tenantspin have begun a new stream of work in the past 6 months, working through Arena Option’s Young People Services.  The bulk of this work has been channelled through the four Arena Foyer’s, located in Chester, St.Helens, Wigan and Warrington.

Projects have included songwriting, film-making and photo stories.  Big projects like a collaboration with artist collective ‘The People Speak’ culminating in a 5-a-side football tournament with a twist in early August.

tenantspin have also been working on the Find Your Talent programme, a government initiative providing young people with access to 5 hours of culture per week.  We’ve been working with Ravenhead Foyer in St.Helens, and our partners in North Liverpool.

tenantspin has been working with communities based in the north of the city for the best part of 2009 developing some new networks, friendships, debates, screenings and training with residents which hopefully starts a long-process of collaboration in North Liverpool.
Geographically speaking, Anfield/Breckfield lies slightly inland from Everton and encompasses post codes L4, L5 + L6 and has a history dating back to the 18th century when the area was fields, streams, farms and quickly becoming a desirable domestic location for merchants growing rich from trade in the busy port of Liverpool.

Residents from the area have been collaborating with us on creating a series of creative programmes for North Liverpool which will hopefully add to all the work currently taking place led by organisations such as Anfield, Breckside neighbourhood Council, Breckfield and North Everton Community Council, The Lighthouse and Liverpool Biennial. The work includes a film programme for North Liverpool, the North Liverpool Cinema Circle, which will work to create some interesting and diverse screenings in the neighbourhood which kicked off with a screening and Q + A from producer Roy Boutler of the seminal Terence Davis Liverpool eulogy Of Time in the City.

Our next screening will be of the 1988 Chris Bernard classic Letter to Breshnev on December 2nd at 2pm, venue to be confirmed.

Our training group have been working on developing the plot and narrative for a film about the area looking at regeneration across the 200 year history, the people, places and urban myths that shape neighbourhoods over their development and what the future holds for communities in change. For more information or to contribute your knowledge, experiences or historical information drop us a line and we’ll be happy to pass this onto the group. Watch this space for details of screenings, sneak peaks and interviews with the filmmakers.

Meanwhile, on Breck Road Ruth and the wonderful staff from Abcc have been working with ourselves, local residents (groups around this part of the district include Cobra led by Ian Watt and Lawdon led by Fred Crebbin) and charities like Genie in the Gutter and The Parkview Project to lead debates and open discussions looking at issues effecting nieghbourhoods across Liverpool. The most recent focussed on substance misuse and the need for a combined approach at tackling the community-based issues brought about by herion and crack epidemics within districts. The debate was chaired by Liam Foggerty and representitives from Genie and Parkview. Look out for more events in the North Liverpool debates series in the new year, as ever if anyone has a topic they feel would benefit from open discussion please do forward onto us.

Growing projects have been under discussion with residents from St David’s Road and Cobra generally. Cobra lies within the buffer zone which basically means that there will be neither demolition or refurbishment of the current housing stock. As a result residents are keen to start Cairn Street L8 interventions which will hopefully include trees, evergreen plants and crops for winter and then into spring with a whole host of new growing projects for Abcc, Cobra and Bala Street.

To keep abreast of North Liverpool projects visit our facebook group either at tenantspin, or North Liverpool Culture follow us on twitter or have a look at our images and films on flickr

We have been webcasting for the past couple of weeks as part of the gallery show currently taking place at FACT until May 31st – Climate for Change.

This gallery show could be confused with yet another attempt to meet the question of our changing climate (if you believe that this is actually what is happening…thats another story) but, in actual fact it isn’t all to do with climate change. Of course, this has been a pretty important aspect of the show the very title lets the cat out of the bag a bit. However, this was also a show about action, re-action, debate, discussion, event, workshop, happening – to coin a few generic terms.

