and texts from The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, the bestselling book by philosophical author Alain de Botton, is on show at the Museum of the History of Science. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work showcases 16 photographs taken by documentary photographer Richard Baker as he followed Alain de Botton on his research trip for the book. The images are juxtaposed with specially-selected extracts from the book.
Wormsley Estate to be new Home for Garsington Opera
The Directors of Garsington Opera have announced that Wormsley Estate, the home of the Getty family, is the preferred site for Garsington Opera with effect from the 2011 season. Garsington Opera, founded by the late Leonard Ingrams and his wife Rosalind in 1989, has established an enviable reputation over the last twenty-one years for promoting opera of the highest professional quality in an outdoor setting for a short summer season.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Street Band Gathering: A National Convention for and about Street Bands
A new national event will bring together musicians, band leaders, community bands and community music practitioners to talk about the phenomenon of street bands (7, 8 and 9 May 2010). Aiming to attract both those who perform in street bands and those interested in finding out more, the purpose of the weekend is to share ideas, practice, and create a network for celebratory street band activity around the country in the lead up to 2012.
Monday, 26 April 2010
University of the Trees
A third university has come to light in Oxford. It is a university even older than Oxford University. It is a university in which all citizens are teachers and learners, but also one in which the trees and other-than-human-beings are the teachers as well. It is the University of the Trees.
Although here for millennia, it has only recently been acknowledged and become visible through the work of a group of citizens. This group has started to use a ‘kit’ available on the web “that operates like a kind of franchise”, says Oxford resident, Clare Cochrane, who is involved in developing a group in Oxford. And on its website one discovers just how this kit works.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Exciting New Photography Competition Launched to Celebrate the Cotswolds
This month sees the launch of a exciting new photography competition celebrating the beauty of the Cotswolds and giving you the chance to have your image showcased in a six week high profile exhibition at O3 gallery, Oxford Castle.
Shields, Spears and Samurai...
The Upper Gallery of the Pitt Rivers Museum will once again be open to visitors from May 1st 2010, making it the last area of the Museum to reopen after the recent Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment. The principal new feature in the reopened gallery is the extensive firearms display, reuniting this important part of the Museum’s collection with the existing arms and armour displays. The previous firearms display, on the ground floor, was dismantled as part of the redevelopment programme in 2009.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Wallingford to Celebrate St George’s Day in Style: Saturday 24th April
Wallingford is a market town with a Castle on the River Thames. It dates back to the 9th century, and is located half way between Windsor and Oxford. On St George’s Day, the Market Place will be the focus for stalls, entertainment and musical attractions. Clog dancers will also be taking to the streets and local food producers plying their wares in the Regal Centre on St Martin’s Street– a thoroughly British tradition.
Thursday, 08 April 2010
Opportunities for Artists!
We would like to tell you about the following opportunities for Artists:
1. Empty Shop in City Centre location available to Artists
2. Studios available at Magdalen Road Studios
Thursday, 01 April 2010
New Digital Treasure Trove Brings Stories Alive
A digital feast of stories and story-related activities is now available at the click of a mouse. Launched by the Story Museum in Oxford, this new website is an essential free resource for parents, educators, arts and heritage professionals – and children themselves.
Under Construction Theatre Company: Calling all Performers!
Under Construction was formed in 2007 and are committed to creating unique, participatory theatrical experiences in unusual sites. Their 2010 performance, entitled Tightrope, is an experiment in combining modern devised performance with the early-English music of William Byrd and his contemporaries. By drawing ideas directly from Byrd’s lyrics, as well as from the personal struggles that the composers encountered through their work, the group aim to bring this beautiful, but lesser known period of music to new audiences in an innovative way.
The Queen’s Anniversary Prize
The Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher & Further Education recognise and promote world-class achievement and excellence. As part of the national honours system, the Prizes are the UK’s most prestigious educational awards. To date, the University of Oxford has won the Award seven times out of eight rounds - a record unsurpassed by any other university.
