tenantspin got together with Kevin Casey last week to help with the launch of his new book Closing Time. The book, which chronicles 3 years in the demise of the public house in Liverpool (2007-2010) tells a harrowing and poignant story about the speed at which this is happening and the absolute volume of pubs effected by the rot/demolition/bad planning.

We got on the coach with kevin to talk about the book and share the thoughts of the room about the effect of the closures all suitably well-oiled by the free booze on offer from all of the amazing micro-breweries of Liverpool.

The webcast can be watched here.

The book can be purchased from the shop at FACT and Waterstones for a small fee you can have a piece of Liverpool Public House History!

More pictures after the jump!

Read on…

The inaugural North Liverpool Digital Story Group after almost a year of working together has completed its creative programme. In that time the tenantspin group; consisting of several elderly members of the Anfield/Breckfield community along with project leaders; has produced an assortment of short film’s documenting the personal stories and anecdotes of participants. The group set out to create an archive of ‘Digital Stories’ intended to record a local, social history through actual members of the Anfield/Breckfield community.

The films produced have varied in content. The narrative of each digital story has been subject to the wishes of the story teller. Project leaders Laura Yates, Jonathan Turton and Pauline Rowe have primarily assisted with articulation and technological production, with the idea’s for the films growing organically from discussion. Themes have ranged from working life to family and child hood, heroes and friends, to general gripes and opinion, but always with a Liverpool flavour. The films adhere to the creative ‘rules’ of the ‘Digital Story’ as established by the BBC upon creation of the concept. All of the ‘Mini-Movies’ are roughly two minutes long using approximately 12 images in each and aim to tell a personal story of an individual supported by still and moving image.

Read on…

We have been working with a fantastic group of people in Helsinki as part of a project for Media Facades Europe 2010.

We have met many wonderful people in the m-cult centre and in the Kontula neighbourhood of Helsinki.

The group are all part of the Symppis centre in Kontula, Helsinki a place which helps (on a day centre basis) people with substance misuse issues get help, play a game of pool, take part in a creative project like a play, have a cheap meal, get some councelling, with clothing and a place to find rest.

Read on…

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.

tenantspin’s first community film night (25th November) went down really well with all invited.

Our idea for this film evening came from feedback we received from other screenings of this ilk including Love Lane Lives (Leon Seth/Ron Noon) and Gardens of Stone (Paul Sudbury) which both have a very local focus but looked outward toward national schemes which changed the lives of people living in areas effected by mass demolition and redevelopment of social housing as well as the closure of huge, historical firms like Tate and Lyle who at one time employed 80% of the people living in the Vauxhall area of Liverpool.

This commuity film night featured the work of Ray Walsh local filmmaker and resident and the now famous documentarist Nick Broomfield. The first, Ray’s film Disappearing Communities was an 1989 production which documented the changing face of inner-city Liverpool and the social housing around the Bronlow Hill, London Road, Scotland Road and Byron Street areas. In someways, it provided a classically scouse nostaligic look at the importance of these commnities in the development of a city but with such a rounded outlook it was hard to stick on the side either of the goverment or the people.

The second, Nick Broomfield’s Behind the Rent Strike saw a very young Broomfield exposed to a world of socialism, ideology and strength of the masses that was pretty prevelant in some parts of Liverpool in the 70’s. The film documents a period of 12 months during which a group of residents from the overspill town Kirkby fight back against a rent increase and pay freeze which was part of a controversial government bill eventually scrapped in the early 80’s.

Some of the comments:

‘Hopefully this will be the 1st of many more screenings and understanding’

‘I loved the subject matter (of the film night) and the honest and open way it was portrayed’

‘Keep it coming’

‘Very impressed. More of these’

‘Good format – relaxed atmosphere’

‘Just hope more people can get involved – love the community aspect’

‘good. film lengths were ideal’

‘good split between inner city and subhurbs’

‘this is a fantastic idea – I hope to see a lot more community film nights’

tenantspin is very excited to present the first discussion in our six part Ways of Seeing Series 2008. For those of you that are new to us, tenantspin have been working with the Liverpool Biennial over the last 3 festivals, and in the build up we host a series of discussions aimed at giving us a bit of background leading up to the festival’s September launch.

In the broadcast below we welcomed, The Windows Project, University of the 3rd Age and artist Nancy Davenport who joined us all the way from America. Click here for more information about this years Biennial.