THE PRSC BLOG HAS MOVED!
This old PRSC blog has now moved, and is incorporated into the new website which was launched early 2015.
Follow this link to the new BLOG.
Detail of 90 metre mural on Gatton Road, alongside the M32.
Over 1000 objections…and counting.
Public objections to the Fifth Capital proposal for the Carriageworks are coming in thick and fast, as the deadline for the planning appeal draws near.
Handwritten and postcard objections are also being gathered and will continue to be submitted up to the 8th April, when there will be a march from Stokes Croft to the College Green Council Planning offices.
Continued Carriageworks focus meetings are to take place each Monday at PRSC new building, (next event Monday March 23rd 18:30 https://www.facebook.com/events/1376380246019563/ ) and street activities are also planned for this Saturday outside the Carriageworks to raise awareness of the ongoing campaign and activities.
Postcards will be distributed outside the carriageworks this weekend and are available from Stokes Croft China shop. For more information check out: http://carriageworks.org.uk/
No Gates in Stokes Croft! An Alternative to Corporate Gentrification, with Anna Minton. Tuesday Feb. 24th at 6.45pm at the Baptist Church Stokes Croft
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No Gates in Stokes Croft! An Alternative to Corporate Gentrification, with Anna Minton
Presented by PRSC and co-hosted by The Bristol Cable:
Stokes Croft is facing the imminent prospect of a gated community with the planned redevelopment of the Carriageworks, with next to no affordable housing and rocketing rents for everyone.
Anna Minton, journalist and author, will be discussing the ways in which corporate property developers wrangle out of providing affordable housing, privatise public space, stuff our cities with boring corporates and increase social division.
Most importantly we will be discussing what alternatives there are to corporate gentrification, what we can do about it and how we can build our cities for people not profit!
Find out more about the Carriageworks planned development here and here.
Anna Minton is a writer and journalist and Visiting Professor at the University of East London (UEL). She spent a decade in journalism, including a stint as a corporate reporter on the Financial Times. Finding daily journalism frustrating she began to focus on longer projects for think tanks and policy organizations and is the author of numerous papers and reports, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Viewpoint on fear and distrust. In 2013, she became a Reader in Architecture at UEL. Between 2012-2014 she has been the 1851 Royal Commission’s Fellow in the Built Environment.
ALL WELCOME
First Exhibition in the New IN_OUT Gallery in PRSC’s New Building 17-25 Jamaica Street.
Opening night this Saturday of the New Gallery space at PRSC. In conjunction with Scribble and Scratch, The show will run til Xmas.
TURBO ISLAND: NOT PICCADILLY CIRCUS! PLanning Application now in. Please Have Your Say…
APPLICATION TO “UPGRADE” Advertising Hoarding.
A new crop of planning applications is spearheading the gentrification
pressure in the Croft. Most offensive of these is the application by
Insite to replace their existing ‘roller blind’ advertising hoarding on
Turbo Island with an ‘internally illuminated’ LED display sign. This
next step towards turning the Croft into Piccadilly Circus will be
situated right in the middle of the main junction of the Croft and
Jamaica Street and right in the heart of the Stokes Croft Conservation
Area. Turbo Island was the site of an archaeological dig in 2009 and
its transition to community-based uses has been due to the increasing
commitment of local people to determine the style, form and physical use
of the public spaces in their neighbourhood. In a community renowned for
placing its own artwork on its buildings, the glistening and vacuous
slogans of market capitalism look increasingly out of touch and out of
place.
Let’s build on the recent momentum around St. Pauls and St.Werburghs to
get intrusive advertising displays removed by opposing this application.
TO HAVE YOUR SAY, GO TO:.
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Info on Turbo Island
Turbo Island is the piece of land on the corner of Stokes Croft and Jamaica Street.
Bombed during the war, it was used for advertising hoardings since the ’50’s
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Above: Painting of the shoe shop that stood on Turbo Island ,engulfed in smoke.
In around 1985, the then Avon County Council sold this land to the advertising company for £32,500,
FIVE YEARS AFTER STOKES CROFT WAS DECLARED A CONSERVATION AREA.
The land in front of the hoarding was of no interest to the advertisers, and remained unloved,
largely inhabited by street drinkers and drug addicts.
In 2007 PRSC started to make good, floating the then patently absurd notion of Stokes Croft as a Cultural Quarter.
Seven years later, the landscape is very different.
We believe it is time for this property to come back into community ownership.
Turbo Island in 2006
Early 2007, Graffiti artist Sepr helps PRSC
Typical scene circa 2008
Makeover 2009
Archaeological dig by PRSC on Turbo Island 2009
Turbo Island as it looks now, after Stokes Croft Festival 2014. Scarecrow and crows sit down together. (Sepr)
Turbo Island is a cultural hotspot. It is the perfect place to launch a campaign to remove advertising hoardings everywhere. The taking back of control of public space and visual amenity needs to start somewhere.
The Wave: Tuesday 28th October 2014 and Thursday 30th October 2014
No water. No life.