On our part, tenantspin wanted to reinvent our weekly forum for debate tried out in tate Liverpool end of last year, beginning of this year. We took the ‘change’ topic and talked through protest (should we? Shouldn’t we? Does it do anything?) bread (slow, fast, fat, thin) web 2.0 (what does it mean to be an armchair protester? Does the internet promote cause or promote slouchy debate) the last cultural commentators (does culture have legs after 08 – what is it anyway?) local environmental debate, community money, oil and finishing 26th May 12.30 – 1.30 with a look at Jean Grant and the Pool project’s ‘The Settlement’ before join artist Nina Edge for a game to change.

We have been on the couch with Mandy ‘Queen’ of Culture, Trine Hughes, Simon Snowdon, Erik Buchard, local artists, performers, Stan ‘the harp’ Ambrose, Kenny, David, Jon, Tracey, Jennifer, John, Dolly, Sid ‘The Greek’ Jay, Steve, Sandi, Gaby, Anna, St Francis of Assisi, John O’Shea, amongst many others.

To watch our programmes back you can visit the home page of the tenantspin website and have a look in the ‘on demand’ section of our mogulus channel. Or via www.mogulus.com/tenantspin.

A big thank-you to everyone who helped us to debate the issues and subjects of change in our Tuesday sessions.

So, we are nearing the end of our touring period at Tate Liverpool and what have we learned? Well, plastic cats, are a hit with the public. Also, I have realised that its not always about volume of visitors but quality of experience and long over-due transparency of art practices. Granted, figures such as those gleaned by mogulus (an extraordinary amount) do help to give the project credence but from the grass-roots level, this TV studio provided the 5th floor with a valuable debating platform, a space for the contemplation of everything from the white cube to washing powder and more importantly a focus for our group of dedicated volunteers which ultimately gave a place to learn skills, voice opinions, exhibit their own work (such as Kenny’s amazing gallery tour on the last day of broadcast) and lastly, have some fun with like-minded people in a surreal environment not always condusive to ‘speech’ but ‘thought’ without reaction being Liverpool’s version of the white-cube.

This move away from their traditional (and demanded in some circles) process of exhibition, display and eventual evaluation marks an important shift for Tate Liverpool who, although engaging in pioneering art education from the onset have never invited community arts projects such as ours to visit ‘in residence before’

Our broadcasts are available via www.mogulus.com/tenantspin ‘on demand’.

Our thanks to Kenn Taylor, Tracey Dunn, Jen Welch, Jonathan Turton, Dolly Lloyd, Kath Healy, Kenny Thomas, David Hynes, Lesley Reith, Steve Mccabe, Steve Moss, Jay Jones, Trine Hughes, Jack Stopforth, Jean Grant, Pool Projects, Chamber of Commerse, Liverpool Film Office, Michael Kelly, Liverpool Lighthouse, Voices on the Edge, Steve Atherton, Merseycare, Rich (another media), and everybody else who has helped.

Here are some pictures from our fantastic time on tour:

tenantspin ON TOUR is an exhibition and collaboration space created for “The Fifth Floor Ideas Taking Space” at Tate Liverpool. The Fifth Floor refers to a floor that does not physically exist within Tate Liverpool’s four-storey building, but invites the visitor to reconsider the Gallery as a place of imagination and invention.

For The Fifth Floor, tenantspin has set up a fully-equipped interactive TV studio to capture stories, and opinions, and where live discussions, readings and performances will be recorded and streamed online throughout the exhibition. Tate asked one thousand people across the city what kind of exhibition they would like to experience, and in response to what they suggested; leading international artists will be there creating major works. tenantspin has been invited to take part and our major new work is ‘tenantspin ON TOUR’ bringing community TV to the Tate.

The Tate is housed in Liverpool’s Albert Dock; which was also the original home of daytime TV show This Morning. For many years Richard and Judy broadcast from the beautiful Albert Dock; and now it’s our turn

Until 1st February we’ll be working at Tate Liverpool and broadcasting live from there every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. More info on the project is over at http://www.tenantspinontour.com