No green without blue.
The Wave is a regular event at The New Building on Jamaica Street, Stokes Croft, focusing on ecological issues concerning wildlife. “The Wave” as a name encapsulates the purpose that we share with the PRSC – to confront urgent issues and thereby encourage a wave of activism.
For the opening nights “Blue is the new Black”, the theme will be the marine environment, an environment that is often overlooked because it is not human habitat.
The events will take place on Tuesday 28th October 2014 and Thursday 30th October 2014 and doors will open at 6.30pm. The events will include talks, Q&As, art exhibitions relevant to sea-life and a documentary screening.
We will be selling home-made vegetarian sushi in our resident cafe. The documentaries we have chosen to screen are Rob Stewart’s “Sharkwater” and “The Last Ocean” by Peter Young. Films will kick off at 7:30pm.
Sharkwater: An eye-opening film which will change the way you view our oceans. Driven by passion, Rob Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in evolution of the seas.These majestic creatures have gone from predator to prey, and how despite surviving the earth’s history of mass extinctions, they could easily be wiped out within a few years due to human greed. The compelling imagery of Sharkwater exposes the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world’s shark populations and Stewart’s remarkable mission to save the world’s sharks which will in affect save humankind.
“The one animal that we fear the most is the one animal that we can’t live without.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5fObF_CCYc
The Last Ocean: The most pristine stretch of ocean on Earth, The Ross Sea is a frozen landscape that teams with life – whales, seals and penguins and largely untouched by humans, it is one of the last places where the delicate balance of nature prevails. But an international fishing fleet has found its way to the Ross Sea. Ecologist, David Ainley, rallies his fellow scientists as he knows that unless fishing is stopped the natural balance of the Ross Sea will be lost forever. They begin a campaign “The Last Ocean” taking on the commercial fishers and governments in a race to protect Earth’s last unexploited ocean from our insatiable appetite for fish.
“We have a chance to protect it or to lose it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKQUmlV6cSk
We hope to see you there
Kind Regards,
Rohina Cameron-Perera and Ivana Mazza-Coates
The New Building @ Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft
17-25 Jamaica Street, Bristol, BS2 8JP
24.10.14 Pop-up screening. Somaliland: Experiment in Democracy
Taking place in our New Building this coming Friday.
TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS FILM
:https://www.facebook.com/events/364641337028770/
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs: A play by Mike Daisey. 1st-5th October at the PRSC NEW BUILDING
Enter the world of Mike Daisey, a man obsessed by technology. He loves technology, he loves everything about it. He loves looking at technology, He even loves the smell of a new piece of technology—that sort of burnt PVC smell when you run electricity through it the first time?— He loves that.
And of all the kinds of technology that he loves in the world, he loves the technology that comes from Apple the most.
Cutting between the tumultuous career of Steve Jobs, and Mike’s discovery of how his beloved iPhone was actually made, ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’ is a harsh, funny and moving look at consumerism, capitalism and a culture where we are always looking to upgrade.
‘The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs’ is the third production by Scram, a company which embraces the isolated, the unconventional and the completely bizarre. Using physical theatre and choral narrative, we aim to truthfully tell the stories of the people on life’s peripheries.
Film Night. “Vanishing of the Bees”. Tonight Sept. 26th. 7.30pm
As many of you have heard the Bee’s are in trouble!
If you would like to know more and find out how you can help come along!
We are showing the award winning doc, Vanishing of the Bees, on Friday the 26th, at 7.30pm in the new Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft building, Bristol http://www.prsc.org.uk/.
What it’s about:
Honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing across the planet, literally vanishing from their hives. Filming across the US, in Europe, Australia and Asia, this documentary examines the alarming disappearance of honeybees and the greater meaning it holds about the relationship between mankind and mother earth.
There will be a discussion after the film if you would like to stay and get involved.
http://www.Bee-The-Change.org.uk, a local social enterprise aiming to help the honey bee, will be there with a demo hive, to run through how you can help the bees, and to answer any questions.
https://www.facebook.com/beethechange.heathershoneybees
Check out the event page here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1487966898129205/
Come along x
STOKES CROFT FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS 2014
STOKESCROFT FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS 2014
For EVENTS CALENDAR:
http://stokescroftfestivalofthearts.wordpress.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stokescroftarts
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stokescroftfestivalofthearts
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PRINT RELEASE
To celebrate the First Stokes Croft Festival of the Arts, we will release a limited edition A2 print of the publicity poster. This will come in four colour ways, and will be released on Monday 8th September.
The sale of these prints will go towards the financing of the Festival. Price will be minimum £20 and will be available to buy at PRSC. A proportion of these will be available online.
The print features E.W. Godwin, the “Patron Saint of Stokes Croft”.
Godwin was born near Stokes Croft, and built the Carriageworks and also the gothic building on which Banksy’s Mild Mild West is painted. He was an extraordinary free thinking polymath, a major influence in the Aesthetic Movement, and generally cool dude.
Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft 